More history on Anne is a Man!

What podcast reviews to expect on this blog:

Within 24 hours:
- Philosophy Bites (time, free will and more)
- Your History Podcast (Spring Heeled Jack)

Within 48 hours:
- The History of the International System
An exhilarating lecture series by James Sheehan (Stanford) which spans some 29 lectures which have already been held, but not all of them published. I will review about as far as I can get.


In the coming days
- Shrink Rap Radio (Mindmentor and others)
- UChannel Podcast
- King Lear, as discussed in In Our Time and English 117S (Berkeley)
- Getting Published with the Writing Show

In New podcasts on trial we have March as a history podcast month and still a wide range of candidates:
Redborne History Podcast
Teaching American History Podcast
History 2311 Western Civilization until 1600
History 2312 Western Civilization from 1600
Glad 30th Anniversary podcasts
We the people stories

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You can let your preferences (I'd love get new podcast recommendations) know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

American History before 1870

One of the best sources for new history podcasts to try is one that discovered my blog before I discovered it. I was checking the referrals to my blog when I ran into a 'trailfire' on history podcasts. The maker of the trail keeps a close eye on my blog, as I can see from some of the podcast descriptions that are identical to mine, but he also finds new stuff, I hadn't heard of before. So I keep an eye on him as well. And dear creator of this trailfire, if you read this, please contact me.

One of the podcasts I have found though his trail is American History before 1870. The trail comment reads: "These podcasts coordinate with Hist 1301, offered by Dr. Gretchen Ann Reilly at Temple College, in Temple, TX. Dr. Reilly makes American History fascinating!" I can only agree. And I can add: not only does she make it fascinating, she also makes it accessible and yet maintains a high level of factuality and insight.

The secret to her success is a very simple and straightforward formula. In stead of recording her live lectures, she lectures privately, producing a monologue style podcast. She makes sure her issues are no longer than 15 minutes. Very little post-production is done. If the lecture takes more than 15 minutes, which usually is the case, she breaks them up in chunks. This is done almost mid sentence, which requires some adapting from the listener. However, the clarity of Ms. Reilly's voice and the careful structure of her monologue make the work mesmerizing.

I will be going through the whole series and am excited to have discovered two more podcasts she has done: History 2311 and 2312, which address western civilization, the first till 1600 and the second after 1600. Those are the next on my list.

Nog is Polen niet verloren - OVT

Andermaal 1943 en de serie In Europa op TV en bij OVT is afgelopen. Op 9 maart ging het over Polen (naar aanleiding van het jaar 1943) en op 16 maart werd de gehele serie nabeschouwd.

Polen wordt neergezet als de tragische natie. Het verhaal van een volk en een land dat beurtelings verscheurd wordt door Zweden, Pruisen, Russen, Oostenrijkers en zo meer. Te gast zijn Sasza Malko en Hans Citroen, die er maar ternauwernood in slagen om aan te geven dat Polen ook nog wel eens de agressoers waren. Het defaitisme van de Polen wordt geillustreerd aan de hand van het volkslied dat kennelijk de volzin met zich draagt (of daar zelfs mee aanheft) 'Nog is Polen niet verloren.'

Nog is ook Europa niet verloren evenmin de serie. Na een pauze zal de televisiebewerking van Geert Maks boek verdergaan en de tweede helft van de twintigste eeuw voor het voetlicht brengen. Naar alle waarschijnlijkheid kunnen we via radio en internet en podcast ook weer meegenieten, al hebben de nabeschouwers daar nauwelijks oog voor. De TV is het medium waar de historie gepopulariseerd ontsloten wordt. Maar wij blijven bij de podcast - ik heb buitengewoon genoten van de serie.

OVT's In Europa op dit blog:
1943 - Stalingrad,
1941 - Handlangers,
1940 - Heesters, Petain, Leopold achteraf,
1939 - Patriotten tot landverraders,
1938 - Hitler en Holocaust,
1936 - Spanje,
1933 - Fellow Travelers,
1929 - Goldene Zwanziger,
1925 - Mussolini,
1922 - Walther Rathenau,
1917 - Russische Revoluties,
1917 - Het oostfront,
1916 - Neutraal in de grote oorlog,
1915 - verliezen en doorgaan,
1914 - De derde Balkanoorlog,
1906 - Monarchen, Duitsland, revolutie en ballingschap,
Het begin (1900? 1901?).

Enlightenment and French Revolution

History 5 has proceeded past the mid-term exam and still I haven't caught up. so I'll give you a quick pointer to three lectures.

Lecture 11: The Enlightenment (audio, video)
The enlightenment as I recall it from my school times, was all about the shift in the philosophical and scientific outlook on life. This lecture adds to it how during the same time economic and political strength of Europe have increased to a level it changes outlook on the world no less. And where I thought Enlightenment was directly leading to democracy by means of the French revolution, this lecture shows the enlightened absolute monarchs Frederick of Prussia and Peter and Catherine in Russia.

Lecture 12: French revolution (audio, video)
France of course had already its absolutism with Louis XIV and his successors, but France inherited from this line also a deficit it couldn't handle without opening itself up to political change. Once the powers started shifting, it never stopped and the revolution spun right into the next.

Lecture 13: Napoleon (audio, video)
The chaos of the French revolution allowed the rise to power of a man, who would normally not even have been a Frenchman: Napoleone Buonoparte. Pictures of Napoleon, not only this one, but also in other podcasts, are always mixed. There is the tale on the heroic achievements, but there are also the failures and possibly the built in downfall. No matter what, Napoleon left a lasting mark on Europe.

More History 5:
Absolutism and Science,
Witches, plague, war and Hobbes,
Reformation,
Europe and 1492,
The making of Europe in 1453.

Happy Purim

This weekend we have been going about the neighborhood to celebrate Purim. The weather was hot, a sweltering hot befitting summer. In other years we were fighting cold and the occasional shower, but Purim is late this year.

The Celtic Myth Podshow #3

Bres the Beautiful figures in the third edition of the Celtic Myth Podshow. Unfortunately I cannot link to their site right now, as maintenance is being done. However, the show is still available through iTunes.

The tale of Bres the Beautiful is the third tale in the series that will deliver the whole Irish mythological cycle. After the gods and wars tales we have had so far, the story of Bres will touch upon another motif in story telling, the 'Vatersucher'. Why do I know this only in German? My Babylon dictionary couldn't hep me out here. Literally this is a fatherseeker. Bres doesn't know who his father is and at some point he is forced to find this out. And this may not be the kind of thing he wants to know. As goes with Vatersuchers until recent times. I was thinking of the character Johnny in a Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

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An additional thought on myths. It was a remark made on another podcast. In Our Time spoke of the Greek Myths and from that issue I took the understanding that myths were man's way of getting a grip on life, the world, the universe and so on. A thought experiment that doesn't draw explicit boundaries to divide science from metaphysics, philosophy from belief, history from fiction and religion from fantasy. A holistic, heuristic tool.

Previously on the Celtic Myth Podshow:
Let Battle Commence! - Celtic Myth Podshow #2,
The Celtic Myth Podshow - first review