Heads-up for 6 December 2010

Mahabharata Podcast
Welcome back, Arjun
from by mahabharatapodcast@comcast.net (Lawrence Manzo)
Episode 35 - It's deja-vu all over again, as the Pandavas move from the hermitage of Nar-Narayan to another one on the slopes of Mt Kailash, named for Arstisena. Another flower wafts down the hill, and Draupadi again sends Bhima off in search of the source. Bhima completely forgets Yuddistira's injunction about making trouble and he invades Kubera's kingdom, starting a war with the god's "genial leprechaun" army.
(review, feed)

EconTalk
Selgin on the Fed
George Selgin, of the University of Georgia, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about whether the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 has been a boon or a bust for the U.S. economy. Drawing on a recent paper by William Lastrapes and Lawrence White recently released by the Cato Institute, "Has the Fed Been a Failure?" Selgin argues that the Fed has done poorly at two missions often deemed to justify a central bank: lender of last resort and smoother of the business cycle. Selgin makes the case that avoiding bank runs and bank panics does not require a central bank and that contrary to received wisdom, it is hard to argue that the Fed has smoothed the business cycle. Additional topics discussed include whether the Fed has the information to do its jobs well, the role of the Fed in moral hazard, and the potential for the gold standard to outperform the Fed.
(review, feed)

Perception of African pasts, politics and cultures

Here is a short recommendation to listen to the podcast Africa Past and Present, where the latest issue had an interview with historian Paul Landau who has been reviewing the African historiography and draws the conclusion that much of this body has been formulated in a non-fitting terminology. (feed)

Landau is not the first to point out in podcast that it is hard for historians to find a proper language and framework for grasping African history. We have also had a lecture by Joseph Miller at Virginia Tech which took a step back from historiography and pointed out that in order to describe the history of Africa, one must work outside the box.

To give but one example: Western thought has imposed upon the African reality a social structure using the word Tribe and with it carrying a lot of implications Landau and Miller attempt to show that are not applicable. This causes the reader, the viewer and even the researcher to view divisions where there are none really and interpret connections where they are anthropologically misconstrued.

More Africa Past and Present:
After the Cup,
Podcast Review: Africa Past and Present.

Heads-up for 5 December 2010

History According to Bob
The Germanies 1949 to 1961
This show is the rise of West Germany and the stress it put on East Germany which led to the Berlin Wall .
(review, feed)

Philosophy Bites
Helen Beebee on Laws of Nature
What is a law of nature? Is it merely a generalisation about how things behave? Or does it have a different status? Helen Beebee investigates these questions in conversation with Nigel Warburton for this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
(review, feed)

The impending war - LSE podcast

At the London School of Economics there are always a lot of lectures to recommend. Just now, I heard one by Dana Allin, which I think is also very much worth listening to, yet I would like to send you on the road with some advanced knowledge. (feed)

Allin's lecture comes forth from the book he wrote with Steve Simon The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the Rumors of War. The subject of the lecture is the American political and diplomatic conundrum of how to deal with Iran's nuclear program and its becoming a (potential) nuclear power. In Allin's view, the issue is closely linked to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and therefore the divergent policies of the US and its ally Israel towards Iran. That makes the crisis with Iran a sixth crisis for the US with Israel.

Unfortunately Allin does not enumerate the prior five crises and therefore leaps in the middle of the subject without framing it. That is a pity and I think it helps if I gave them here. The first crisis is the 1956 Suez Crisis. The second starts with the six-day war in 1967 and continues thruough the ensuing war of attrition and 1973 Yom Kippur War. Then the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran is a third crisis - wider than just a crisis with Israel and also a first indicator that the world is not entirely triggered by the Cold-War power balance. The fourth crisis, I would say begins with the Intifadah, but if that were no crisis for the US, it sure became one in 1991 with the Gulf War. Finally, the fifth crisis, also larger than just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is 9/11 terrorist attacks and the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Barely this fifth crisis is over (if at all) and there is the crisis around Iran.

More LSE:
Quest for meaning,
The plundered planet,
China and India,
The China Hegemony,
The myth of work.

Heads-up for 4 December 2010

Radio Open Source
Ian Morris’s East-West History of an Endangered Species: Us
Morris draws on his first career, scientific archeology, also on biological evolution, to formulate an Index of Social Development (energy use, for example, and destructiveness in war); and then to chart the relative ISD scores, East and West, through roughly 15,000 years since the last Ice Age. One starting point is genomic: we’re one animal the world around, bound by the same imperatives of biology and sociology. It’s geography, as Jared Diamond taught us in Guns, Germs and Steel, that accounts for the differences among us. But then the effective meaning of geography keeps changing as Morris extends the story.
(review, feed)

The Economist
Breaking up the euro area
The barriers to leaving are high but could still be crawled over by a country determined to leave
(review, feed)



Office Hours
Janet Hankin on 50 Years of Medical Sociology
This episode we talk with Janet Hankin, co-editor of the special issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, “What Do We Know? Key Findings from 50 Years of Medical Sociology”. We discuss the contributions and insights sociologists have made in the areas of health, illness, and the medical establishment. Topics include the transformation of the health care system in the United States over the past 50 years, and the distinction between the sociology in medicine and the sociology of medicine.
(review, feed)

Heads-up for 3 December 2010

Geography C110 (Berkeley)
World without End - Rape of the Planet
Interdisciplinary Studies lectures by Richard A. Walker. Geography, economics, politics and history.
(review, feed)

Witness
Kindertransports
In early December 1938 the first Kindertransport left Berlin, carrying jewish children out of Nazi Germany. They were taken to live in Britain - where thousands of children escaped the Holocaust.
(review, feed)

KQED Forum
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie's new novel "Luka and the Fire of Life" chronicles the story of a son on a journey to save his father. Rushdie joins us to discuss the new book, aimed at children and adults, as well as other issues.
(review, feed)