The Last White Rajah of Sarawak: How Vyner Brooke Went From Rajah to Not
The Old World with Will Tanner
Release Date: 02/25/2026
Virginia’s Military Culture, and How It Created the American Military Culture with Paul Fahrenheidt
The Old World with Will Tanner
In this episode, Will and Paul Fahrenheidt discuss Virginia’s unique military culture. They begin with its origins in the British militia system and Indian fighting, then discuss how the mercantile backgrounds of the first families impacted it, and then discuss how it became a tremendous force that drove American military culture starting in the early 1800s. They further discuss how it can be glimpsed in the Mexican-American War and War Between the States, and how it lives on today. They also discuss the Cavaliers, the Scots-irish and Anglo-Normans, and in what capacities Virginians excelled...
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Bacon’s Rebellion and the Birth of Virginia's Golden Age
The Old World with Will Tanner
This is the tale of Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion against Governor Sir William Berkeley, the long-ruling governor of Virginia who went from beloved Cavalier to despised despot. It is the story of how the engrossment of Virginia’s lands by the Virginia gentry, the sub-penny trap in tobacco prices that drove the yeomen of the Old Dominion under, and the Indian attacks along the frontier that finally led to Bacon’s Rebellion. Bacon’s private campaign against the Susquehannock and the Occaneechi, the story of how Bacon got his commission, and why Bacon’s Men burned Jamestown, is all...
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Conservation, Conservatism, and Lurking Natural Disasters with Chris Barnard
The Old World with Will Tanner
In this episode, Will and Chris Barnard, the President of the American Conservation Coalition, discuss the state of conservation in America and why it’s a conservative value. They discuss where leftist environmental groups went wrong, conservation as a conservative value, and new technologies that are giving us a better chance to restore the natural environment. They also discuss lurking dangers and disasters in America’s natural world, from PFAS in the water and the budding Western water crisis to overtaxed American topsoil, along with what might help fix those issues. Find Chris on X...
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The Virginia Cavaliers: Myth or Reality?
The Old World with Will Tanner
Were the famed Virginia Cavaliers truly the architects of the Old Dominion, or are they merely a phantom of Southern chivalry's imagination? Did those proud and defiant Royalists, the "Distressed Cavaliers" of legend, ever actually flee to the Tidewater to escape the dreary tyranny of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, or is the "Cavalier" just a convenient myth—a mask worn by a merchant class in search of a noble pedigree? This episode resolves that perennial question. We discuss the reality of the Cavalier-Puritan split in America—a conflict of visions rooted in an irreconcilable...
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An Interview with Charles Murray: The Real Reasons Apollo Succeeded
The Old World with Will Tanner
How did NASA boldly advance the Apollo Program over the course of a decade to accomplish the greatest feat of mankind: the landing of humans on the Moon and their safe return to Earth? In this episode, Will sits down with Charles Murray—renowned author of The Bell Curve and Coming Apart—to discuss a lifelong passion project: the Apollo Program. While many focus on the astronauts, Murray’s book, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, tells the story of the engineers, the mission controllers, and the institutional genius that made the impossible a reality. What We Discuss: The Cold War Background:...
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Tobacco and Plantations: The Making of the Old Dominion
The Old World with Will Tanner
his is the tale of how tobacco created the plantations in Virginia for which the Old Dominion is known, and how those plantations entrenched and solidified the power of the famous “Topping People” of Virginia, those First Families of Virginia and Virginia Gentry who ruled the state for decades. It is a tale of indentured servants in colonial Virginia and slave labor workforces on vast Virginia plantations. It is a tale of the Navigation Acts, of soil exhaustion, of Starving Times in Jamestown and dying gentlemen in their starched, ruffled shirts. This is the story of Virginia’s shift,...
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The History and Legacy of the Apollo Missions with Richard Easton
The Old World with Will Tanner
In this episode, Will and Richard Easton, a historian of GPS and son of one of the inventors of GPS, discuss the history of the Space Race and Apollo missions. They go over the impetus for Eisenhower committing America to launching a satellite, the reasons for the Gemini and Mercury missions, why Kennedy settled on the moon mission, and how the Apollo program progressed. They discuss the technical advancements required to make Apollo happen, the characters and competence of the men involved, the scientific legacy of Apollo, and why the missions were ended. They discuss also why space...
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The Legacy of Lewis and Clark
The Old World with Will Tanner
In this concluding video on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Will discusses what the legacy of these two great explorers is. He comments on their discovery that the Northwest Passage was a figment of the imagination, but how they nevertheless sparked a massive fur trade rush. He tells how Clark mapped the West with incredible accuracy and created a resource used for decades, how their careful cataloguing and preservation of natural specimens was an immense scientific accomplishment, and how they discovered and documented much of the West’s incredible species and beauty. He also discusses the...
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Building Great Houses and What They Are with Gregory Treat
The Old World with Will Tanner
In this episode, Will and Gregory Treat, an attorney who helps families plan for multiple generations into the future. They discuss Great Houses—families that build a multi-generational legacy and use it to influence and lead their polities—and how such a concept is relevant today. They discuss democratic vs. aristocratic technologies, the mindset behind Great Houses, whether the form of wealth matters, some examples of Great Houses acting for the best in American life, and how technological change could lead to a very different world…that will likely still rely on Great Houses. Find...
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Lewis and Clark: The Triumphant Heroes Return
The Old World with Will Tanner
The Corps of Discovery’s Permanent Party makes it back to St. Louis in this episode, finishing the grand march across a continent and back on which it set out two years prior. This is the tale of how the Lewis and Clark Expedition made it back from Fort Clatsop to St. Louis in one travel season. It’s the story of fighting up rivers, marching through the Bitterroot Mountains in a heavy season of snow, splitting the party up despite the immense risks so that the Marias River and Yellowstone River Valley could be explored as the party filled in the map and looked for commercial opportunity,...
info_outlineThis is the story of Vyner Brooke, the Third and Last White Rajah of Sarawak. In this episode of the Old World, Will tells the tale of how Vyner Brooke lost the Raj of Sarawak primarily due to the Japanese invasion of Borneo to take the Miri oil fields he controlled at the beginning of World War II, and his own feeling that he was an anachronism and democracy was coming.
In this episode, we tell the tale of what life was like in wartime Sarawak, how the Japanese invasion went, Vyner’s refusal to stand and fight the Imperial Japanese from the deep jungles of Sarawak, how the Dayaks resisted the Japanese occupiers, and how the destruction of the Miri oil fields and Kuching left Sarawak destroyed. We then show why Vyner decided to give it up to become the Crown Colony of Sarawak, and how that sparked a familial war between him and the Rajah Muda that ended in tragedy. Finally, we show how the Brooke legacy has been kept alive, including in Sarawak, where they remain beloved.