Roman History in podcasts

A lot of people are interested in Roman History and naturally, there are a number of history podcasts that pay attention, in part or as a whole, to the Romans and the various aspects of their history.

For one there is the History of Rome podcast. This podcast is entirely dedicated to Roman History. Host Mike Duncan studied Political Science and Philosophy and is therefore an amateur historian podcast. He goes through Roman history in chronological stages, by means of weekly 20-30 minute podcasts. He has reached the rise of Scipio (and the demise of Hannibal) in 200 BC. This is the period of the Punic wars.

I have just discovered this podcast. It is a straightforward, tell the history, monologue style podcast that is especially suited for those who want to know everything about Rome. As many podcasters, Mike Duncan is not a scholar in this field, and therefore hands the history by means of the facts as he knows them and engages less in interpretation, analysis and historiography.

History according to Bob has had a series on the Punic wars (or at least the first of those) and some more installments on Roman history, but unfortunately for those who arrive at his feed only by now, they are no longer available for download. On can purchase old podcasts on CD however.

More Bob:
The Franks,
Virginia Oldoini according to Bob
Alexander the Great,
Special acclaim for Bob Packett,
History according to Bob.

From the perspective of Hannibal, there is one of the best lecture series brought out as podcast by historian and Hannibal specialist, the scholar Patrick Hunt. This podcast can be found on iTunes U in the history section of Stanford University.

More Patrick Hunt:
Hannibal in the end,
Ten discoveries that rewrote history,
Patrick Hunt on Hannibal (and more),
Hannibal Barca on the couch,
Where did Hannibal cross the Alps?.

From Berkeley we have Isabelle Pafford in History 4A The Ancient Mediterranean World. The last half of this lecture series is dedicated to Rome.

Also from Isabelle Pafford at Berkeley is History 106B The Roman Empire, which deals very rapidly with early Roman history and focuses on the Empire.

More Isabelle Pafford and History4A:
The best History courses on podcast,
Alexander the Great,
Assyrians,
History 4A and others.

For many the history ends in 476 AD, but not so for the truly discerning. In the east the empire continued until 1453, as what we call Byzantium. 12 Byzantine Rulers is dedicated to the history of Byzantium. High school teacher and podcasting legend Lars Brownworth spent over two years piling up 18 episodes of this history podcast classic.

More 12 Byzantine Rulers:
Sources,
Byzantine Conclusion,
The Byzantine Empire on Podcast,
Byzantine Podcast.

Age of American Unreason - KQED

KQED forum invited Susan Jacoby, Anthony Cascardi, Lynne Munson and the listeners to the radio program to participate in a discussion of Jacoby's recent book The Age of American Unreason, which has made head lines in the past weeks. Even though Jacoby relates having been attacked about the book and I have seen some hefty on line discussions, the program (and podcast) showed a lot of consent.

In a way the consent should not be so surprising. Also outside the US we are flooded with examples of surveys where Americans couldn't answer the simplest of questions. Accordingly, those examples are repeated by the panel as well as the callers to the show. It is also surmised that this kind of knowledge was passed onto a wider audience in the past. But real comparative data I have not seen yet, hence this stays in the realm of assumption.

Outside of the US, we see similar developments and why should Americans be less gifted with reason than other Westerners? The symptoms are not just ignorance, they are also the pride in ignorance, distrust of intellect and intellectuals, a tendency to irrationality and so on. Where does this come from? Apart from an element in the culture that mistrusts intellectualism, science, theory, 'cold' reasoning, there is also a development in the education. Education is more and more geared towards practical skills and less and less towards general knowledge. The whole idea that a skilled world citizen should have a minimum of knowledge in language, history, culture and so on has suffered both from utilitarianism (skills are economically more interesting) as well as relativism (how can we scale a limited core of knowledge to be vital).

The last point moves the conjecture from a mere 'once upon a time all was better' to a grating criticism, not just of the non-intellectuals, but also of the intellectual elite itself. In its relativism it has squandered the notion of canons and integrated education. This is somewhat mentioned in the program and maybe a considerable part of the book - we'd have to read it. I for one am certainly tickled.

More KQED Forum:
Christopher Hitchins.

The podcasts that review podcasts

Last week I discovered two podcasts that do exactly what I do: review podcasts. These are Podwatch and That Podcast Show. I am not going to review them all the time, but I am looking for some way to keep you posted of their work. In the end, we complement each other.

This weekend the two of them released a new episode, with That Podcast Show commenting on Philosophy Bites - which is a podcast that I have reviewed myself a couple of times (see below). For me, this review shows the quality of That Podcast Show and I must say, they stand the test with flying figures. They are slightly less enthusiastic about Philosophy Bites, but their critique is very right: the podcast does too little to make the subject accessible to a wider audience. And it gives very simple pointers how to improve.

