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About Michael F. Robinson
NBN Episodes hosted by Michael F.:
March 6, 2020
Fieldwork of Empire, 1840-1900
Adrian Wisnicki talks about the British expeditionary literature of the late 1800s. Reading between the lines of Victorian travel accounts, Wisnicki s…
February 28, 2020
Starvation Shore
Laura Waterman talks about her novel, Starvation Shore (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), which relies upon memoirs, letters, and diaries to recon…
February 21, 2020
Breaking the Chains of Gravity
Amy Shira Teitel talks about Apollo and the community of people who are deeply attached to space history. Teitel is a spaceflight historian and the cr…
February 14, 2020
Darwin’s Evolving Identity
Dr. Alistair Sponsel talks about Darwin’s experiences on HMS Beagle and his early career as a naturalist. His close reading of Darwin’s journals and l…
February 7, 2020
The Coldest Crucible
Radio host Kevin Fox interviews Michael F. Robinson about the history of American Arctic exploration, the subject of his book, The Coldest Crucible: A…
January 31, 2020
Destined for the Stars
Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Will…
January 24, 2020
Apollo in the Age of Aquarius
Neil Maher talks about the social forces that shaped NASA in the 1960s and 70s, connecting the space race with the radical upheavals of the countercul…
January 17, 2020
No Shadow of a Doubt
Daniel Kennefick talks about resistance to relativity theory in the early twentieth century and the huge challenges that faced British astronomers who…
January 10, 2020
Women Wanderers and the Writing of Mobility, 1784–1814
Ingrid Horrocks talks about the way women travelers, specifically women wanderers, are represented in late-eighteenth century literature, particularly…
January 3, 2020
Nature, Empire, And Nation
In the late 1500s, the mines of Potosí –a mountain in southern Bolivia — produced 60% of the world’s silver. It was a place of great wealth and terrib…
December 27, 2019
NASA in the World
Angelina Callahan talks about the Naval Research Laboratory’s Vanguard Project. While the launch of Vanguard 1 in 1958 was part of the Cold War “Space…
December 20, 2019
A Basket of Flaming Ashes
Joyce Ashuntantang talks about her experiences as a traveler and a poet, from her childhood Cameroon to her years studying in Great Britain and the Un…
December 13, 2019
Sacramental Theology and the Decoration of Baptismal Fonts
Fran Altvater talks about the Medieval Pilgrimage, a practice that became central to Christian Europe in the early Middle Ages and evolved into the mi…
December 6, 2019
To Master the Boundless Sea
Jason Smith discusses the US Navy’s role in exploring and charting the ocean world. Smith is an assistant professor of history at Southern Connecticut…
November 29, 2019
The Life of Margaret Alice Murray
After Napoleon occupied Egypt, Europeans became obsessed with the ancient cultures of the Nile. In Britain, the center of Egyptology research was Univ…
November 15, 2019
Vast Expanses
Helen Rozwadowski talks about the history of the oceans and how these oceans have shaped human history in profound ways. Rozwadowski is a professor of…
November 8, 2019
Do You See Ice?
In the 1800s, explorers and whalers returning home from the Arctic described a cold, desolate world, one that could swallow up expeditions without lea…
November 1, 2019
Finding Franklin
In 1845, two British naval ships left England with 129 men in search of the Northwest Passage. They were never heard from again. The disappearance of …
October 25, 2019
One Long Night
Andrea Pitzer talks about her book One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), one of Smithsonian Magaz…
October 18, 2019
Into the Extreme
Valerie Olson talks about why the idea of outer space as a “frontier” is giving way to one that frames it as a cosmic ecosystem. Olson is an associate…
October 11, 2019
Captain Cook Was Here
Maria Nugent talks about Aboriginal Australians' first encounter with Captain Cook at Botany Bay, a violent meeting that has come to represent the ori…
October 4, 2019
Creatures of Cain
Erika Milam talks about the scientific search for human nature, a project that captured the attention of paleontologists, anthropologists, and primato…
September 13, 2019
Wild Sea
Joy McCann discusses the great circumpolar ocean that surrounds Antarctica. McCann is the author of Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean (Univers…
September 6, 2019
The Medieval Invention of Travel
Shayne Legassie talks about medieval travel, especially long distance travel, and the way it was feared, praised, and sometimes treated with suspicion…