The Great War in short - NBIH podcast review

Who is responsible for World War I starting? This question rose on the podcast New Books In History where Marshall Poe interviewed Norman Stone who has just written book about the Great War in the series of 'short histories about'.

Stone answers with the traditional answer 'Germany' and this surprised me a bit. This is what I learned in secondary school, but since I have mainly seen this idea nuanced. If one has harsh words for German diplomacy then there is enough to be said also about others. The consensus, so is my impression, has moved in the direction that the alliance systems that had come into being and the consecutive delicate balance of power made it sort of inevitable. Yet Stone cuts this short and points at Germany which had been vying for European domination for decades and had been planning this war in advance. When opportunity came, they were all to eager to cease, is his standpoint.

In comparison to what other podcasts, especially the lecture series of Berkeley (History 5), Stanford (History of the international system) and UCSD (Politics and Warfare), this verdict seems rather crude and I am not entirely convinced after all. However it is a point not to be taken lightly. It makes for a perspective on the history that is more military than political, but Stone's strong point appears to lie there. The way he explains the logistical complications of the modern size of warfare in WW1 was very clarifying. So after all, for all WW1 buffs, this is a podcast one must hear.

More NBIH:
How Rome Fell,
Glancing over the backlog,
Jews in the Russian army,
Who will write our history?,
Sentiments in International Relations.

Baxter Wood fellow blogger

A friendly blogger who has joined the scene of those who write about podcasts and on-line courses is Baxter Wood. While he drives his truck around the US he listens to what great educational audio content the net offers. He occasionally writes about it in his blog The re-education of Baxter Wood. In addition he is an active member in The Podcast Parlor the on-line community we have set up and where you are all invited to join and discuss the podcasts you like.

The regular media occasionally pick up on the new media trends and an American TV program about education through podcast had Baxter prominently featured.



Berkeley's courses by Hubert Dreyfus, who is interviewed on the program have also been reviewed here:
Nietzsche,
Philosophy 6,
Kierkegaard,
Hiroshima Mon Amour,
Philosophy 7 - Existentialism.

Why did Rome fall? NBIH

This edition of the podcast New Books In History should interest a lot of people. The amount of podcasts out there that busies itself with Roman History is tremendous. I have once made a summary post of Roman History Podcasts and this is one that receives a lot of hits till this day.

Marshal Poe spoke with the British historian Adrian Goldsworthy about his book: 'How Rome fell: Death of a Superpower'. At some point in the podcast Goldsworthy sums it up very concise: Rome came to the fall from within. It rotted down from the top. The leaders became so cossupt, so bad, that the system couldn't correct itself no longer and it collapsed into itself.

Poe thinks he recognizes this from the Soviet Union (Poe is a specialist in Russian history). When a leader is bad, he can be corrected by his surroundings, but when he becomes so cruel that he has removed the entourage of good helpers and anybody who wants to remonstrate can lose his head, the chain of command starts to believe in its own lies and steadily drives the whole system over the cliff. And there was some driving to do. Goldsworthy goes through great lengths to describe the volume of Rome's hegemony. In this the message already lies: nothing could bring down Rome but Rome.

The fashion today is to liken Rome to the US and Goldsworthy rejects this out of hand. The two are too different and the whole thinking style of parallels seems unfit in his opinion. Another thing to add is that it remains implicit where Rome falls. Goldsworthy seems to put this in 476 and I felt the question missing: what does it mean about the strength of the Roman Empire that Byzantium lived on for another 1000 years?

More Roman History:
Carthage (In Our Time and others),
The Punic Wars (Dan Carlin's hardcore History),
Tacitus (In Our Time),
German Cultural History,
Roman History in Podcasts.

More NBIH:
Glancing over the backlog,
Jews in the Russian army,
Who will write our history?,
Sentiments in International Relations,
Ronald Reagan.

Ersatz TV - german vodcast review

Annik Rubens, the podcast pioneer from Germany (Schlaflos in München) has moved on and embarked on a vodcast project that combines her understated humorist qualities with tv presentation on a series of programs with assorted subjects that are informative and entertaining at the same time. The freedom of new media gives this piece of TV a fresh, pointy and innovative feel that triggers a variety of thoughts on its name: Ersatz TV (feed, feed for iPod)

"Ersatz TV" suggests a supposed modesty, as if this vodcast is no real TV, just a replacement. Replacement, however, is what it might just become for the sheer quality of it, compared with regular TV. That, could be exactly the the ambition of this Ersatz-modesty. If it were up to me, let us have it. I have long lost interest in television, but this might just bring interest back. Kudos for Annik and cooperators Hartmut Grawe, Ralf Tritschler and Halle 5 Media.



