Stasi agents and informants - NBIH

The podcast New Books in History is a great program to subscribe to by all means, but in case you are interested in content about the Cold War, the end of it and the rise and fall of the Soviet world. In this realm there is a great wealth of issues to be had. One of which came out just in this past weeks. (feed)

In this program Marshal Poe interviewed Gary Bruce about the inside story of the Stasi, the secret police of communist Germany (DDR). Did the DDR need a secret police? Poe and Bryce emphasize how paranoid the communist regimes were and how they expected traitors and saboteurs always and everywhere. Hence the extended network of agents and the even more extended network of informants. In the end I wonder how exaggerated it is the state that one half of the DDR citizens was spying on the other half.

Bruce's research as you get to know it from the interview, although it does reveal the pumped up paranoia of the soviet system, does teach rather something else. It shows how the Stasi was organized. Where did the agents come from, how were they trained and employed. And once there were agents, there was the recruiting and management of informants. Bruce's story about his research also reveals what happened to the Stasi and its files once the DDR fell apart and with it its secret police. This all went so swift, the Stasi disintegrated before it could destroy its archives. And this allows many historians such as Bruce to study the Stasi and by extension the reality of a surveillance state.

More NBIH:
War in Human Civilization,
Always recommended: New Books in History,
The best varied history podcast,
The Caucasus,
The genocide and the trial.

Ger van Elk - Marathon Interview

Het Marathon Interview van de VPRO is niet alleen op de radio te beluisteren in de zomer, ook de podcast heeft juist in de zomer nieuwe input gekregen. Naast oude interviews uit het rijke verleden, nieuwe interviews die zojuist op radio 6 te beluisteren zijn geweest. (feed)

Een van die recente interviews vond plaats op 7 Juli. Anton de Goede ging in gesprek met beeldend kunstenaar Ger van Elk. Voor het eerst begreep ik wat precies conceptuele kunst is. Ik ben voldoende snob om te proberen wat kunst heet als zodanig te begrijpen, maar kan het evenmin laten om mijn schouders op te halen bij produkten zoals die van Van Elk. Een opgewreven vloer? Een blokje hout dat wit is geverfd (weliswaar op een schip in de IJszee)? Dan krijg ook ik het gevoel dat de kunstenaar zich er met een Jantje van Leiden van af maakt en wegkomt door een handig excuus uit de duim te zuigen.

In het interview probeert Van Elk op geen enkel moment om je te overtuigen van zijn verhaal. Evenmin probeert hij te behagen. Hij spreekt gewoon, hij toont zijn manier van denken en kijken en voor je het weet ga je erin mee. Ik vond het een fascinerende reis, mee te kijken met de onconventionele blik van Van Elk, mee te denken met de visie van Van Elk en zodoende de interne logica te ontdekken. En dat is dan conceptuele beeldende kunst: het idee van de kunstenaar uitgewerkt in een visueel produkt. Vervolgens is het dan ook iets makkelijker om de omgekeerde weg te bewandelen en afgaande op het kunstvoorwerp en het idee te ontdekken.

Meer Het Marathon Interview:
Ileana Melita,
VPRO's Marathon Interview,
Hans Galjaard,
Bert ter Schegget,
Lea Dasberg.

Alan Rabinowitz at Speaking of Faith

At APM's Speaking of Faith, three weeks ago, Krista Tippett spoke with Alan Rabinowitz who is a zoologist and wildlife conservationist. The title for the program was: A Voice for the Animals. As such, you would expect a conversation about animal rights and what animals and the biosphere  mean for the world. That would be interesting in itself, but the issue to a whole other turn. (feed)

Tippett's conversation with Rabinowitz, concentrated much more on him as a person and the individual challenges he has to overcome in order to achieve what he has been achieving in life. For example, there is his stutter and although having a stutter, certainly as serious as he had it, is quite the handicap, Rabinowitz's life story shows how a challenge can turn into a quality. Having a stutter shut him out socially, but allowed him to bond with animals and develop the skills he needed for his profession. And then, his profession and his bothersome relationship with speech and the social constraints of life, allowed him his insights.

