Time to Eat the Dogs by Michael Robinson (review)

As a devoted dog lover, I could easily be offended by the title of this podcast. But as a historian of science, I immediately knew the reference. Dogs were vital resources in polar exploration. As working animals, they pulled the sleds, transporting both humans and supplies across the frozen landscape. More darkly, however, when they were injured, they became food. Sometimes this was out of necessity—a last effort to stave off starvation—but sometimes it was part of a cold, calculated plan regarding a strict schedule of timing and provisions. Exploration can be a deadly pursuit.

Michael Robinson, a historian of science and exploration and host of this pod-cast and blog, clearly understood the implications of his provocative title. His first book, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture, tells the history of Arctic exploration in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. At the University of Hartford, he teaches global history, Atlantic history, and living in extreme environments.

With Time to Eat the Dogs, Robinson moves beyond the poles to examine the broad nature of exploration. His stated goals are interdisciplinary, examining how anthropologists, artists, literary scholars, scientists, and explorers themselves talk about exploration. For more than a year he has interviewed various authors, speakers, and thinkers about exploration. The episodes often run approximately thirty minutes, but that is not a strict time constraint. Depending on how the conversation flows, episodes can be shorter or significantly longer. Robinson allows the conversation to range widely while at the same time grounding the discussion with a particular question or focus on an academic book.

Topics include travel and tourism, gender and racial perspectives on exploration, and the ethics of exploration. No time period is off limits; Time to Eat the Dogs tackles medieval travel as easily as futuristic trips to Mars. In addition, the podcast covers exploration of all terrain, including adventures at sea. Although Robinson is the main host, guest hosts help broaden the reach of the subject matter.

One aspect that I particularly like about the show is that Time to Eat the Dogs is not simply advertising or boosterism for academic monographs, although Robinson is a friendly, collegial interviewer. Robinson is not afraid to offer counter-narratives or challenge award-winning scholars. For example, in one episode he invites Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, a history professor at the University of Texas, to talk about problems he sees with Andrea Wulf's book The Invention of Nature, a New York Times best seller on the extraordinary life of German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.

The podcast's success goes beyond listeners among Robinson's peers in academia. Time to Eat the Dogs surpassed more than 100,000 downloads, and his blog is heading towards half a million pageviews. The podcast has also earned the respect of Robinson's fellow public historians of science. Time to Eat the Dogs impresses Matt Shindell, curator of space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, with how it uses the interview format to make historical research accessible without overly simplifying the work presented.¹ As the co-host of the NASM's AirSpace podcast, he knows this is not an easy balance to strike.²

The podcast's website is very easy to navigate. It follows a four-column format. The first column includes a photo and short biography of the episode's featured guest, as well as a link to his or her book or video. The second column is a list of links to recent episodes. Robinson debuts an episode roughly every week, but he intersperses these with replays of previously recorded episodes. The third column is about the host, with links to Robinson's books and articles. It also includes his twitter feed (@eatthedogs).

The fourth column is perhaps the most useful to students and educators. It includes a long list of links to references. These are organized by geographic groupings, such as African, Asian, polar, and space exploration...