History thread!

[Todinho]

So extra credits has started their extra history series so i thought I should share in case there's any lover of history here that hasnt heard:



It's pretty well done and I love that they are doing it,for 9 minutes it does a pretty good job in setting the stage for WW1(better than many history professors I had)really worth a watch.

Also share away any piece of interesting history stuff you find!

PS:Follow @RealTimeWWII

[Bakers_12]

@RealTimeWWII is an amazing twitter account.

[Flabyo]

If you're in the UK, go have a poke at the iPlayer. The BBC tend to leave all their BBC Four history docs on there for months and months, and there's plenty of great stuff. Some recent, some stuff from as early as the 60's.

[KissMammal]

I really like the BBC Radio 4 series America: Empire of Liberty (also available as an audiobook). It's a pretty broad history of America, from the founding fathers up to the inauguration of Obama and the financial crisis.

At around 90 short 15-minute episodes it obviously covers a lot of ground quite quickly but what I liked about it was that it incorporates a lot of eyewitness accounts (often read by actors with sound fx), quotations, parallels with modern events and even passages from contemporary novels which really help to contextualise events.

I've tried other history radio shows and podcasts but find a lot of them a rather dry, abstract list of events that fail to hold my attention - I find it hard to care much without some kind of relatable human angle.

[KissMammal]

I've recently been listening to Anthony Beevor's World War 2 audiobook, and it's a good example of what I mean. It focuses so heavily on the political jostling - all old educated white men conspiring and plotting with or against each other, and while that may be accurate it does very little to explain why they are doing what they are doing, how and why events can spiral so out of control, the real consequences and human cost of their actions. And a dry list of 'this skirmish had x casualties' is to me nowhere near as involving as, say, diary entries from someone who was actually on the front lines.

As for WW2 I also highly recommend the documentary series The World At War. It's showing it's age quite a bit now but is fascinating stuff. Hard to believe iTV used to make real high-quality factual entertainment like that.

Btw I'd be sure keen to hear any recommendations people have, podcasts, audiobooks etc.

[Flabyo]

'The World at War' is still pretty much the gold standard for this sort of thing. Essential stuff.

I'm a fan of Simon Schama's 'History of Britain' series, although it tends to run out of steam as it approaches the 20th century.

[KissMammal]

I've dabbled with Schama's History Of Britain - I'm sure I'll get round to listening to it properly at some point. I'm considering signing up for Audible to get it (and other history books) for a reasonable price. I've also tried Radio 4's This Sceptred Isle but again just found it to be a dry list of events that washed over me and I wouldn't retain any of the information at all.

I think I tend towards US History is that it's relatively exciting and short enough that you can take it all in in one sweep, whereas English History - with it's convoluted series of Monarchs - seems quite daunting to get your head around!

[Flabyo]

Ah, I mean the TV show version of it rather than the book / audiobook.

[KissMammal]

Yep, I've seen a bit of the TV show too, which I assume is just a condensed version of the book.

[Flabyo]

Yep, I've seen a bit of the TV show too, which I assume is just a condensed version of the book.

it is, but there's a lot of reading of the primary sources by actors and so on, its not a dry 100% 'to camera' piece.

[Todinho]

I've been seeing a few documentaries lately so I decided share some of my favorites here in case anyone finds it interesting :

Architecture of Doom is fully on youtube and is by far the best documentary about Nazism ever made in my opinion and it's a must watch for anyone that hasnt already,it's a really great study of how Hitler's artistic vision influenced his political one.


Fog of War it's about Robert McNamara the US secretary of defense in the JFK and Lydon Johnson years,a really interesting look of events from the view of a man of state,especially interesting if you wanna know more about the Vietnam war,the Cuban Missile crisis and the bombings in Japan during WW2.


And if you want more on the Vietnam War the documentary Hearts and Minds is fantastic.

[Alex79]

Band Of Brothers is my favourite history doc.

[Electric Crocosaurus]

The Act of Killing is one of the most gruelling documentaries that I've ever seen, and well worth seeking out if you have the stomach for it. It focuses on the Indonesian genocide of the mid-twentieth century, and the modern 'gangster' culture that holds former death squad members as national heroes. The film asks these killers to re-enact past horrors, in an attempt to make them confront their actions. The remarkable thing is that, in some cases, it works, and you can really see that, for some, they are absolutely traumatised by their pasts.

[KissMammal]

My current gym listen is The Civil War (1861-1865): A History Podcast. It's really, really good show that covers the entire period of the American Civil War - a period of history I find particularly fascinating - in exhausting detail.

I only had a very broad knowledge of it before, but this show really explains every aspect - most importantly it really goes into the causes of the war, and contextualises everything - for instance I'm many hours into the back catalogue (episode 41) and the war itself has only just broken out. Every key player gets their own dedicated show - often more than one - that tells their biography.

As the hosts are teachers by profession, everything is conveyed in a very homely, simple, yet unpatronising fashion - there is a lot of repetition and summarising, which really helps what you've learned to sink in. Every show ends with a book recommendation, in case you want to do further reading on the subject.

Can't recommend it highly enough.



http://civilwarpodcast.blogspot.com

I'm listening to the show in tandem with Ken Burn's The Civil War documentary series. I only had knowledge of this from the episode of Community that riffs on it (S03E14 - 'Pillows and Blankets'), but the doc itself is superb. I was thrilled to see that almost all of Burn's complete back catalogue is on Netflix (US, not sure about UK). Lots of great stuff there to dig into.

[Retrothumbs]

I've recently caught the first part of a documentary on Adolf Hitler on BBC Four. Its called 'The dark charisma of Adolf Hitler', it's a 3 part docu. It's fascinating watching this tyrant in his day, from when he was a soldier in WW1 and his passion to draw. It obviously leads up to his days as Chancellor and then into power etc.

Apparently (but this isn't covered in the series, so far anyway) his Mum had several abortions before having only him, so she thought he was extremely special and went on to treat him in that way. He then went through his own life thinking he was a very special human being. You could say he was, but clearly for all the majorly wrong reasons!!!

I guess it's on the BBC iPlayer, but haven't looked!!

[magicjoef]

Bitter Lake is a good one. It is a documentary film on BBC iPlayer, made by Adam Curtis. I really love his style, stark but weirdly beautiful. (Covers the recent history of Afghanistan and the politics of the situation.)

[arry_g]

I like history, especially European and Asian but I'm more of a book or podcast kinda guy than documentary.