![]() ![]() Part of that is there's a lot of repetition-a lot of documentaries or smaller-scoped books cover ground that I'm pretty familiar with. Part of it is the sadness that accompanies it. Nevertheless, the World Wars draw me back, enticing me with their intricacies and tragedies. There's always something new, of course, or a clarification of what I already had heard, but there's a lot that's already rattling around in my head. Still, I wanted to pull in more this year to try to improve my craft as a teacher. To that end, I listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, " Blueprint for Armageddon."įirst off, it's a six-part series, but each part lasts between three and four hours, with some running even longer. If you've never listened to Dan Carlin's stuff before, you should know that it's thorough, thoughtful, and interestingly put together. He really does a great job, with an emphasis on the human cost of the war, which is exactly what I try to do. He has an enthusiasm for the mechanical, tactical side, yet manages to remind the listeners that these seemingly abstract concepts meant real-world ramifications.Īs he went deeper into these four hellish years, he spent some time on periphery things that are needed for the broader context, but not so far away from his primary theme. I'm thinking particularly of his digression on Rasputin and the Romanovs, which I knew about, but not to the extent he shares. Details about the Romanovs as a couple, their concern for their children, and Rasputin's debauchery are contextualized in a way that helps make the sequence of events clear. While there isn't any predestination within history, we can sometimes feel like each event leads so "naturally" into the next that they are inextricably bound. The problem with this is it denies human agency to the past and we forget that the makers of history were living in the present when they made their choices. In the case of the Bolshevik Revolution, its consequences in the war, and the future that it created, it becomes a more powerful story whenever I remember that, as people in their historical moment, the future was awash with possibilities. Yes, we know of the tragedies that occurred because of Lenin and, later, Stalin. At the same time, the ideas that Germany unleashed into Russia (in a sealed rail car, no less) in 1917 was the seed from which Germany's defeat came about when the Second World War transpired. ![]() Without an industrialized Russia to absorb the wrath of the Wehrmacht, I don't know what the world would look like.īut perhaps the most impressive thing about this podcast would have to be the ending. ![]()
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