Saturday, November 22, 2008

La Resistance - history podcast review

A new podcast has started that is about the French in World War II , mainly about their resistance, but not just that by the name La Résistance. (feed) Host Kensington addresses the wide American audience and makes sure from the start they leave the romanticized depicting of France in the Second World War they may have gotten from the movies. For those, such as myself, who grew up in Europe and have a depiction of the World War from its civilian survivors, no such deconstruction is needed. Good for us, Kensington doesn't take too much time and dives into the history pretty soon.

Not only that of resistance heroes and the odd soldiers under De Gaulle. She also makes sure we understand the background of the collapse of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime. In addition, she points out there has been resistance of anonymous heroes and how the whole range of French activities under German occupation ran from straightforward collaboration fluidly into commonplace neutral into passive and active resistance, without much in the way of means to draw a line.

After a mere three podcasts into the series, still a lot remains to be seen, but this surely kicked off as a promising new podcast in the wide range of history podcasts we have met.

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello, Anne!

Kensington here - just wanted you to know how thrilled I've been for the last week knowing that you were about to review my 'cast. I was beginning to think I was talking to myself - which wouldn't be a first but can be done without audio editing software (usually).

I've got a big deadline looming on the other project I do that takes away from my podcast time, but after that I've got two more episodes planned about the development on the Resistance, after which I'll probably be able to look at certain aspects, figures, and such. Hopefully it'll still be up to whatever standards I've managed so far, be they ever so humble.

Thank you so much also for running this blog. I listen to podcasts through a lot of my work days and it can be so hard to find solid new material. Your site will be bookmarked at work and home in short order! (And I'll work on that pronunciation. Promise!)

Anne the Man said...

Hi Kensington,

Good luck with all that. I think you are delivering a welcome addition to the history podcast landscape

Anne