The Smart Cookies Podcast

It’s a small community true, but IT IS a community!

These 50 souls right here prove that in the space dominated by Joe Rogans, Lex Fridmans and CEOs with diaries, there are still people out there willing to support independent creators who are trying to provide a counterweight to the oppressive norm.

And for a small creator like me, that’s everything.

That’s why I would be really grateful if you would consider supporting my work:

www.patreon.com/c/the_smart_cookies_pod

And like always, an eternal THANK YOU to my existing Patrons 🙏🏻

2 days ago | [YT] | 1

The Smart Cookies Podcast

What was the real story behind John Blackthorne in the TV show Shogun? How did a lowly English sailor rise up to become such an important figure in medieval Japan?

Historian Chris Harding breaks down the fascinating history 👇🏻

5 days ago | [YT] | 1

The Smart Cookies Podcast

Christopher Nolan's retelling of The Odyssey is causing a lot of sassy drama - Professor of Classics at NYU, Prof. Peter Meineck doesn't think it's warranted at all 👇🏻

https://youtu.be/K1PXKQ3nHkA

6 days ago | [YT] | 0

The Smart Cookies Podcast

I'm super happy to welcome dr. Christopher Harding, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, back to the show, to have a chat about his amazing upcoming book, "Barbarians: The First Century of European Encounter with Japan."

This time around we talk about a myriad of fascinating episodes that arose from this dramatic exchange - the first Portuguese landing on Tanegashima, the curiosity their appearances caused, the introduction of Christianity in Japan, the growing power of the Jesuits and finally, the expulsion of all foreigners in 1641.
Obviously we can't get past the infamous bromance between William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu that inspired the popular TV show Shogun.

As a foreigner in Japan myself, I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of my favourite conversations this year 👇🏻

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

The Smart Cookies Podcast

Christopher Nolan's retelling of The ODYSSEY is causing a lot of drama before it even dropped - Professor of Classics at NYU Peter Meineck doesn't think it's warranted 👇🏻

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

The Smart Cookies Podcast

A lot of folks claim that we are going through our very own "Weimar Republic" moment in the West... But does that hold any water?

I asked historian Katja Hoyer exactly that 👇🏻

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

The Smart Cookies Podcast

The fact that we have a TRILLIONAIRE isn't just obscene - it's a sign of societal COLLAPSE.

If you don't believe me, please check out my interview with Luke Kemp, a researcher from Cambridge University who studied the DOWNFALL of 324 empires 👇🏻

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

The Smart Cookies Podcast

Christopher Nolan's retelling of Homer's famous epic is causing a lot of sassy drama these days, so I thought it'd be appropriate to have a chat with a Greek Mythology expert, and pick his brain on what this foundational poem of Western literature is really about - because cause truth be told, I don't think I really know. Is The Odyssey about heroism? Homecoming? Fate?

To find out, I talk to Prof. Peter Meineck, the renowned professor of Classics in the Modern World at NYU.


And since the internet seems ablaze with controversy regarding Christopher Nolan's upcoming adaptation, we have a chat about that as well 👇🏻

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

The Smart Cookies Podcast

When we discuss Rome, we usually talk about its Emperors, Warlords and Conquerors, but rarely about ordinary Romans... and almost never about the people who actually built the place - the slaves.

With her recently released book SERVUS: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire however, historian Emma Southon finally shifts that narrative.


In this lovely convo we talk about how one could became enslaved, what it was like to visit a slave market, how slaves coped with the brutality of their everyday life, but also, why the Romans are so fun to roast 👇🏻

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

The Smart Cookies Podcast

In 16th century Europe, few events were as momentous as the German Peasants’ War - an explosive rebellion that shocked the ruling houses of the Holy Roman Empire.

Driven by the ideas of Reformation, apocalyptic preaching and an all-out anger about the increasingly cruel conditions of serfdom, bands of peasants marched to war, during which they came close to overturning the entire feudal order…


To find out why the revolt started, how it engulfed an entire nation and why it ultimately failed, I talk to Lyndal Roper, a celebrated historian who's the 2026 recipient of the Holberg prize, and the author of the award winning book, Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War 👇🏻

2 months ago | [YT] | 0