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.

Medieval Heroes in short - HUM 4104 Virginia Tech

Professor Matthew Gabriele from Virginia Tech is using podcast as a supplement to his lectures. This is different from many other university podcasts, where the podcast is the lecture. Gabriele offers help with the reading on the podcast. Consequently, the non-student listener, such as us, is a bit shut out, but still some value can be had.

Take the course about heroes (HUM 4104 - see Virginia Tech history podcast page). Each podcast prepares for the reading about another hero or two. Beowulf, Boniface, Lancelot - aren't those the characters you had always wanted to know more about. Gabriele is giving that and more heroes, but only a bit. From there you will have to take the reading yourself or find your way to Virginia.

Still, what I like about this podcast series is that the issues are short. Each one under five minutes, so that you can drop them anywhere on your playlist. You can squeeze in a listen any time and you will get a tiny pearl handed to you.


More Virginia Tech:
Thinking outside the European box,
Medieval Texts.

Peopletalk - history and culture podcast

I have briefly reviewed Peopletalk before. The podcast still has an audiobook section where history texts are being read to the listener. However, by now (I do not recall it was there then) the feed also offers episodes in which someone is being interviewed.

I took up listening to the interview with Michael Anthony of the British History 101 podcast (which I have also reviewed a long, long time ago). Anthony gets to explain how he became interested in British history. His high school days in Indiana, saw no significant attention to British History in history class. It was through a literature class and an enthusiastic teacher and the ensuing depiction of historical backgrounds with the read works that he was exposed to the subject and came to love it. In addition came a few visits to England. By now he is a history student and has many inroads into history. Still he is most attracted to British History and finds it particularly relevant for the US.

The episode is more of a conversation than an interview as the interviewer actively participates with his views. There is more to discover here. I want to thank the reader of this blog who attracted my attention to Peopletalk again. (feed)

The west since 1600 - History 2312

My favorite returning podcast lecture series is Berkeley's History 5, which, for some reason, has not been podcast this last semester. It is always possible to take one of previous semesters; you even have a rich choice between professors (Hesse, Anderson, Laqueur) However, you can also go to other sources for receiving the history of western civilization after the middle ages.

One such example is the course history 2312 from Temple College in Texas. Host Gretchen Ann Reilly speaks to us directly in fifteen minute segments and in over 30 lectures she matches the breadth of history 5, but is more modest and accessible for beginners than the Berkeley material. If you ever needed a basic entry course into modern history, this is where you should go. Now is also a good time as the course runs at this moment and the feed is up and running - which it is not for most of the year.

Another option is a course at UCLA, which gives history since 1715. This course has just started and I will review it in due time.

More Gretchen Ann Reilly:
Gretchen Reilly history podcasts,
American History before 1870.

Aristotle's ethics - Philosophy Bites

A brilliant podcast is Philosophy Bites. Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds manage to reduce philosophy to little bites of audio of around fifteen minutes and maintain a very reasonable intellectual level. Basically this is a podcast that you should have tried and that you should stay subscribed to and take your pick from the wide variety of subjects.

An excellent place to start is the latest issue about Aristotle's Ethics. Guest Terence Irwin takes us from the person Aristotle to the two periods he was intensively received in western thinking (the Renaissance and the nineteenth century) to the nature of Aristotle's ethics and how his thoughts are still relevant, applicable and giving food for discussion and critique today.

To give but an example: liberal political theory takes man as an individual and places in the state the obligation to respect the rights and freedoms of the individual. With Aristotle, this approach is criticized with the point that Aristotle already makes, that man is part of a community. He lives by and through the social fabric and is therefore a social and political being. The interests of state and individual then coincide and that gives rise to a whole other political theory. For example Hegel and Marx used Aristotle thus to criticize liberal theory.

Irwin is favorable to Aristotle's ethics, but voices also, by the end, a couple of points at which he'd like to improve or adapt Aristotle's ethics. Amazing how much can be dealt with in 17 minutes and 28 seconds.

More Philosophy Bites
Sartre,
Idealism,
Alternative Hedonism,
Non-realism of God,
Virtue.