Somebody does spiffy stuff like this in English, Hebrew or Dutch? I'd like to know. Until then: 'Ni hao bei Ersatz TV'. Stunning find, I tell you.

More Annik Rubens:
German Podcasts,
Schlaflos in München.

The hidden opinions of Harriet Beecher Stowe

A kind of dialog has evolved between Julie Davies of Forgotten Classics and myself. As Julie is reading Uncle Tom's Cabin on her show, we are exchanging thoughts on the issue of racism in this famous novel.

Until chapter 16 both Julie and myself have been struck by sentences that were sticking out of the text that made generalist remarks about blacks and that were quite demeaning. Julie has sort of taken on the position that Stowe, as a woman of her time, could not help herself from thinking along the lines of theories on racial traits and was not intentionally racist. In my previous review I have opposed this idea on account that these generalities neither fit in the story nor in the message of Uncle Tom and therefore take on a nagging racist motif.

Chapter 16 however, decidedly makes this much more complicated. Stowe lets loose a monologue by Marie St. Clare that expresses all the racism you could accuse her of and while this goes on it is so clear the writer makes a mockery of the speaker. In case this had escaped you, she closes off the chapter with explicitly stating her opinion. She positions herself, not just against slavery, but also explicitly against racism. This makes a strong point for Julie's view on the matter that the book is not racist. It makes however the ideas on racial traits rather problematic and especially Stowe's opinion on the issue remains hidden.

Together with great drama and sophisticated character positioning (with Marie, Ophelia and St. Clare) Stowe's novel takes us in and on the subject of race and equality she forces us to think. Even if her own answers are not so clear. Julie's choice to pick this book for her show turns out to be a fantastic one.

Picture: Title-page illustration by Hammatt Billings (wikimedia commons)

More Forgotten Classics:
The racism of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Uncle Tom's Cabin revisited,
Cooking with Forgotten Classics,
Forgotten Classics - podcast review.

Olga Zuiderhoek en Paul Rosenmoller

Om echt een heel goed interviewprogramma te zijn, zou KRO's voor 1 nacht wat meer lef moeten hebben. Sommige van de vragen die Marc Stakenburg stelt zijn te comfortabel voor de spreker. Regelmatig volgen er antwoorden die niet aangepakt worden. Steeds blijkt wel uit de reacties van Stakenburg dat hij goed geconcentreerd is en heel af en toe prikt hij wel een beetje, maar meer wordt het niet.

Zoals bijvoorbeeld in het gesprek met Olga Zuiderhoek, waarin hij een paar keer haar eigen uitspraken naar haar terugkaatst, of haar verrast met een vergelijking tussen het universum van de film Abel en het Assen waar Zuiderhoek opgegroeid is. Maar al snel verklaart hij: 'daar zal ik je niet langer mee lastig vallen,' en keert terug naar veilig terrein. Het maakt de interviews een beetje zelfgenoegzaam en het wordt gered door goede gasten die zich uit eigen beweging laten zien. Olga Zuiderhoek is er zo een, maar met een wat pittiger interview zouden we toch wat meer de onbekende Olga te zien kunnen krijgen, denk ik. En dan is het een gemiste kans.

Zo'n interviewflauwte is natuurlijk dodelijk met een gast die teveel schermen om zich heen heeft. In deze categorie vallen bij mij de politici en de komieken. Van het interview met Paul Rosenmöller verwachtte ik daarom niet zoveel en het is nogmaals dankzij de gast zelf dat het toch nog wat wordt. Rosenmöller gaat de moeilijkheden niet geheel uit de weg, maar Stakenburg laat hem wel de toon bepalen als het over Fortuin of Rosenmöllers verleden met fanatieke Marxisten gaat. Dat is dan ook een gemiste kans. En dan zwijg ik nog over de obligate muziekjes die in het programma gemonteerd worden en die regelmatig niets met het geprek te maken hebben.

Eerder over KRO's voor 1 nacht:
Gijs Wanders en Adjiedj Bakas,
Arnon Grunberg.