The other two podcast reviewed:
Tudorcast (expected here some time in March)
Girls Night In

Podwatch came out and -hey!- gave a plug to my blog. Apart from that there is the regular technology news and three podcast reviews.
The Digg Reel - isn't that actually a vodcast?
Buzz Out Loud - getting the highest acclaim. Especially for technology interested listeners this appears to be a hot item.

I think these to podcast review podcasts are very good and for all you podcast listeners out there a must-have source of information.

Philosophy Bites on Anne is a Man!:
Humanism,
Is war innate?
Wittgenstein,
Friendship,
Egalitarianism.

Stalingrad - OVT

1943. Later gaan we het nog over de Boerenpartij hebben. Professor Wesseling is in de studio om over zijn boek te spreken, evenals Herman Pleij, maar in het kader van In Europa werd bij OVT vorige week over Stalingrad gesproken. Wat is er meer dan een verhaal van overschatting en onderschatting?

We wisten al dat de Duitsers hun hand overspeelden. Voor wie het boek van Mak gelezen heeft (en vele anderen naar ik aanneem) is ook bekend dat Hitler de feiten niet onder ogen wilde zien. OVT laat een radiofragment uit December 1942 horen van de Nederlandse gelijkgeschakelede radio. In schallende termen wordt over een overwinning van het 'Germaanse Zwaard' gesproken. Die taal is zo bombastisch dat de presentator het niet beter kan nazeggen dan "Duitse Zwaard".

Militair-historicus Wim Klinkert en de oud-Rusland correspondent Alexander Münninghoff zitten als gasten in de studio en maken duidelijk hoe de soviets deze oorlog wonnen. Wat er niet aan de orde komt, of nauwelijks, is hoe de Duitser deze slag verloren, want behalve te weinig tanks is er misschien wel meer te zeggen. De Russen, zo wordt uitgelegd, hadden zoveel tanks dankzij hun industrieel vermogen en de simpele beslissing om maar twee types te produceren. Ze kwamen tot meer dan tweeduizend stuks per maand, terwijl Hitler duizend al voor onmogelijk hield.

Zoals gezegd, er is nog veel meer te genieten op deze podcast. Het blijft een feest, iedere week.

Eerdere besprekingen van OVT in dit blog:
1936 - Spanje,
1938 - Hitler en Holocaust,
1939 - Patriotten tot landverraders,
1940 - Heesters, Petain, Leopold achteraf,
1941 - Handlangers.

Review Podcast Reviews Podcasts

Within 12 hours:
- OVT (Stalingrad en Boerenpartij)
- Podwatch and That Podcast Show (review of the podcast review podcasts)

Within 36 hours:
- History 5 / OVT / IOT
- Something about the Roman Empire

In the coming days
- Irvin Yalom (on KQED and Wise Counsel)
- Susan Yacoby (The Age of American Unreason)
- Shrink Rap Radio (Mindmentor and others)
- Simek interviews Jaap van der Zwan

In New podcasts on trial we have March as a history podcast month with a wide range of candidates:
American History before 1870
Hank's History Hour
History of Rome
History 106B
Podcasts on Medieval Texts
Redborne History Podcast
Teaching American History Podcast
History 2311
Tudorcast

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You can let your preferences (I'd love get new podcast recommendations) know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

A Rhetorics Series by The Word Nerds

Excitement struck when TWN took up Rhetoric, I couldn't wait to write about it. I turned out, this was part of a series and the second part was going to have to wait. Only now, this second part has come out, so I was all set to listen again and go write, when we hit a snag.

By old fashioned tradition, rhetoric is part of language education. It may come with philosophy, but not, to my surprise, in a law school. At least not in mine. So I feel I have a little gap here that has been waiting to be filled. I may not have to be alone - many more people are missing out. Yet we are submitted to rhetoric, Scot Limbaugh and Micheal Moore were mentioned on the show. The other day I saw a discussion about Obama's oratory qualities pass by, cherished and criticized at the same time.

Howard Shepherd is the specialist. He used to travel for an Academic Publisher and reminisces about selling 'Classical rhetoric for the modern student' and reveals the tongue in cheek mangling of this title. And here is what makes TWN such a superb podcast, where is succeeds in educate and entertain at the same time. It is the first time they took a subject and spread it out over more than one episode. I thought it was going to be two, but now it turns out to be three. I did not want to wait with the review, because this is great stuff. I want to encourage you to start listening. And the last chapter will still have to wait.

Previous reviews of TWN on this blog:
Silence and Speechlessness,
Religious Words,
Nicknames,
Public Speaking,
Transitions.