But that is not all, there is also his amazing encounter with the Asian pygmy and by the end of the show, his candid discussion of what it means to have cancer. And in the mean time, he has also touched on the meaning of having children. And so, this show goes beyond the subject of animal rights and if Rabinowitz supplies a voice for the animals, human beings are part of that palette he speaks for - the man with the stutter.


More Speaking of Faith:
Desmond Tutu,
China, secularism, religiosity,
Three issues of Speaking of Faith,
Preserving Ojibwe,
The story and God.

SciFi and realism - Making history with Ran Levi

Making History with Ran Levi (עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי) takes, every once in a while, an excursion into the world of SciFi literature. Usually to discuss the life and work of one writer of SciFi or another, but this time a subject slightly differently. (feed)

SciFi, obviously, needs to be a work of fiction which relies on science and some kind of imaginative extrapolation where science could bring us. Needless to say, both the extrapolation as well as the fiction stretch the science quite a bit, but to a certain extent, the science still must be accurate. Ran Levi kicks off with an example, the TV series Space 1999, which has the moon get marooned in space and he tells how none other than Isaac Asimov took exception with the scientific inaccuracy in the story. It shows that bad science can wreck an otherwise good piece of fiction.

Another example is that of Larry Niven's Ringworld, which seemed to me very sound as I read it, but which has a serious flaw as Levi explains on the show. In the rest of the series Niven went to great lengths repairing his scientific inaccuracies. But as Levi also shows, if the SciFi writer will do everything to make his science OK, his fiction might falter. And that is the conclusion of this entertaining show: the science needs to be accurate, but to certain extent imagination should be allowed to stretch it, even beyond accuracy, for the sake of the story. It seems like an impossible hole.

More Making History with Ran Levi:
The history of Anesthetics,
Social Engineering for hackers,
Ran Levi, then, now and about the Long Now,
Of nightmares and sleepwalking,
Mass Extinctions.

Forestry - EEH

Exploring Environmental History Podcast in its latest issue paid attention to the history of forests and forestry. (feed)

Specifically the effects of World War One were discussed with David Brownstein of the University of British Columbia. Brownstein points out that over WWI Canadian foresters came to Europe to serve the war effort. The war created a huge need of timber, much larger than in peace time and also much larger than the allies could supply to themselves. Normally they's get wood from the colonies, but with the U-boot threat, it was not as easy to ship all that timber.

The foresters from Canada were moved to Europe to get what little timber from England and France could be extracted. Here Europe and British Columbia began to influence each other. The Canadian foresters were learned to pay attention to and invest in replenishing the forest. Their own forests were considered to be so large replanting was not considered necessary, whereas in Europe this was standard. Once they learned the way to collect seeds, seeds from conifers from Canada became so abundant, they made it all over the world.

More Exploring Environmental History:
Exploring Environmental History (EEH podcast),
Volcanoes in European History,
Environmental History in the Middle Ages,
New weeds in Africa,
Biological invasions and transformations.

Norman Centuries - Lars Brownworth

It is an amazing thing how in Norman history the geographic focus switches. Somehow you expect it to be Scandinavia, but the podcast Norman Centuries kicked off in Normandy, made an excursion to England and over the last chapters has moved to Italy. (feed)

Normans got to Sicily and the peninsula as fortune seekers and worked their way up starting as mercenaries to the Byzantines. William Iron Arm (episode 8) thus made it to count and Robert Guiscard (episode 9) started as a knight and while making a name as a general, he succeeded in playing the latin power politics. Although he saw himself mostly pitted against the Roman Catholic Church and the Pontiff, but his ability to move into a position of power, made the Papacy sway and eventually ally with the Normans.

Robert Guiscard is a contemporary of William the Conqueror and so, by the time of 1066, when William attempts to invade England, Robert tries his luck with Sicily. Both succeed and what lies next for the Normans is the real prize of the time: Byzantium. We await the next episode to find out how such a grand ambition pans out.

More Norman Centuries:
William the Conqueror,
Magnificent Devil,
Richard the Fearless,
Norman Centuries - Lars is back!.