Heads-up for 10 November 2010

Oxford Biographies
Wilfred Owen, poet
British poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and sat in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Some of his best-known works—most of which were published posthumously—include "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". His preface intended for a book of poems to be published in 1919 contains numerous well-known phrases, especially "War, and the pity of War", and "the Poetry is in the pity"
(review, feed)

History 5 (Berkeley)
Lecture 22: European Imperialism at its Zenith
History course covering Europe in 1500-1989 with Thomas W. Laqueur
(review, feed)

London School of Economics: Public lectures and events
Greece is Changing
The Greek sovereign debt crisis of 2010 has received world-wide attention and has elicited unprecedented action by the European Union and its member governments as well as by the IMF. Greece is now obliged to follow the terms of the 'Memorandum' agreed with the 'bail-out' loan it has received. Is Greek economic policy on track? What are its future prospects?
(review, feed)

Geography C110 (Berkeley)
Lecture 21: Industry and the Place of Nature
Great lecture course on economic geography by Richard A. Walker
(review, feed)

6 more podcasts I listened to when I was away from the blog

In the past weeks I have not been posting regularly to the blog, yet I continued to listen to podcasts. As I wrote before about 5 podcasts I closely kept following, I will now report about 6 other podcasts which publish less frequently and whose latest issues I listened to:

The Mahabharata Podcast
Episode 30 - Agastya
The Pandavas set off on their tour of the holy sites of Ancient India with Lomasha as their guid. Along the way they get to hear a story about the super-hermit Agastya. Next episode, Rshyashrnga.
(review, feed)

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
Death Throes of the Republic
Here is a trilogy of Dan Carlin's in-depth history show, digging into the Roman Republic and how its politics worked and eventually, made it fail.
(review, feed)

History of Iran (Columbia)
The controversial Richard Bulliet and his course about Iranian history from 2008. This is worth listening but there is also a downside, Bulliet has a bit of a tendency to drone on and on on whichever subject is at hand and lose you in the process, unless you are keeping close attention. Also, he is not very persistently informing you about the chronology. Rather, he is taking on certain themes or subjects and delving into them each lecture. Interesting, but you will have to take care of the gaps yourself.
(review, feed)

Norman Centuries
Episode 10 - The Byzantine Wars
Here is someone who knows how to tell history in twenty minutes and make a nice thread of consecutive podcasts around a subject. Previously it was Byzantium and now he is on a series about the Normans. Lars Brownworth is a veteran podcaster who knows his trade. Too bad he publishes only once every few months or so.
(review, feed)

Exploring Environmental History
The draining of the East Anglia Fens: social unrest, design flaws and unintended environmental consequences
Yet another very interesting interview Jan Oosthoek had about environmental history
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Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean
Podcast 5.10: Jesus and his Mentor, John the Baptizer
This is a great podcast about early Christianity by Philip Harland. Currently Harland is digging into the theme about the historical Jesus and in this particular issue discusses the figure of John the Baptist.
(review, feed)