Ghosts of the Ostfront - Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History has proceeded to the second chapter about the Eastern Front in World War II. Hardcore History is a unique history podcast in that it tells the tales of history in a very dramatic fashion and manages like no other to bring history to life. For this podcast, history is not just the world of data and their chronology, it is the story of people, real people whether it be days long gone or recent history such as in the latest episodes.

My criticism on the first chapter was that maybe here and there the podcast went over the top, that the drama got a little bit melodramatic here and there. This has been made up for in the second chapter. The drama is still the same: autocratic leaders take fatefully unwise decisions and poor souls on the ground pay the price. But this time you are there in the freezing mud with them without exaggeration. The facts are exceptional enough in themselves.

Dan Carlin's podcast has a huge following and it is my experience that dedicated listeners love their favorite podcast to be as long as possible. And Hardcore History is very long. For those who are new and decide to take up this remarkable experience this may be something you want to be prepared for: Dan Carlin takes his time to paint the picture. It is a total immersion podcast.

More Hardcore History:
Dan Carlin about the East Front,
Slavery,
Gwynne Dyer Interview,
Interview with Victor Davis Hanson,
Punic Nightmares III.

Psyconoclasm - Psychology podcast review

A new podcast on science and psychology is Psyconoclasm by David Bradley. In the first episode it kicked off extremely well with an interview with Keith Stanovich on scientific and unscientific approaches in psychology. (feed)

Stanovich calls this subject 'the problem with Freud'. He explains Freud worked with case studies and works hard to show case studies are not enough to draw generalized conclusions from. Yet, it is Freud who people think of, when they think of psychology. Thus they have no idea of what other fields t here are and miss out on proper methodology.

The whole of the interview is dedicated to discussing that second aspect: proper methodologies for psychology as a science. (transcript) An important example to figures in his argument is the case of 'Clever Hans'. This was a German horse that was supposed to have mathematical talent. Stanovich takes the case to show how such a claim (this horse can do arithmetic) can be properly researched. This is not simply by observation, quite to the contrary. He makes a case for the rigors of controlled testing and defends the use of labs in the face of criticism that this can never be applicable to real life situations.

Candy Dulfer - Voor 1 Nacht recensie

KRO's voor 1 nacht lijkt de podcasts twee aan twee in de feed te zetten. Hoewel het programma wekelijks wordt uitgezonden, staan er elke twee weken opeens twee nieuwe afleveringen in de podcast feed. het aardige voor mij is dan dat ik de meest interessante van de twee kies. Of een gecombineerde recensie voorbereid.

Nu heb ik het interview met Candy Dulfer gehoord. Het mooiste vind ik altijd om uitvoerende musici te horen praten over interpretatie en over hun instrument. Gelukkig kwamen deze onderwerpen ook met Dulfer aan bod. Ze legt uit wat het verschil is tussen 'funked up' en 'chilled out' en hoe ze tussen die twee aspecten van haar muziek heen manoevreert. Een verhaal van twee uitersten die elkaar nodig hebben.

Nog veel spannender zijn haar woorden over haar instrument. Het is een oude saxofoon van een geliefd merk. Het klinkt goed, maar het is een heel gevecht om het juiste geluid eruit te krijgen. Dat en haar toewijding aan het publiek, maken haar verhaal buitengewoon fascinerend. Dat interviewer Marc Stakenburg niet zo egr doorvraagt heb ik al vaker geschreven, dat zal wel niet anders meer worden.

Meer KRO's voor 1 nacht:
Olga Zuiderhoek en Paul Rosenmoller,
Gijs Wanders en Adjiedj Bakas,
Arnon Grunberg.

Deja-vu on Ersatz-TV

Ever had a déjà-vu? I have been having them all my life. My favorite vodcast pays attention to them. Scientific approaches to these memory like experiences. I knew what they were going to say in advance... Ni Hao bei Ersatz TV.



More Ersatz TV:
The science of Ersatz TV,
Erzatz TV - German Vodcast.

The latest in New Books in History

I am just barely keeping up with New Books In History. Every week a new interview with authors come out and there is still a considerable backlog I'd love to look in to. At least with the new ones I am done, although I haven't had the time to report on that. So, once more, here is a combined review of three episodes in this fine podcast.

In Becoming Historians Marshal Poe interviews the authors and historians James Banner and John Gillis. They discuss their book about the way the established names became historians. It turns into a comparison game between those historians, including Banner and Gillis and the generation of Marshall Poe and the fundamental differences in atmosphere and environment in which they became historians and mad a career as such (or failed to do so). Inevitably this is also implicitly a talk about how academia has developed, for better or worse, over the past decades.

Rebels Rising is a book by Benjamin Carp about the places where the American Revolution was concocted. This was in bars, but also in churches, markets and even in people's homes. Marshal Poe speaks with Carp.

The Frankfurter Schule surely was an important name when I studied sociology. It never occurred to me though that these people went in exile and after the war only some of them returned to Germany, making this in part American, in part a German phenomenon. Thomas Wheatland wrote a book about the Frankfurt School in Exile and tells Marshal Poe, he actually prefers to speak of the Horkheimer circle. And more: the desertion of Fromm and the misgivings of Marcuse and Adorno. A must listen.

More NBIH:
Three recommendations,
American Exceptionalism,
The Great War in short,
How Rome Fell,
Glancing over the backlog.

Environmental History Vodcast

A visual brother to the Exploring Environmental History Podcast is the Environmental History Videocast (feed) Jan Oosthoek introduces us to the themes of environmental history. And, in the first of the series, an answer to the ever returning question 'What is environmental history'



Source: Environmental History Resources

NOTE: This vodcast is not fit for viewing on iPod.

More Environmental History:
Defining Environmental History,
Natural Disasters,
Canada and New Zealand,
Environmental history,
Climate Change in recent history.