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Mentioned when discussing a listener's username 'Fordeck' - the host imagines the listener as 'a reader of the Patrick O'Brian novels' (naval historical fiction series)

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Reference to 'a brilliant book about clocks in history' by 'a guy who's the curator of the Greenwich observatory' - explicitly mentioned as something recently read, but title not given

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A listener question references 'Listening to Gibbons, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' on audiobook, discussing Gibbon's descriptions of peoples as 'savages'

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Referenced when discussing the Enlightenment's fascination with the idea of the savage - 'you see that in Robinson Crusoe'

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Referenced when discussing the Enlightenment's complex relationship with reason - 'Kant's great work is the critique of pure reason'

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Referenced when discussing Scottish Enlightenment historian William Robertson 'who writes history of the Americas' and describes the Aztecs and Incas as 'polished nations'

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Referenced metaphorically when discussing Western intervention in Muslim countries - 'let's go to Afghanistan, let's go to Iraq with our copies of Candide'