This, Again
This week on This, Again, we look at three figures from the 1600s whose stories became cleaner, simpler, and easier to pass down over time: * Galileo Galilei * Pocahontas * Isaac Newton Galileo becomes the ultimate symbol of science versus religion, even though the reality was tangled up in politics, ego, public pressure, and institutional instability. Pocahontas becomes a romantic bridge between worlds, despite the fact that much of her life survives only through English interpretation, political messaging, and a story later generations softened into something easier to emotionally live with. Newton becomes the image of effortless genius, reduced to an apple falling from a tree, while the obsessive, competitive, deeply complicated person underneath that myth slowly fades into the background. But this episode isn’t really about “debunking” history. It’s about asking why stories evolve this way in the first place. Do we simplify history because we’re trying to manipulate people? Or because human beings naturally remember stories better when they feel emotionally organized and easy to carry forward? And at what point does simplification stop being an introduction… and quietly become the final version? This episode explores historiography, memory, narrative psychology, and the uncomfortable reality that most of us were probably taught the first layer of history… without ever being brought back for the second one. Attribution Notes: * Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow. * If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Galileo * Galileo Galilei. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Translated by Stillman Drake. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1t1nb0d5&chunk.id=d0e180&brand=ucpress [https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1t1nb0d5&chunk.id=d0e180&brand=ucpress] * Galileo Galilei. The Essential Galileo. Edited and translated by Maurice A. Finocchiaro. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2008. https://hackettpublishing.com/the-essential-galileo [https://hackettpublishing.com/the-essential-galileo] * Finocchiaro, Maurice A. Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/retrying-galileo/paper [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/retrying-galileo/paper] * Heilbron, J. L. Galileo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Galileo - John L. Heilbron - Oxford University Press [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/galileo-9780199655984?cc=us&lang=en&] * Vatican Observatory. “The Galileo Affair.” https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/education/the-galileo-affair/ [https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/education/the-galileo-affair/] Pocahontas * John Smith. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). https://archive.org/details/generallhistorie00smit [https://archive.org/details/generallhistorie00smit] * Camilla Townsend. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809077380/pocahontasandthepowhatandilemma [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809077380/pocahontasandthepowhatandilemma] * National Park Service. “Pocahontas.” Jamestown Colonial National Historical Park. https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm [https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm] * Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Pocahontas.” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pocahontas-Powhatan-woman [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pocahontas-Powhatan-woman] * Helen C. Rountree. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2782/ [https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2782/] * William Apess. A Son of the Forest and Other Writings. Edited by Barry O’Connell. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. https://www.umasspress.com/9781558491076/a-son-of-the-forest-and-other-writings/ [https://www.umasspress.com/9781558491076/a-son-of-the-forest-and-other-writings/] Newton * Isaac Newton. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520088177/the-principia [https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520088177/the-principia] * Richard S. Westfall. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/never-at-rest/45515EFB2D1A3B1D8764A3558D3A4E4B [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/never-at-rest/45515EFB2D1A3B1D8764A3558D3A4E4B] * Patricia Fara. Newton: The Making of Genius. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/newton/9780231128063 [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/newton/9780231128063] * The Royal Society. “Newton and Leibniz: The Calculus Controversy.” https://royalsociety.org/blog/2015/02/newton-leibniz-calculus-dispute/ [https://royalsociety.org/blog/2015/02/newton-leibniz-calculus-dispute/] * Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295742/isaac-newton-by-james-gleick/ [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295742/isaac-newton-by-james-gleick/] Historiography / Philosophy / Historical Memory * E. H. Carr. What Is History? New York: Vintage Books, 1961. https://archive.org/details/whatishistory00ehca [https://archive.org/details/whatishistory00ehca] * Hayden White. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/metahistory [https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/metahistory] * Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/Foucault_Michel_Power_Knowledge_Selected_Interviews_and_Other_Writings_1972-1977.pdf [https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/Foucault_Michel_Power_Knowledge_Selected_Interviews_and_Other_Writings_1972-1977.pdf] * Jerome Bruner. The Process of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. https://archive.org/details/processofeducati00brun [https://archive.org/details/processofeducati00brun] * Jerome Bruner. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. https://archive.org/details/actualmindspossi00brun [https://archive.org/details/actualmindspossi00brun]
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