History since 1715 - UCLA lecture series

The University of California Los Angeles is like San Diego and Berkeley one of those few institutions that bring lectures as podcast each semester and allows us to download independent of iTunes. The UCLA courses come in a large variety of disciplines and many of them are also available on video.

The course I have started, and which has gone off with a good start, is History 1C - Western Civilization 1715-present (feed). As usual, the first lecture is full of administrative stuff that needs to be taken care off before the course can begin, but in stead of skipping this lecture (which is usually a food idea) I'd recommend to stick with it and get some thoughts about the use of words like West, Civilization and Modern.

I always knew you cannot call anything history without it being a history among many other valid ways of narration. Pinpointing any history as being about the West, about a Civilization and about Modern Times, necessarily also carries some political and historic implications, but I hadn't had it specified until now. It turns out that talking of the West, is something that in the US has not been done until WW1. In Europe, lecturer Lynn Hunt claims, this word is not used at all, although I feel this may change very rapidly now. At least in Israel we clearly think as The West being a cultural conglomerate of North-America and Europe which is to be differentiated from the East and the Islam world, although boundaries are not so clear (where does Japan go?). Calling it civilization and modern, demotes elsewhere and since when to a lesser position.

Despite nasty audio trouble, I stuck around for the second and third lecture, where the beginning of the era is tackled from the perspective of how ideas can affect history. We get the Enlightenment and th French Revolution to show this. I hope the audio will improve soon and then this is just the perfect course.

Sentiments in international relations - NBIH podcast review

New Books in History (NBIH) keeps me excited. Now I have listened to an interview with Robert Hendershot about his latest book Family Spats: Perception, Illusion and Sentimentality in the Anglo-American Special Relationship. Hendershot, in short, concludes that on a sentimental level the US and the UK feel connected and that this keeps the political relationship close, much rather than interests and concurrence in international policy.

Listening to the interview is simply fun. Marshall Poe is a very inspiring interviewer. He is genuinely excited about the book. He has insights in the subject, but makes sure that it is Hendershot who is talking. And talking he does. In a smooth and natural fashion we get from his background to the making of this book. It turns out he already had the feeling that the close relationship of the US with the Brits was more one of a cultural, perceived than of a political, established kind, but the point is: how do you prove such.

The US and the UK have had, at times, bad relationship from a political standpoint. Like for example in 1956 during the Suez Crisis. So how can you show that even then, the two countries feel connected and the storm will pass quickly? It just so happens that because of the Cold War the US government invested in research compiling statistical data about the people's perception of other nations, inside and outside the US. Hendershot had access to these archives and could stave his ideas with hard data.

More NBIH:
Samuel Kassow and the Warsaw Ghetto history,
Ronald Reagan,
Prokofiev,
Evolution, genetics and history,
Kees Boterbloem about Jan Struys.

Podcast summary review - clean up the desk

I have been listening to a lot of the regular podcasts that I follow and many of those I do not review all the time or did not find the strength to write about this time around. So, I decided to give you a quick overview of those good podcasts that went unmentioned in the past week or two.

BBC's In Our Time about Baconian Science. A great show that gave a nice addition to the Bacon I knew from my introduction to philosophy of science. Bacon the politician, the lawyer, the scheming unsympathetic character. As he appeared in one of those films about Queen Elizabeth. The Queen Elizabeth that was referred to in History 5 as: the Elizabeth that read Plato in Greek, not the one that reads Horse and Hound.

The Word Nerds about nostalgia. As charming and lovable the podcast is, I just didn't know what to write about this one. The Shepherd brothers sit in Chapel Hill and are being nostalgic. Yes.

Veertien Achttien about Pancho Villa. Villa is a character that ha everything for a historical podcast, but what does he do in a WW1 series? He gives some background understanding in which the Zimmermann Telegram can be framed. The Zimmermann Telegram deserves a podcast episode by itself, but about whom should the biography be? History is about people, but apparently not all history can be captured in human interest tales.

The Bitterest Pill went onto the Ocean to see dolphins and whales. Rain, sea sickness and the announcement that 'this is the time the dolphins sleep' give Dan Klas enough to rant about.

Volkis Stimme always cheers me up on Sunday morning when I make it to the office. Last time I laughed out loud. The murderous SMS text message and the friendly automated 911. 'What is the first letter of the city you call from?' Try and say H for Hamburg when you are choking. 'Augsburg?'

The New York Coffee Cup is about to finish Dave's visit to New York. I think Georgette is a spoiled brat. Anything that doesn't work out for her has her cry this is the worst day of her life. Why does Dave continue to feel the awkward father?

Oh, Forgotten Classics with the next installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin. In chapters 10 and 11 Harriet Beecher Stowe commits more racism. In addition, the heroes are so shining and the villains so evil. There is a crude mind set on which the novel is built, the quality must come from the drama.

Making History with Ran Levi announced the 50000th listener on an episode about the portable computer, 3d representation and pasta eating monkeys.

BBC's Thinking Allowed took on communism as religion and Stalin as the messiah - oh my god!

Crusades - Virginia Tech lecture series

Back to the podcasting professor from Virginia Tech Matthew Gabriele. He also coordinates public lecture series at VT that are supposed to be podcast in a podcast that I had reviewed before Medieval & Renaissance Studies Events (see Virginia Tech history podcast page). In March 2008 I wrote about the excellent and thought provoking lecture by Joseph Miller about the history of Africa. I was keeping an eye on the feed, but found nothing new.

By chance I ran into some parallel feeds. It just so turned out these podcast lectures are put in a separate feed for each semester. Hence, from the fall 2008 feed, I extracted a lecture that I had missed. Jay Rubinstein spoke about the first crusade and how the feats in this crusade had a formative impact on Europe. Godfrey of Bouillon managed to capture Jerusalem and became the first king in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a state that maintained its grip in the east for some 70 years. This feat captured the imagination of the west. It took on apocalyptic meaning and even if the dream of prophecies come true had to pass, it changed Europe. It brought unity and self-esteem into Christendom.

From the introduction is appears that Rubinstein's lecture is the second in a series that consists of a handful of lectures. Apparently they were not (successfully) recorded and so Rubinstein's is the only one available. Also in the spring 2009 feed there is but one lecture present. Soon I will be listening to that one as well.

More Virginia Tech:
Medieval Heroes in short, (no link available yet - expect update soon)
Thinking outside the European box,
Medieval Texts.

US History since 1877 - history podcast review

Another history podcast series by Gretchen Ann Reilly that is currently available is US History since 1877. Reilly's history podcast lecture series (there are at least four - on top of my head) are not always available. The feeds are up or down, apparently for reasons of bandwidth, but are always back up when the lecture series run again on Temple College. I also think I have noticed, they are frequently renewed.

US History since 1877 is a follow-up on the currently unavailable American History before 1870. Also this course is delivered in the Reilly recipe: monologue podcasts of fifteen minutes maximum at a very accessible level. When a subject demands more than fifteen minutes, she rounds off at fifteen minutes and proceeds in the next installment. And so she moves, chronologically and from subject to subject through the era. All you needed to know from the basics, properly framed in a thirty something podcast episodes.

I ran to the tail of this series to the Watergate part. Reilly starts with 'everything you ever wanted to know about Watergate' and that is exactly what I needed. She begins with Nixon's vice-presidency under Eisenhower and then moves through his political career until the downfall in 1973. Halfway she reaches Nixon's huge win in 1972. Then the break in into Watergate takes center stage. We learn of Creep and Plumbers and their covert activities. I was surprised how Reilly's narration has it that much was already getting uncovered, and official investigation was going on. The rope slowly tightened around Nixon's neck, but the news from the Washington Post is nearly lacking and the mysterious Deep Throat is omitted.

More Gretchen Ann Reilly:
The west since 1600,
Gretchen Reilly history podcasts,
American History before 1870.

Theodore Roosevelt - Gilder Lehrmann history podcast

The Gilder Lehrmann Institute for American History gave me an opportunity to learn something about a great American president, I did not know anything about. At the Gilder Lehrmann Podcast there was a lecture by Patrica O'Toole about him.

The lecture is about Theodore Roosevelt, but not so much about the 'TR' presidency, but rather about TR after his presidency. Had it been up to TR, it would have been about his life between his first and second presidency. In 1912 he still wanted to run, but the Republican candidacy went to President Taft. Taft was ill and had his doctor's advice not to run been relayed to him, Taft might have stepped down and Roosevelt would have had a good chance to win as a Republican. Eventually he ran on a new party of his own and lost to Taft and the new President Wilson. But that is besides the point.

TR rises from the lecture as a kind of aristocrat and in addition, a man of great intellectual and physical prowess. He wrote widely and traveled similarly, with a preference to the wild of regions like the Amazon and Africa. Moreover, TR remained politically active and even if he did not make it back into the Oval Office, O'Toole claims TR remained influential until his death in 1919.

More Gilder Lehrmann:
Slave Culture.