The latest SYMHC podcasts made available to you, our devoted listeners, were about ancient Egyptian feminists and whether the Dutch really traded Manhattan for nutmeg.

In the podcast about ancient Egypt, we discussed whether evidence such as a healthy handful of female rulers, property rights for women and Herodotus’ observations of women trading in the marketplace while men toiled away at home added up to the grand conclusion that this was the first feminist culture. And we concluded that no, it was not. Life in ancient Egypt was pretty wonderful if you were a wealthy woman. If you were a lower-class citizen, you were not afforded these same progressive rights. This quick conclusion made for a less than riveting podcast, in my opinion, but the one about Manhattan surely made up for it.

We’ve had a couple of SYMHC listeners request a podcast about New Netherland, and after a half-dozen changes to the title to make the topic more palatable, we finally came up with this gem: Did the Dutch really trade Manhattan for nutmeg?