Dan Carlin's Punic Nightmares II

In the second episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History about the Punic Wars, the dramatic height (or low, depending on your perspective) is reached. The mostly seafaring nation of the Carthaginians have made it into the heartland of Italy and threaten Rome from its backyard, over land.

The general that got the army there is the famous Hannibal and it is of course his legendary trek over the Alps that landed him in the north of Italy. Dan Carlin kicks off where Hannibal has just finished the passage. This marvelous achievement is a mixed bag after all. The crossing has cost Hannibal half of his army and his supply lines are too long to be considerable at all and his army is exhausted. The general keeps his army going though, manages to reinforce and to beat the Romans over and over again in battle.

Carlin's achievement in the retelling lies in this, that he manages to alleviate the battle chronicles from an expose of data, of strategy and tactics, of military and political struggle into a veritable drama. It is the trademark of his podcast and he gets better at it with every installment. He brings the history to life. He positions the listener onto the battle field and succeeds in delivering some of the experience. It is only then that we come to truly appreciate how precarious Hannibal's position was, how desperate the Romans were about this rogue army in their lands, how cunning the maneuvers were and how intensive and frightening the fighting was.

More Dan Carlin:
Punic Nightmares I,
Under the Influence,
Apaches,
Assyrians,
and Dan Carlin praises Anne is a Man!

Weddigen - veertien achttien recensie

In de laatste aflevering van Veertien Achttien behandelt Tom Tacken de duikbotenoorlog. De aanleiding is de biografie over Otto Weddigen, de duikbootkapitein die in September 1914, voor Hoek van Holland nog wel, drie Britse kruisers keldert, maar het gaat vooral over de duikboten en hun effect in de Eerste Wereldoorlog.

Het fenomeen duikboot was niet nieuw, maar voor het eerst werd er militair gewicht in de schaal gelegd door het onzichtbare vaartuig. Het zijn vooral de Duitsers die er gebruik van maken. Het idee is om Engeland te isoleren en om neutraliteit, van bijvoorbeeld Nederland, tegen te gaan. Tacken legt uit waarom het allemaal toch geen succes heeft opgeleverd.

Halverwege begon ik me af te vragen, waarom Kapitein Weddigen eigenlijk in het verhaal was gehaald. Behalve een kanttekening aan het begin, speelde hij geen rol. Maar dan komt het slot van Tackens verhaal. In 1935 laten de Nazis weer een duikbotenserie scheep gaan en deze krijgen de naam Weddigen (niet Weddingen zoals elders gespeld), ter ere van de kapitein. En zo zit andermaal in Tackens verhaal een zorgvuldige compositie. Hij is een van de zeer zeldzame podcasters die de geschiedenis op zo'n effectieve wijze weet te condenseren. De juiste mix van feiten en samenhangen.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Helmut Von Moltke,
Joseph Gallieni,
Alexander von Kluck,
Alexander Samsonov,
Dicke Bertha; Bertha Krupp.

Tuvshin - ode to a fellow blogger

As a blogger you thrive on feedback and since there is usually none, you understand your quality from links. In my early days as a blogger, when I received no feedback mail and no comments, suddenly there was a link. Someone who decided to link to my blog. The first one in cyberspace to recognize the existence of Anne is a man!

That first link came from Tuvshin of Tuvshin's Web Log. A blogger who simply listed my blog among his links in the sidebar. Podcast reviews it says plainly and so it does until this day. I suppose you need to be blogger or one with a fledgling web site to understand the excitement about your first link. I was all the more excited when I saw who linked: a student from Mongolia.

Tuvshin's blog is largely in Mongolian, so there is very little I could find out about him. He might be studying abroad for all I know. Nevertheless, it shows the globalized character of  cyberspace, that is was a Mongolian student, who was the first to detect a a blog by a Dutch, Israeli about mostly American podcasts.

Also referring to my blog:
George Hageman (Military History Podcast),
Professor Charles Lipson (University of Chicago)

Military History Podcast review

The Military History Podcast started off in 2005 as a high school kid, George Hageman, taking on the rising medium of podcast, decided to relate about his interest in military history. By now, podcasting has developed into a more diverse medium and the kid has graduated and is off to Harvard. His podcast, however, remains to exist.



Hageman maintained his old style format of reading a scripted monologue, even after 120 episodes spread over three years. I have listened to at least a dozen of them and reviewed the podcast in June last year and this review has made it to the podcast's homepage as a permanent link, back to my blog. This was one of the first links to my blog (though not the first - which is a story in itself). My view of the podcast, also after repeated listening has not changed. As monologue podcasts go, they are not the easiest to stick to, but if the information delivered, suits your interest, the podcast is good. That, no more and no less, is the merit of Hageman's podcast.



Some of the scripts are written by guest authors and whether by Hageman or others, the scripts invariably are read in about 20 minutes and relate the data of the subject at hand. On occasion, we are treated with Hageman's opinion, which most recently happened in the dual episode about the philosophy of war. (One and Two). He treats Sun Tzu, Von Clausewitz, Machiavelli and Hobbes among others. Even in these opinionated issues, Hageman is more eclectic, summing up what is to be known (in this case what has been said) rather than taking a strong opinion of himself.



More Military History,

The battle of Britain (Binge Thinking),

Hannibal (Stanford),

History Network,

The Military History Podcast.



Also referring to my blog:

Professor Charles Lipson (University of Chicago)

Real Talk: conversation overheard - podcast review

Nick and Dan are friends and room mates and they record their conversations for podcast. They call it Real Talk and this is exactly what it is: virtually unedited, more or less natural conversation, therefore real talk. A changing crew of friends and acquaintances join in for the show, but Dan and Nick (mostly Nick) are the driving force. They discuss, what you may assume any group of adolescents will discuss. The question is, however, is it worthwhile to listen in? How valuable is the unstructured, unfounded, often bad mouthed conversation? If you don't want to admit to the joys of eavesdropping, you will need a good excuse and I can think of two.

For one there is the anthropology angle. The podcast allows insight in what occupies the minds of these young men (mostly men) and moreover, how they relate to each other. The conversations can be seen as an exercise of their friendship. The very fact that it is recorded and put on-line adds a delicate, but deliberate, therefore arguably ritual, dimension. It is interesting to observe this effect, together with especially Nick's incessant efforts to verbalize the relationships. There is also a very barely successful integration in larger society to be observed and one may interpret a large part of what is to be heard as a struggle with the ongoing initiation into adult life.

Secondly one can take the psychology angle and observe the participant's struggle with their insecurities; about money, sex, relationships, work, substance use and not in the last place about their relationship with each other. They are aware of their lack of achievement, but they seem to be far from finding a way around it. They are entangled in acquiring identity, meaning to their lives and stability in relationships. The decision to record and publish their talks demand a sound psychological explanation. Is it a plea for help? For confirmation? Is it a power struggle? A game of dare? Or...?

Then again, it takes a voyeur to make a good anthropologist and psychologist.

Jonathan Haidt at TED

Here is a talk on TED by Jonathan Haidt about morality. His angle is to analyze what morality is in our psychology. He differentiates the moral template in our minds to five different values and here goes something to think about.



We have met Jonathan Haidt on this blog before, where he was interviewed on the podcast Shrink Rap Radio and came with similar refreshing ideas about happiness.

More TED
Lennart Green,
Benjamin Zander,
Jill Bolte Taylor,
Karen Armstrong,
Ben Dunlap. (highly recommended)

More Shrink Rap Radio:
Dana Houck, Prison Psychologist,
The humane working place,
Nirvana and the Brain,
Psychoanalysis - Shrink Rap radio review,
Conscious Living.