Podcast reviews in the coming hours and days

Within 12 hours: 12 Byzantine Rulers
Hey,
you thought this podcast was finished? So did I. But it threw yet another conclusion at us. AND the news: Lars is writing a book based on 12 Byzantine Rulers (to be published in 2009) AND he will start a new podcast series!

Within 24 hours: The Writing Show (Getting Published with Mark Leslie)

In the coming days:
- Simek interviews Lucie Stepanova
- Philosophy Bites (Free Riders)
- Open Source (After the Empire: Must Reading from Parag Khanna)
- UChannel Podcast (one of three: A Conversation with Alan Johnston; The Encounter of Islam with Europe; The Economics of Climate Change: Risk, Ethics, and a Global Deal.
Do you readers have a preference? Comment or send mail...)

This month: A new podcast directory to be added, Geography Podcasts.

New podcasts on trial:
Historypod
Chronicles Radio Dispatches
Distillations
The Biography Podcast
Africa Past and Present

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18th Century Warfare - Historyzine

The Historyzine podcast is presented in a very enthusiastic manner, so much so, it becomes contagious. Had I never given the War of the Spanish Succession a second thought before, Historyzine has effectively made me start to do so. As a nice addition, the latest edition of the podcast has given a plug to this blog of podcast reviews.

Apart from attention to the Spanish Succession War, Historyzine offers reviews of other history podcasts, of relevant websites and in principle also an excursion into the history of a certain word or phrase. In the latest edition this has been omitted though. Host Jim Mowatt has his standards and he was not sufficiently satisfied with the projected item and chose to leave it out.

As to the main subject, he leaves the narrative of the war and makes a side step to discuss warfare in the eighteenth century. He explains how the technological developments till that era had affected warfare such that the scale and the price had gone up considerably. Consequently the character of warfare changed dramatically and Mowatt even tries to make a point this is where modern warfare begins as opposed to in the Napoleonic era. Great content, great analysis and effectively illustrated. This is a history podcast that is here to stay.

More references to Historyzine:
Spanish Succession and History Podcasts,
Librivox - History of Holland,
Quick History Podcasts,
TPN - Napoleon 1O1.

Humanism - Philosophy Bites

David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton invited on their podcast Richard Norman to speak about Humanism. As usual, and it never ceases to amaze me, they manage to get so much clearly explained in ten minutes.

Humanism is defined as the 'belief (?) of living a good life without religion' and this would gather atheists together with agnostics. The human and human values are set to measure the good life. Good meaning rewarding as well as moral. Norman is very effective in showing the various angles of this starting point. David Edmonds's excellent questioning adds to the experience.

A great question Edmonds poses is about the strength of religious traditions to deal with key moments in life such as birth, marriage and death. Norman presents a personal example, to show how humanists offer the same an possibly more personally meaningful. However, he doesn't side with the ardent atheists such as Richard Dawkins . The problem with ideological atheists in Norman's mind are the necessary element of respect in the discourse, even if it is hard to have respect for believers, because respect is essential to dialog. In addition, one cannot lump all the believers together as if there is no significant difference between the Islamist suicide bomber or the naive Christian creationist and the many intelligent and sincere believers who try to put their beliefs into practice in order to serve humanity and make the world a better place.

More Philosophy Bites:
Is war innate?
Wittgenstein,
Friendship,
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism.

More podcast reviews in the making

Within 12 hours: Philosophy Bites (Humanism)

Within 24 hours: Historyzine 006 with among others a comment about Anne is a Man:

a site simply jammed full of history podcast reviews

In the coming days:
- Simek interviews Lucie Stepanova
- Philosophy Bites (Free Riders)
- The Writing Show (getting Published with Mark Leslie)

This month: A new podcast directory to be added, Geography Podcasts.

New podcasts on trial:
Historypod
Chronicles Radio Dispatches
Distillations
The Biography Podcast
Africa Past and Present

Subscribe in a reader

Paste the link
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Anne_Is_A_Man
into the RSS reader of your preference.

You can let your preferences know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: annefriddevries AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

Van patriotten tot landverraders - OVT

Volgens de aankondiging zou aflevering 14 van OVT in het spoor van In Europa gaan over 1939 met de dubbeltitel Duitsland - Erfzonden. Wat daar op de radio (en de podcast) van overblijft zijn alleen de erfzonden. Er wordt gesproken met Chris van der Heijden en Helmert Woudenberg over foute ouders en daarmee gaat het over Nederland, niet Duitsland en behalve over 1939 ook over de afrekening na 1945. Erfzonden, is het enige steekwoord dat overblijft.

Chris van der Heijden is een historicus en probeert een beetje binnen het kader van het programma te blijven. Helmert Woudenberg doet dat ook, maar brengt ook zijn persoonlijke ervaringen mee. Daarvoor is de tijd te kort, maar gelukkig kon ik het allemaal goed plaatsen omdat ik hem al in een twee uur durend interview met Martin Simek had gehoord. (MP3 eerste uur, MP3 tweede uur)

Presentatoren Jos Palm en Matthijs Deen halen een scherpe tegenstelling naar boven, al raakt die een beetje ondergesneeuwd: De landverraders van 1946 beschouwen zichzelf in 1939 als goede Nederlanders, als oprechte patriotten. Er wordt een fragment van NSB voorman Woudenberg (grootvader van Helmert) afgespeeld. Het is een toespraak uit 1941, waarbij hij voorman wordt van de algemene vakbond en zich laat voorstaan op zijn patriottisme. De draai die hij aan Nederlanderschap geeft is een mengeling van ideologie en pragmatisme. De bezetting heet een nieuwe orde en impliciet wordt die orde verwelkomd als goed voor het land. Dit is nog maar het begin van nadenken over fout zijn in de oorlog.

Eerdere besprekingen van OVT in dit blog:
1925 - Mussolini,
1929 - Goldene Zwanziger,
1933 - Fellow Travelers.
1936 - Spanje,
1938 - Hitler en Holocaust.

Reformation - History 5

The 5th and 6th lecture of History 5 pay attention to the Reformation. For anybody who is interested in this subject, these two lectures can be followed separate from the whole of the series.

One of the major questions to be presented is why the Reformation succeeded, or in other words, why what starts out as a theological dispute and a set of criticism on the policies of the Church of Rome, turns into a schism. What could have meant a change inside the church or could have been shoved aside as heresy, develops into a full blown revolution. Previous critics of the Church like Jan Hus and Girolamo Savonarola had been easily dealt with (executed) and those are only the named ones.

Professor Anderson shows how the situation with Marten Luther was significantly different. How geo-politics took his dispute with Rome and turned it into a movement and made not only a Church but also a different political map in Europe. From my own history lessons I remember how the newly risen printing press added to the spread of Luther's ideas, but Anderson gives a new angle to that phenomenon: the whole discourse was economically interesting for printers. Have a heated discussion and people from both camps want to have their pamphlets printed. Great insights in European and World history.

More History 5:
Europe and 1492,
The making of Europe in 1453,
From the Renaissance Until Today,
Agricultural revolution first,
The genitals of Christ: Anne asks and then Anderson replies.