Daily: MEDIEVAL GENIUS – Historian DAN JONES on the Middle Ages you don’t know

The Middle Ages are an unloved tract of history, by turns alien and baffling – but these thousand years of violence, crisis and conquest set the foundations for our modern world in the most unexpected ways. Historian, TV presenter and journalist Dan Jones tells Alex Andreou how his new book Powers and Thrones unveils a medieval world few of us understand, the parallels between Millwall and the Middle Ages, and why Dick Whittington deserves more than his panto fame… “The real Dick Whittington was an oligarch – and a mayor in France.”  “We treat ‘medieval’ as an insult but the medieval world is not that different to our own.” “The things that animated people in the Middle Ages like climate change and plagues still animate us now.” “Unlike Empress Theodora, Dominic Cummings won't be that important in twenty years.” “The Crusades was more than a clash of civilisations – and you don’t learn that at school.”  Presented by Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production   https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Dan-Jones/Powers-and-Thrones--A-New-History-of-the-Middle-Ages/25535694  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices