The Memory Palace - history narration

History is not only about facts, it is also about narrative. And so, history podcasts, no matter how many facts they need to relate to, they must forge them into a narrative. Narration, in turn, is an art. There are narration podcasts such as the fictional podcasts Namaste Stories, 7th Son and New World Orders, or like podcasts that retell existing tales such as the Celtic Myth Podshow and Forgotten Classics and there are narration podcasts that apply narration in a particularly artistic way to history. One such podcast is the podfaded Your History Pocast and another one I just discovered: The Memory Palace (feed).

Host Nate DiMeo has a wonderful voice and style for this purpose. Soft, warm and slightly flat, that gives for a humane and modest atmosphere which allows for the history to get the greatest impact. You know the story that is being told is history, is true and so the mode of telling needs no added emphasis or dramatization to let the story's effect come through. DiMeo seems to understand this very well and the result is fantastic.

These episodes come out rather irregularly; one or two per month. They are very short, less than five minutes each. As off episode #7, a series has started about bad jobs. DiMeo describes the life of a nine year old that works in a mine in Pennsylvania in the nineteenth century as the first bad job. He makes a request to his listeners for more examples. This is an excellent podcast and I am eager to find out what comes next.

Blood - Making History with Ran Levi

The Hebrew podcast Making History with Ran Levi took up the subject of blood. As it goes with a history of science podcast, step by step we learn how the secrets of the blood were unraveled and also how the blood actually works.

What is particularly attractive to this podcast is its very Israeli nature. Ran Levi relates every subject, no matter how serious and heavy-minded with a tad of irony, with quips, puns and witty side remarks. It makes the show intelligent, serious and at the same time fast-paced, sharp and not taking itself too seriously.

More Making History:
Myths and pseudo-knowledge,
What goes up, must come down,
Douglas Adams,
Sophie Germain,
Max Planck.

Nilpod - Nick and Wil talk, we listen

In the world of podcasts there are many personal story podcasts, just as there are personal story blogs. The additional option with podcast, however, is to have a personal conversation recording that is shared with the world. On the report a podcast page a new podcast of that kind was submitted for review: Nilpod (feed).

Nilpod is made by two Irishmen Nicky Coghlan and Wil McDermott who merged their first names into nil, added to pod. This name suggests what you actually get: Nick and Wil talking, talking about anything that they would normally talk about, as if they were sitting in the pub or driving together on a boring journey. In order to force a little bit more structure, they have questions prepared they can ask each other to keep the talk going and over the episodes these questions have begun to stick to a theme. And so we have had conversations about fashion, about religion, about holidays and more.

I have reviewed a conversation podcast before, Real Talk and what goes there, goes for Nilpod as well. It is funny, it is relaxed, but how long can this go on? I was pretty much saturated after one episode and a half. How long can you stay interested in someone you do not know? If it is not very sharp wit that will keep you in, it must be the embarrassment factor; will they become confrontational or divulge sensitive data? Furthermore, how long can Wil and Nick put up with this? As far as I can see Real Talk is discontinued and if Nilpod is not going to be very creative in innovating itself, I guess it is probably going to wear off very fast, for the listeners as well as the makers.

HH Asquith - veertien achttien podcast recensie

De podcast Veertien Achttien vertelt het verhaal van de Eerste Wereldoorlog in biografieën. Elke biografie is niet alleen het verhaal van een persoon die de oorlog meemaakte, maar ook een weergave van een bepaald aspect van de oorlog. Zoals zo vaak, het unieke heeft ook altijd universele waarde. Het is echter niet altijd voorspelbaar welk uniek onderdeel universaliteit bezit.

Als de laatste aflevering begint en je begrijpt dat de hoofdrolspeler deze keer de Engelse premier H.H. Asquith is, dan ligt het voor de hand te denken dat de lotgevallen van deze politicus, een representatie zijn om het politieke verhaal van WO 1 te ontdekken, maar dat blijkt slechts ten dele waar. Natuurlijk is Asquith niet de enige grote politicus van voor de oorlog die tijdens de oorlog zijn reputatie niet waarmaakt. Wellicht is de versplintering van Asquith's liberale partij een weergave van waar de politieke tegenstellingen na de oorlog heengaan. En het is natuurlijk altijd intrigerend om te vernemen over Asquith's penvriendinnen.

Waarin het verhaal van Asquith echter universeel is, is naar mijn mening in het persoonlijk onheil dat hem treft: een van zijn zoons sneuvelt in de oorlog. En met zo vele andere elite-persoonlijkheden, generaals, ministers enzovoort, deelt hij het lot van de gewone families in deze oorlog: iedereen verliest zijn zonen aan het front. En Asquith lijdt eronder zoals menig ander vader. Luister naar de podcast om te vernemen hoe Asquith zijn verdriet verwoordt.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Anton Kröller,
Rosa Luxemburg,
Marie Curie,
August von Mackensen,
Franz Hipper.

Lakhdar Brahimi about Afghanistan and Iraq - UChannel podcast

A talk that I missed on LSE, made it through UChannel Podcast to my iPod. Former UN envoy and advisor Lakhdar Brahimi answered assorted questions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan describing how difficult the UN position is there and how bad the wars have been to both countries.

Brahimi's tales are a sad lot and point rather repeatedly at the US as the villain that undermines the UN, makes war for the wrong reasons, with the wrong methods and, of course, disseminating the wrong information. Brahimi reminds us naturally of the WMD allegation with regards to Iraq, but less known and therefore more interesting is his evaluation of the Taliban. They come out much less as the crooks the US representation made them to be.

Brahimi himself comes out as the unfortunate diplomat and the one with the eye on the ball, but during the questions from the audience, he is severely attacked by one of the listeners. It is a pity the man loses it, because this allows Brahimi to evade the implied question. It illustrates what Brahimi identifies as the biggest problem of all: the UN is losing its credibility. Once the UN will no longer be perceived as the representative of supranational order, but rather a tool in the box of empires, its missions will become impossible and the UN will become a target of violence, like in the Algiers bombing in August 2003.

More UChannel Podcast:
Europe versus Islam,
Power of Cities,
Gaza (Tony Blair),
Whither the Middle East,
Kafka comes to America.

Lies, Truths and Jan Struys - New Books in History podcast review

Thanks to Marje's History Podcast Favorites I have discovered a very good new History Podcast: New Books In History (feed). NBIH is an interview podcast - rare among history podcasts - in which historian Marshall Poe interviews fellow historians about their latest book. This allows for an in depth entry into the historic subject at hand and also for some insight in historiography.

The first interview I decided to listen to, I chose because of the name of the guest: Kees Boterbloem. As I expected this historian is indeed a Dutchman. He was a specialist in Soviet history, but gradually developed towards Russian history in a much wider spectrum. This career has brought him to Canada and afterwards to the US. He speaks about his latest book The Fiction and Reality of Jan Struys. A Seventeenth-Century Dutch Globetrotter. Jan Struys traveled in during his lifetime around the continent of Eurasia, mostly in Russia and wrote a book, which earned him a nice fortune, even if serious doubt has been cast upon the veracity of his tales.

Struys's book was translated into English and French and eventually also Russian which version remained read with interest in spite of the questionable nature of the stories. Apparently Boterbloem assumes there is enough truth in Struys's tales and spends a large part of the interview telling what in his opinion was Struys's history. As to the value of the book, he explains mostly the Russian interest: one in the reception of Russia in the west. In addition to that it fascinated me how the 17th century was already a globalized world and a man like Struys from the lowly villages near Amsterdam, made it to serving the Genoese, the Muscovites, the Danes and on and on and had business from the Baltic to Persia, back to the West. I am off to hear more podcasts in this series - this can prove to be really, really good.