Resources Used to Create the Show
Has listening to A History of the Future piqued your interest in a country’s history? Do you want to learn more about the sources Ewen accessed as he developed each episode? Maybe you want to learn more about how each episode is crafted? This section provides research notes, a guide to additional learning, a bibliography of Ewen’s specific references, and an overview of the process Steve follows to produce each episode.
Additional Learning
Books and articles to read and shows to listen to or watch.
Podcast Production
Steve’s episode production process and the tools he uses.
Additional Learning
Ewen recommends the following if you want to learn more about the countries featured in the podcast.
Russia
Recommended reading:
| Author(s) and Year | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Barford, P.M. (2001) | The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe. | London: British Museum Press. |
| Curtis, G.E. (ed.) (1996) | Russia: A Country Study. | Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. |
| Divessi (n.d.) | The oldest intact shipwreck in the world discovered in the Black Sea. | https://www.divessi.com/fr/blog/the-oldest-intact-shipwreck-in-the-world-discovered-in-the-black-sea-4106.html |
| Freeze, G.L. (1997) | Russia: A History. | Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
| Freedman, L. (2014) | ‘Ukraine and the Art of Limited War’ | Survival, 56(6), pp. 7–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2014.985432 |
| Marten, K. (2015) | ‘Putin’s Choices: Explaining Russian Foreign Policy and Intervention in Ukraine’ | The Washington Quarterly, 38(2), pp. 189–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2015.1064717 |
| Nature (2021) | ‘The genomic history of the Black Sea region’ | Nature, 599, pp. 114–120. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04018-9 |
| Russia Matters (2012) | ‘Russia’s patronal politics beyond Putin’ | Daedalus, 141(2). https://www.amacad.org/publication/daedalus/russian-patronal-politics-beyond-putin |
| Sakwa, R. (2017) | Russia: The Story of War. | Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. |
| Taylor & Francis Online (2015) | Putin’s Choices: Explaining Russian Foreign Policy and Intervention in Ukraine. | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0163660X.2015.1064717 |
| Hale, H.E. (2011) | ‘Formal constitutions in informal politics: Institutions and democratization in post-Soviet Eurasia’ | World Politics, 63(4), pp. 581–617. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887111000189 |
| Kloss, B.M. (2014) | O proiskhozhdenii nazvaniya “Rossiya” [On the Origin of the Name “Russia”] | Moscow: LitRes. |
| Nature (2025) | ‘Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of Slavs’ | Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09437-6 |
Recommended listening (Podcasts):
| Producer | Year | Episode Name | Podcast Title | Released | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooper, P. | 2024 | Mongols: Terror of the Steppe, Part 1 | Fall of Civilizations Podcast | 5th December | https://open.spotify.com/episode/5OJEmyNhSbZr1Qj41o5Kzm |
| Cooper, P. | 2024 | Mongols: Terror of the Steppe, Part 2 | Fall of Civilizations Podcast | 9th December | https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YhYXKduWmDW616JLbfCVF |
India
Recommended reading:
| Author(s) and Year | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Venkatshamy, K. and George, P. (eds) (2012) | Grand Strategy for India: 2020 and Beyond. | New Delhi: Pentagon Press. |
| Dyson, T. (2018) | A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day. | Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
| Fisher, M.H. (2018) | An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. | Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
| Petraglia, M.D., Haslam, M., Fuller, D.Q., Boivin, N. and Clarkson, C. (2010) | ‘Out of Africa: new hypotheses and evidence for the dispersal of Homo sapiens along the Indian Ocean rim’ | Annals of Human Biology, 37(3), pp. 288–311. |
| Kumar Pandey, D.S. (2025) | ‘The Evolution of Ancient Indian Civilization: A Study of Vedic Culture and Its Global Impact’ | International Journal of Advanced Research in Humanities and Law, 2(1), pp. 40–46. |
| Singh, U. (2008) | A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. | New Delhi: Pearson Education India. |
| Thapar, R. (2002) | The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. | London: Penguin Books. |
Recommended listening (Podcasts):
| Producer | Year | Episode Name | Podcast Title | Released | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooper, P.M.M. | 2022 | 14. Vijayanagara – The Last Emperors of South India | Fall of Civilizations Podcast | 18th February | https://open.spotify.com/episode/7kVCnvpH7cSUxguPsSNsnl |
| Dalrymple, W. and Anand, A | 2022 | The East India Company | Empire: World History | 16th August | https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/The-East-India-Company/B0BBCRGZTC |
| Dalrymple, W. and Anand, A | 2022 | Company Rule in India | Empire: World History | 16th August | https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/Company-Rule-in-India/B0BBCR4GQP |
| Dalrymple, W. and Anand, A | 2022 | Mutiny, Uprising, and Rebellion | Empire: World History | 23rd August | https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/Mutiny-Uprising-and-Rebellion/B0BBH5PJ5B |
| Dalrymple, W. and Anand, A | 2022 | Between Two Massacres: 1857-1919 | Empire: World History | 30th August | https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/Between-Two-Massacres-1857-1919/B0BC32SKW2 |
The Episode Production Process
A History of the Future is researched and written by Ewen Levick, and recorded in-studio at Southern Skies Media, just south of Melbourne, Australia.
The team favours in-studio recording over online sessions, as the controlled studio environment ensures optimum recording levels, consistency and overall audio quality. Ewen’s voice flows through a Heil PR-40 dynamic microphone into the recording system.
Before each recording session, the team workshops and reviews the script, discussing possible musical themes, sound effects and broader soundscape ideas. Each chapter is recorded separately, with the captured audio first pre-processed for potential noise reduction and dynamic levelling.
Editing is completed in Adobe Audition, using a custom processing set developed by Music Radio Creative. Effects and music are principally sourced from PremiumBeat, a Shutterstock company, under licence. Additional royalty-free effects and music tracks are sourced from in-house libraries and online collections, with attribution included in the show notes for each episode where required.
Once a chapter is ready, Steve generates review audio for Ewen and Grant. They provide feedback and suggest changes to effects or production elements, after which Steve creates a revised version. This process continues until the chapter is locked.
When all chapters for an episode are complete, Steve assembles the final episode and exports it with chapter markers. He provides Grant with music track and marker information, while Ewen supplies the show notes. Grant then loads the episode into the podcast hosting system and adds it to the show’s website.
