Preview: Should historians be celebrities?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. From the flags that have been appearing in towns and cities around the UK to the long-running tensions behind recent political violence in the United States, understanding history is often vital to make sense of the latest news. History Extra's podcast series, History Behind the Headlines, which is now launched as a standalone podcast, releasing fortnightly on Thursdays, explores this context as regular panelists Rana Mitter and Hannah Skoda, plus a range of guest experts, look into the past behind the present. Our most recent episode investigates the phenomenon of the celebrity historian, ahead of David Olohschoga's starring role on BBC reality series The Celebrity Traitors, which starts next week.

Here's a taste of their thoughts, and don't forget to search for History Behind the Headlines wherever you listen to podcasts, or click the link in the description to hear the rest of the episode and follow the feed now. Hello and welcome to History Behind the Headlines, History Extras podcast series exploring the context you need to understand the latest breaking news stories and the times when history itself makes the front page. I'm Matt Elton. And I'm joined today by our two regular panellists. I'm Hannah Skoda, I'm fellow and tutor in late medieval history at St.

John's College in Oxford. And I'm Rana Mitter, I'm ST Lee Chair in US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. Hannah and Rana, thank you so much as always for being with us. Next week sees the launch of the BBC's new series, The Celebrity Traitors, which, as the name suggests, features a range of famous faces playing the reality deception game.

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