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About Jonathan Megerian

Jonathan is an educational consultant. He pursued a doctorate in history at Johns Hopkins University, but left with his MA to work outside academia. He works stay connected to the field of history through reading and, of course, interviewing for the New Books Network.

Jonathan Megerian is an educational consultant. He pursued a doctorate in history at Johns Hopkins University, but left with his MA to work outside academia. He works to stay connected to the field of history through reading and, of course, interviewing for the New Books Network.

NBN Episodes hosted by Jonathan:

Early Modern History May 26, 2022

The Dissolution of the Monasteries

A New History

James Clark

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
In a mere four years, England’s monastic tradition—one of the richest in all of Europe—came to an end. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, as it’s come to be known, stands …
Ancient History March 14, 2022

Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean

Carolina López-Ruiz

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Long before Herodotus told the story of the Greeks, the ancient Mediterranean teemed with what the Greeks themselves would recognize as hallmarks of civilization: trade and commerce, cities and colonies …
General History May 12, 2021

That Most Precious Merchandise

The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500

Hannah Barker

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Before the Transatlantic slave trade ravaged the western coast of Africa, immense numbers of persons were taken from their homes and carried across the Black and Mediterranean Seas as involuntary …
General History March 25, 2021

Savages, Romans, and Despots

Thinking about Others from Montaigne to Herder

Robert Launay

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Take a look at a globe. Europe is there in big letters, and, to us, this hardly merits a passing thought. But Europe is a concept, a construct, an idea …
General History March 9, 2021

Past and Prologue

Politics and Memory in the American Revolution

Michael D. Hattem

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Michael Hattem’s Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale, 2020) is a fascinating new look at how eighteenth-century Americans thought about the past. Not merely an …
General History December 17, 2020

Time's Monster

How History Makes History

Priya Satia

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
How we see the past helps shape our understanding of the present. In the realm of statecraft and empire, understandings of the meaning of history, the progression of time, and …
General History November 25, 2020

Neoliberalism's Demons

On the Political Theology of Late Capital

Adam Kotsko

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
It’s hard to avoid conversations about ‘neoliberalism’ these days. The meaning of the term—indeed its very existence—is hotly contested. Adam Kotsko argues in Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of …
General History November 13, 2020

Ireland in the Virginian Sea

Colonialism in the British Atlantic

Audrey J. Horning

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
In Ireland in the Virginian Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Audrey Horning revisits the fraught connections between Ireland and colonial Virginia. Both modern …
General History November 2, 2020

Humanism and Empire

The Imperial Ideal in Fourteenth-Century Italy

Alexander Lee

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Renaissance humanists and the Holy Roman Empire haven’t mixed well in most scholarship. Humanists were supposed to be learned exponents of liberty. Often employed by Italian city-states, their civic pride …
General History October 20, 2020

Permanent Revolution

The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism

James Simpson

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
The Protestant Reformation looms large in our cultural imagination. In the standard telling, it’s the moment the world went modern. Casting off the shackles and superstitions of medieval Catholicism, reformers …
General History October 7, 2020

Ruling the Savage Periphery

Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State

Benjamin D. Hopkins

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
Intrinsic to the practice of empire is the creation of boundaries. We tend to think of such boundaries as borders, physical lines of demarcation past which the empire’s sovereignty has …