Nick Rennison: Scenes from a Turbulent Year (1922)

Travels Through Time

In our first episode of 2022, we’re travelling back exactly a hundred years.

We visit three self-contained moments – the trial of Hollywood’s much-loved comedian ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle for the murder of Virginia Rappe, the assassination of the Weimer Republic politician Walther Rathenau and the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Each one sheds light on a different facet of the modern world that was 1922.

Our guest is Nick Rennison, whose most recent book 1922: Scenes from a Turbulent Year charts this extraordinary year in world history month by month. Nick is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in modern history and crime fiction. His other works include Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography and The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Crime Fiction. He is a regular reviewer for both the Sunday Times and Daily Mail.

As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.

Click here to order 1922: Scenes from a Turbulent Year.

Show Notes

Scene One: November, 1922. Valley of the Kings, the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

Scene Two: June, 1922. Berlin, the assassination of Walther Rathenau by right wing extremists

Scene Three: January, 1922. Hollywood, scandals such as the 'Fatty' Arbuckle trial and the murder of William Desmond Taylor which ultimately shaped the kind of films produced in America over the next four decades

Memento: A first edition copy of James Joyce's Ulysses

People/Social

Presenter: Artemis Irvine

Guest: Nick Rennison

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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