Big History, Big Lands and Big Men

Here are four recent installments of New Books in History that I enjoyed tremedously and want to recommend in particular. (feed)

The Ottoman and the Russian empire
For ages the Ottoman and the Russian empire had been rival neighbors and within the time span of less than a decade both empires dissolved. Michael Reynolds relates the complex relations between the two empires and describes how the new ideology of nationalism drove the two of them towards a new incarnation. In the process one also gets a better handle on the Armenian genocide.

The problem of order
Isn't it actually quite surprising to what extent there is political order? Modern states can exist by virtue of a very deep and broad, complex social coherence. Francis Fukuyama made a very long ranging study after the historic roots of political order. This is big history as it has become so fashionable of late with the work of Jared Diamond and Ian Morris (to which Fukuyama also refers in the interview).

Why the West?
More big history we get in the interview with Ricardo Duchesne. Like Fukuyama and Diamond and Morris, Duchesne digs broad and deep into world history and his goal: to identify what is unique to the West that made its domination of the last 500 years. And Duchesne comes with a different answer. Slightly different from Diamond and Morris and very different from the Marxist onset, that all is triggered by material circumstance. Duchesne makes an argument to show how Western culture is fundamentally different and allowing for the rapid development of the last 2000 years.

Who is Otto von Bismarck?
Veteran history podcast listeners probably remember (fondly) Professor Margaret Lavinia Anderson who gave us through UC Berkeley two foundational history courses History 5 (Europe from renaissance until today) and History 167b (The Second Reich), Anderson is a specialist in German history and Otto von Bismarck got a fair share in the narrative. Here we alreayd learned how he was larger than life. But how so? For that you have to turn to Marshal Poe's interview with Jonathan Steinberg on New Books In History. It is only a beginning, but there is a disturbing remark Steinberg makes. After he has written his biography of Bismarck, using very unique up close and personal prime resources - he still feels he does not know him.

More New Books in History:
Hans Kundnani about Germany's left after the war,
Ottoman Age of Exploration,
The mysteries of whites and of mass,
A Soviet Memoir,
This I accomplish.

Listening ideas for 25 May 2011

New Books In History
Jonathan Steinberg, “Bismarck: A Life”
What is the role of personality in shaping history? Shortly before the beginning of the First World War, the German sociologist Max Weber puzzled over this question. He was sure that there was a kind of authority that drew strength from character itself.
(review, feed)

Oxford Biographies
Olaudah Equiano, author and slavery abolitionist
Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was one of the most prominent Africans involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade.
(review, feed)

TED Talks
How we'll stop polio for good - Bruce Aylward
Polio is almost completely eradicated. But as Bruce Aylward says: Almost isn't good enough with a disease this terrifying. Aylward lays out the plan to continue the scientific miracle that ended polio in most of the world -- and to snuff it out everywhere, forever.
(review, feed)

The Myoclonic Jerk Podcast - WoW

I rarely like a comedy podcast. Somehow forceful attempts to make one laugh are tedious to me, whereas the inadvertent or concealed jest turns me on much more. I feel that to be intentionally funny in an effective way you have to be damn good and even then it can be overdone. Even the best of comedy in podcast wears off rapidly to my humble taste and so I can hardly ever bring myself to review a podcast of the genre. But here is an exception.

There were several qualities that kept me enjoying Daniel Kaufman’s podcast The Myoclonic Jerk. The kind of humor is ironic, mild and self-deprecating. The production is very professional, with excellent audio-quality, a good mix of voices and music and a balanced collection of items. The podcast has a good pace and some informative and documentary value to make it a great podcast even if you are not seeking a laugh. And obviously, in my view, that is when jest works best. (feed)

I would choose episode 4 as the case in point. Daniel takes on the challenge to analyze his addiction to WoW – World of Warcraft, the multi-player on-line fantasy game. My intake was that I know WoW and a good many people who are just as addicted as Dan is, whereas the game has no hold on me as it had me too stunned and too overwhelmed upon first impression. (I like bite-sized orderly stuff) This episode, apart from being very entertaining, also got me a good insight into what WoW is and what it offers to its participants. It also has me wanting more, as there is to be a follow-up episode with more explanation and analysis.

