Jennifer Burns about Ayn Rand - NBIH

New Books in History went along with a recommendation I made, of all people. I was alerted to a book written by historian and history podcaster Jennifer Burns (Berkeley's History 7b) and passed this on to Marshall Poe, the host of New Books in History. On the show two weeks ago, he interviewed Jennifer Burns on this book of hers about Ayn Rand and the American Right.

Ayn Rand, was not born in the US and Ayn Rand was not her original name. She actually came from the Soviet Union and Burns and Poe discuss with awe and excitement how Rand managed to become an icon of the American right. Not just any right. These days, the right is mostly associated with strong conservatism, but Rand's was another kind of right. She propagated a life of stark individualism, atheism and libertarianism with a free market and little government.

She also lived that life. Taking on few bonds, being libertarian also about sexuality and drugs - she used amphetamine. Some of her erratic behavior can be ascribed, as Marshall Poe sees it, to her addiction, though Burns seems less inclined to go that road. In any case, Rand seen in this light, I wonder, may in some years' time be viewed as a leftist rather than as a rightist. Or the god-fearing, family values conservatives must have turned left, by then. They won't fit in the same church, that is for sure.

More NBIH:
Atlantic History,
Political rationalizations in Nazi-Germany,
Whalen / Rohrbough,
Confronting the bomb,
Henry Hudson's fatal journey.



More Jennifer Burns:
History 7b - history podcast review,
American Civil Rights Movement,
Whittaker Chambers,
Scopes Trial,
US History - from Civil War to Present.

Petty frustrations - Namaste Stories

The latest story on the fictional podcast Namaste Stories (feed) is full of innuendo. More than ever Dave P plays his magic. As always the podcast is filled with a certain atmosphere that just hangs there and is not made explicit by any one sentence of the tale. And it is not just the music or the fatalistic voice of the narrator - although they undoubtedly add in.



In The Spoiled Brat that aboding presence is woven into the descriptions, the lines and the actions of the characters Melissa and Casper. This is what makes literature powerful: subtext. You will have to look beyond the subject of Capser and Melissa's conversation, the spoiled brat. What really matters is why they discuss him and not what their expressed convictions are, but what they tell us. The more they emphasize the brat is spoiled, the more they are envious of him and the more they reject him, the more they are attracted.

In the seeming consensus of their dialog, their petty frustrations are played out. Their repressed sexuality, the dissatisfaction in their relation, their failure of accomplishment. And all of this is expressed with utterly unconvincing self-congratulatory self-righteous bourgeois judgmental statements or silently and childishly hidden aggression. What a feat.

More Namaste and Dave P:
Surviving those family dinners on the holidays,
The new direction of Dave P,
New York Coffee Cup,
Namaste Stories, podcast as an art,
Namaste Stories, fiction podcast.

Freemasons - Rear Vision

The history program Rear Vision from Australia's ABC, responded to the media attention to Dan Brown's piece of fiction, Angels and Demons, which predominantly features the society of Freemasons. Rear Vision brought in two historians to demystify the Freemasons

If you read the transcript of the program about Freemasons, you see the discussion in interspersed with lines by a 'Documentary Narrator'. On the podcast these lines sound exalted as if they are from a movie's trailer. As a matter of fact that is what I felt and it bothered me that it was not explained. Between these hefty statements lie the explanations of the historians and in comparison they sound very timid and inconclusive.

It is with the Freemasons as it is with any social system that lies hidden. Whatever facts are available tell little, but leave much to the imagination. Such is it with Freemasons, just is it is with Jesuits, international communism, the Mafia and the CIA or Al-Qaeda. The point is that the hard facts give us so little to go on, yet suggest so much that on the subject of secret organisations the historian cannot win and the fiction writer cannot lose. In Rear Vision this is shown not otherwise.

More Rear Vision:
China,
A history of the Israeli-Arab conflict,
Fish depletion,
Follow up on Iran and Versailles,
Versailles 1919.

The Death of Edgar Allan Poe - The Memory Palace

The wonderful history podcast The Memory Palace (feed) has its strength mainly in its narrative force and in its short episodes. Nate DiMeo takes five minutes to tell small, humane, tales in history. Apart from history drama, one could also call it micro-history.

