How about a new look and feel?

I am toying with the idea of changing the look of this blog. The current template has been in use for a year and a half and it wears me out a bit. I am considering changing back to a standard blogger template for some technical reasons. One of them is the issue of maintenance. The current template is not supported and had to be intensively redone in order to serve my needs.

Now that Blogger templates are offering the functionality I want, I would love to shed the skin I knew wouldn't last forever. Here is an idea what the next look might be. If you find the top navigation bar missing, it sits here on the right, but will move to the top. I would love to hear your feedback.

Anne

9 podcasts I enjoyed and cannot all review extensively

Over the past week or two I have accumulated such a long list of podcasts that I have listened to and are candidates for reviewing that I cannot simply spend a post on each of them. Hence, I took nine of them and pack them here together.

Letters and Science 140D (feed), The history and practice of human rights (Berkeley) - I have started this course with great interest. Not only does it give a much broader view on human rights that I have been used to (I remind you I studied and taught law at some point in my life), but it is also a very pleasant renewed encounter with Thomas Laqueur as a lecturer. For a more extensive review I kindly refer you to my colleague DIY Scholar.

Science and the City (NYAS) about the Silk Road - this short science podcast takes us to an exhibit about the Silk Road and its history. In 18 minutes you will not get more than a tip of the iceberg. The subject that struck me most was the description of one of the cities on the central cross roads (the east-west and the north-south connections) Turfan.

Exploring Environmental History - Jan Oosthoek interviewed Vimbai Kwashirai, Lecturer in African History at Durham University, about the debates and processes of woodland exploitation in Zimbabwe during the colonial period (1890-1980).

In Our Time (BBC) - Delved into the Glencoe Massacre in 1692. A sample of war time atrocities.

The Memory Palace - Once again Nate DiMeo knows to capture history, insight and human drama in five minutes of historic narrative.

LSE Podcast - Professor Mark Mazower lectures and answers questions about Europe after the European Age. After it has ruled the world for a couple of centuries, is the old continent on its way to become a backwater again? Or is it reinventing itself and will it continue to play its part on the world stage? History and geopolitics as you can find it frequently at the London School of Econonmics, take for example the last lecture I reviewed about China, the future hegemon.

Podularity - George Miller interviews Stephen Asma on his book On Monsters. This is not about monsters, it is about human fears.

Veertien Achttien - The outstanding Dutch podcast about The Great War, which talked about Henri Barbusse that French writer, who condemned the war in his famous Le Feu and the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio who is portrayed as an early version of Mussolini.

Making History with Ran Levi (עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי) - The most entertaining way I have ever been told the history of the internet. Podcast in Hebrew.

Three New Books In History - NBIH

A podcast that I do not miss an episode from is New Books in History (which I have been abbreviating as NBIH, but I saw the maker uses NBH). Each week there is an hour long interview with the author of a new book, in history of course. The host and interviewer, historian Marshall Poe, invariably has read the book and then conducts an interview that is very well tailored to book, subject as well as author. Every week this allows you to get a good insight in some subject of history.

Here are the three latest issues, each of which are definitely worth a listen:

Julian E. Zelizer, “Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security From WWII to the War on Terrorism” - In this interview Marshall Poe prompts Zelizer to take us through all of the recent wars the US was involved in, from Korea to Iraq and let him explain how the internal politics of the US influenced the decision of the President and his government to enter the war. Much to Poe's surprise, without exception, the President got into the war he wanted to get into. There was always some weighing of the power balance between Republicans and Democrats that, if not forced his hand, strongly influenced the move. It reminded me of Henry Kissinger's line about Israeli politics: Israel has no foreign policy, there is only internal policy. Apparently he did not have to look for to get that idea.

Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, “Natural Experiments of History” - Although the book was edited not by Jared Diamond alone, the guest on the show is Jared Diamond only. Although there is ample talk of what is meant with Natural Experiments and some examples are discussed, the most interesting part of the interview dwells on another subject. Diamond and Poe get to discuss and criticize the current state of affairs in academia as far as the discipline of history is concerned. History is completely compartmentalized. Historians delve solely into one niche subject and stick to one research method - reading primary sources. According to Diamond this is unfortunate and he argues how history could be enriched with broadening subjects, getting historians out of their small fields and have them apply methods of social sciences together with reliance on primary sources.

Alan E. Steinweis, “Kristallnacht 1938″ - While NBIH comes out weekly on the beat, somehow it delivered two episodes this week with a mere two or three day difference. And so we could enjoy a most informative interview with Allan Steinweis about the Kristallnacht. We learn how fine and gradual the distinction were from an organized to a spontaneous pogrom. And this is all set in a historical perspective of the deteriorating position of the Jews since 1933, of a Nazi regime that was all set for this deterioration, but was also aware of its international position and had ample reason to keep the simmering pogroms in check and in the perspective of an incident two days earlier in Paris. At the German embassy a Polish Jew shot a German diplomat and although the whole affair was clearly the doings of an individual, it fitted so neatly with the widely adopted idea of a Jewish conspiracy that it could bring the simmering pogrom to burst.

More NBIH:
The fourth part of the world,
How the Soviet system imploded,
Vietnam War perspectives,
1989 - Padraic Kenney,
The Ossie twilight.

Magnificent Devil - Norman Centuries

While I am listening to UCSD's series about the Byzantine Empire and reading Lars Brownworth's book Lost to the West which can out of his previous podcast series 12 Byzantine Rulers, Lars is continuing his new series Norman Centuries.

Lars has a knack for telling stories. Granted, the Normans are giving him plenty juicy stuff to report about, with their upstart leaders and audacious politicking in Medieval France, but his soothing calm voice and gentle use of language make it an ironic treat. A fine example of such irony is to be found in the fourth episode Magnificent Devil, about Robert I, Duke of Normandy. Robert brazen and risky strive for power earned him the nickname Magnificent Devil, yet his success allow him to safely settle to power and even acquire dignity.

I am looking forward to the next episode, which will be about William the Conqueror, Robert's son. At the current speed at which the episodes come out, it will take a couple of weeks and I will have time to finish Lars's book. As to the book; I have not yet compared the chapters with the text of the Byzantine podcast, but I intend to do that and report to you how close the two products are.

More Norman Centuries:
Richard the Fearless,
Norman Centuries - Lars is back!.

Famous voices at Volkis Stimme

When I last wrote about Volkis Stimme, I already had a feeling the podcast was undergoing a renewal and the way it has begun 2010 certain confirms that impression. In stead of the regular news satire, Volker Klärchen brought us two shows which covered an interview with voice over artist Oliver Rohrbeck. (Oliver Rohrbeck, Teil 1; Oliver Rohrbeck, Teil 2)

Oliver Rohrbeck appeared in many audio plays (for Germans Justus Jonas from Die drei Fragezeichen is very prominent) as well as gave his voice in synchronization to many famous characters in American films and TV series. The result is that his voice is very famous, but his face (or his person) is not. To have one like him on a podcast show is obviously very befitting. And Volker Klärchen proves to be an engaged, enthusiastic and pleasant interviewer, resulting in a fascinating double show.

It was the profound difference between Dutch and German TV, when I grew up, that foreign productions on German TV were synchronized, whereas Dutch TV would bring them with subtitles. The dubbing therefore was no serious industry in Holland, but it was, obviously, in Germany. Consequently, talents such as Rohrbeck's could flourish. We Dutch used to look down upon the synchronization, but through the interview I have come to understand the complexity and artistry in it as well as the thoroughness and seriousness with which this was regularly done. For example, Rohrbeck did the voice of Michael the older brother of Elliott in ET. When ET was rerun with a new cut and additional scenes had to be dubbed. Rohrbeck tells how he was involved in making these new scenes fit with he previous contribution.

More Volkis Stimme:
Advent at Volkis Stimme,
Geburtstag,
Quick recommendation,
Angela Merkel (Angie) in Volkis Stimme,
Volkis Stimme - German podcast review.