Listening ideas for 24 May 2011

Mahabharata Podcast
The Gita, part 1: Arjun's Dejection
Episode 59 - We begin the famous holy book, the Bhagavad Gita. The scene for this revelation is the midst of the fateful battlefield of Kurukshetra. Arjun surveys the field, seeing his relatives, friends, cousins, uncles, elders and gurus, all ready to draw each other's blood and die for the sake of his dynastic dispute. For the good guys to win, Arjun will personally be responsible for the death of the people he respects the most in the whole world. He simple cannot go on with it. Arjun drops his bow and sits down. Better to die than to go forward with the slaughter.
(review, feed)

Inspired Minds
Hélène Grimaud – Pianist
In Inspired Minds this week, the internationally-acclaimed soloist Hélène Grimaud, tells us about her special relationship to Beethoven's music, her frequent frustration as she tries to create the ultimate legato line on the piano and how she loves the independent qualities of the piano.
(review, feed)

Schlaflos in München
Verliebt in meinen Kindle
Seit einigen Wochen ist mein Amazon Kindle so richtig im Einsatz. Weil draußen Sonne und ich Picknick und so. Und ich habe ihn lieben gelernt. Gut, heute kam mir der Gedanke, dass die Sympathie zu diesem Produkt einfach damit zu tun hat, dass ich zwei gute Bücher darauf gelesen habe. Wären es schlechte Bücher gewesen, fänd ich das Ding wahrscheinlich doof. Aber egal. Ich hab "The Imperfectionists" (Die Unperfekten) darauf gelesen und "The Gun Seller" von Hugh Laurie (Doctor House). Als Lese-Werkzeug schlägt der Kindle (das Kindle?) das iPad um Längen. So.
(review, feed)

Listening ideas for 23 May 2011

Documentary on One
Foley
The story of Jack Foley, a former dock worker who, when working at Universal Pictures, created a method of adding sounds to films, known now as the 'Art of Foley'. Every film now has sound dubbed in - yet the real sources of these sounds are unimaginable.
(review, feed)

Ideas
The Art of Ideas
She has spent a lifetime asking questions. Her body of work was never satisfied with the answers. Poet, anarchist, intellectual, former radio producer, and co-creator of the program IDEAS, we honour Phyllis Webb in this documentary by Robert McTavish.
(review, feed)

SFFaudio
The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #109 – a complete and unabridged reading of The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick. First up, the complete story from Wonder Audio, followed by a discussion of it with Jesse, Scott, and Tamahome.
(review, feed)

WTF with Marc Maron
Garry Shandling
Marc seeks wisdom and insight from a true comedy Buddha, the one and only Garry Shandling. Garry talks boxing, basketball, mothers, self-acceptance and, of course, Larry Sanders. Plus, Marc wonders if the Rapture actually happened without us knowing it.
(review, feed)

Early Modern England - Yale

The Yale history course Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts with Professor Keith E. Wrightson was delivered in 2009. It took the university however until now to publish the recordings as podcast and in that sense the course is brand new. The time in between has apparently been spent on careful post-production of the materials, the audio, the video and the transcripts. From the sessions page of the course one can select additional information per lecture and there you will also find a full transcript. (audio feed, video feed)

I have started this course and am about to listen to the 6th lecture. Up until this point Professor Wrightson has not yet 'told' any history narratives, but rather spent his time in carefully describing the English society's structures from where we start our history. The result is more than four hours of introduction to the action, which has a bit of a tendency to become too lengthy. I would want to recommend however to patiently sit through.

In time I began to appreciate the descriptions a lot. Apart from the fact that I expect that such subtle realities around land ownership and family relations are going to turn out to be relevant for understanding the narrative that is to follow, it also helps to bring the message home how deeply different English society around 1600 was from today, despite the label 'early modern'. The concept of family, for example, is deeply alien when you consider that servants and apprentices that live in the house are considered to be part of the family. This goes even as far as the epitaph of an apprentice which would name him 'Johnson's man' when he was learning with master Johnson in stead of his own personal and family name - so much for being an individual.

However, this weird picture did not provoke too much estrangement as a result of the circumstance that I was simultaneously watching some televised productions of Dickens novels. Charles Dickens, while criticizing the new modernity that is developing in the 19th century, clearly references to the earlier mode of society. With the help of Wrightson's depictions, I could much better appreciate where Dickens was coming from.