New Books in Ancient History

About New Books in Ancient History

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

Publisher

New Books Network

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Sept 2008

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

11 of 693 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Tyrants and Traders: Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings with Ken Dark (Bloomsbury, 2026)

   Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews Professor Ken Dark about his book, "Tyrants and Traders," revealing Tintagel's role as a royal fortress and trading center in post-Roman Britain.

2. 

   1 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Romans: A People’s History with Paul Chrystal (Reaktion, 2026)

   Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews author Paul Chrystal about his book, "The Romans: A People’s History," revealing how ordinary Roman lives shaped enduring cultural practices and political structures.

3. 

   15 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan, "The Precarious Past in Premodern Java" (University of California Press, 2026)

   Host Robert K. G. Temple interviews historian Dr. Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan about how premodern Javanese societies preserved and transmitted knowledge of the past amidst challenging conditions.

Inside a recent episode

Tyrants and Traders: Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings with Ken Dark (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Published 9 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] So it's not less Roman than other settlements were in its area a hundred years before. It's actually more Roman. Likewise, at Tintagel, but also across the west of Britain, there's extensive evidence for external trade, external exchanges of various kinds, cultural as well as material, stretching to what's now France, Spain, North Africa, and into the eastern Mediterranean. So we get imported pottery. from as far away as the Aegean, the sea by Greece and Turkey. We get imported glass from what's now Western France and from Spain. And we get imported oil and wine in Amphrey, large storage jars, like the ones the Romans had, from across the Mediterranean and North Africa. coming into and being used in this part of Britain by at least the elite of British society and probably in the southwest of Britain, a greater social range than that. […]

Who has been a guest on New Books in Ancient History

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Ken Dark
• Paul Chrystal
• Robin Whelan
• Jane Draycott
• Nathaniel E Greene

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

243

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.0 / 5

22 ratings

Spotify

4.8 / 5

13 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 77 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

89

Social presence

0

YouTube

72

Engagement

89

Contact New Books in Ancient History

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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