Micro-history is not necessarily lost in oceanic waves of the larger scheme of history. DiMeo shows this for example in his latest production This Ungainly Fowl. This is the story, as far as it can be reconstructed, of the last 24 hours in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. These hours are unrecorded and utterly unclear. It begins as Poe finds himself on a train to Baltimore and it ends as he is found dying in the street, in some other man's clothes. There are several theories as to what happened and The Memory Palace offers one of them.

Not only does this attempt to give an answer as to what might have happened to the great writer, but also tells a thing or two about daily life in contemporary US in general and in Baltimore specifically. This serves as an illustration and a tale that, no matter how small, touches relevance in the greater seas of history. This, for an otherwise fine history podcast to begin with, serves as a lot of extra credit. This podcast is worth following for everyone.

More The Memory Palace:
A Great Escape,
The Memory Palace,
Ferris Wheel and other historic experiences,
The hollow earth,
The Memory Palace - history narration.

The end of the war - Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

After Stalingrad came Kursk, after the first defeat of the Germans on the Ostfront came many more and the end of the war became a drawn out affair. Germany of the 1940's was not Germany of 1918. When thee decision makers of 1918 saw they could no longer win World War 1, they bargained for peace. When the Nazis began to lose, they chose to go down fighting and let the German people perish in the process, if it had to be so.

The last episode of the four part series about WW2's eastern front at Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, tells this tale of the drawn out end (Ghosts of the Ostfront part iv). Not only the German people had to be grounded over this protracted collapse, the whole of eastern Europe turned into a large scale hell-hole. And one can leave it to Dan Carlin to recount the horrors in the dramatic fashion that will keep you glued to your ear buds.

Many thoughts that came up while listening, were immediately expressed by Carlin as well, like the line I opened this post with: such a difference between the 1918 and 1944 leadership. Also, the observation that civilians suffered for the decisions, not only enemy, but also, the decision makers' own people. One observation however did not come through, though I am sure Carlin had it in mind and would bring it to the listener as well: the population as a whole was made to suffer, was subjected to the revenge and hatred that the soldier brought with them. It means that peoples are taken as wholes. But if you drill down, and this is something Carlin misses, you sea that men are perpetrators and women are the objects of their aggression. For the cruelties committed by a soldier, not he, but his wife, his daughter, his mother, or his neighbor's niece will pay, when she is raped in revenge afterwards.

More Hardcore History:
Stalingrad,
Ghosts of the Ostfront,
Dan Carlin about the East Front,
Slavery,
Gwynne Dyer Interview.

Oorsmeer - VPRO podcast

Een nieuwe podcast bij de VPRO is Oorsmeer. En behalve podcast is het ook een weblog en daarop werd Oorsmeer meteen al opgemerkt door de populaire website Geen Stijl. De teneur was dat Oorsmeer Geen Stijl zou proberen te imiteren, maar te zeer tot het omroep-establishment zou behoren om erin te slagen. (feed)

Wat Oorsmeer in ieder geval probeert te zijn voor de argeloze podcast luisteraar zoals ondergetekende, die trouwens van Geen Stijl ook nauwelijks kaas gegeten heeft, is een satirisch programma dat de draak steekt met onderwerpen in de actualiteit. Daarbij maakt het gebruik van fragmenten die in andere programma's reeds te beluisteren zijn geweest. In dat opzicht valt het trouw in het genre waarvan er door de jaren heen al zoveel programma's zijn geweest. Niet alleen op radio, maar ook op TV en waarvan er op de nieuwe media ook genoeg te vinden zijn.

De formule werkt eigenlijk altijd heel goed, zolang je maar de fragmenten kent. Het plezier voor mij is vergelijkbaar met wat ik ervaar bij het luisteren naar Volkis Stimme. Ik ken net genoeg de plaatselijke (daar Duitse, hier Nederlandse) actualiteit om het allemaal te kunnen volgen. Qua formule is Oorsmeer nog wat zoekende. Je voelt dat ze wel wat leunt naar het schofferende van Geen Stijl, maar daar toch ook niet helemaal aan wil. Misschien moeten ze hun licht eens opsteken bij Volkis Stimme, die heel bewust in de de oubollige stijl van woordgrappen en brave absurditeiten is gaan zitten en daar nu juist zijn charme aan ontleent.