Podcasts on Medieval History

I have reported on so many podcasts in the realm of history that I have deemed it necessary to take my history directory and order it into subdivisions. There will be subdivisions into eras, into regions and into themes, to whatever extent the division is useful, accepting the overlap and holes that remain - just to cut up an unwieldy list of over 130 podcasts into reasonable chunks.

The first subset I created was Ancient History.

Here is the second: Podcasts on Medieval History. Strictly, this should go between 500 and 1500 CE, but, to give you one example, you will find here podcasts about Byzantine history, which start earlier. The idea is to incorporate narratives that, irrespective of their starting point, have their main importance in the pre-1500 age. Again it needs to be pointed out that there are general history podcasts that have offered great content about stuff from the Middle Ages, yet will not be here because they give so much else as well.

12 Byzantine Rulers, (review, site, feed).
Sixteen monologues covering the history of the Byzantine Empire from the 8th century to its fall in 1453 and beyond.

All Things Medieval, (review, site, feed)
Podcast on whatever is related to the late Middle Ages - not just dry history.

Ancient and Medieval Podcast, (review, site, feed).
7 charming episodes with befitting music, travel tips (accounts of relevant excursions the hosts did themselves) and more. I especially liked the issues about Robin Hood (Robyn Hode), Charlemagne and Beowulf.

Church History, (review, site, feed)
Denominational history of the medieval Christian Church

German Cultural History  (review, site, feed)
fascinating musings about Medieval German Culture and its earliest roots.

Geschichtspodcast (Chronico) (review, site, feed)
Promotional podcast of Chronico Magazine (German) with general focus on the era from little before until little after the Middle Ages (German Language podcast)

History 2311, (review, site, feed).
The history of Western Civilization up to 1600, by Gretchen Ann Reilly, also known from the podcast American History before 1870. This is a quality monologue style podcast in 15 minute editions. The entry level is high school / college.

HUM 4104 (Virginia Tech) (review, site, feed)
Professor Matthew Gabriele's podcast that accompanies a lecture series about Medieval Heroes. The podcast gives very brief guidance to the texts about the heroes.

Islamic Medicine (review , site, feed)
The University of Warwick's series by Professor Peter Pormann about the Medieval Medicine as it was received from the Greeks, influenced by other cultures and preserved in the Islam world, before it was received by the West.

Medieval & Renaissance Studies Events (Fall 2008), (Virginia Tech) (review, site, feed)
Virginia Tech's lecture series about the Crusades. As far as I can see only one of the lectures is available on podcast.

Medieval & Renaissance Studies Events (Spring 2008), (Virginia Tech) (review, site, feed).
A podcast series with public lectures held at Virginia Tech on historical subjects.

Medieval Podcast, (review, site, feed).
Podfaded show featuring several issues about England in medieval times and about monasticism.

MMW 3, the medieval heritage (Chamberlain) (review, site, feed)
A history lecture series explaining the middle ages mostly from the perspective of religions.

MMW 3, the medieval heritage (Herbst) (review, site, feed)
A parallel series choosing a more traditional perspective, but exceptionally good no less.

Norman Centuries (review, site, feed)
The comeback of history podcast veteran Lars Brownworth. This series will tell us the history of the Normans.

Podcasts on Medieval Texts, (review, site, feed).
Short introductions to certain specific medieval texts like Beowulf and the Malleus Maleficarum. The same series is on iTunes U, Virginia Tech, under the title HUM 1214 - Spring 2008.

Pope Podcast (review, site, feed)
A one by one, pope by pope history of the papacy.

Skythen-Podcast (review, site, feed)
Very extensive promotional podcast for an exhibition on the Scythians. (German Language)

Tudorcast, (review, site, feed).
The approach host Lara Eakins takes, is to bring out a monthly podcast and relate to the listener various tidbits of the history connected to the specific month we are in. She takes from original sources and brings us to the finest details of the history.