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Unit 3, Discussion 5: The Revolutions of 1848



The Revolutions of 1848 in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Rome were the last liberal national revolutions in Europe because they all failed, and because they all raised the specter of a new kind of revolution, revolution by the communist proletariat. In this podcast, you will prepare for the Unit 3, Discussion 5 assignment by understanding the causes and consequences of these events, as well as the meaning of the new ideas of Socialism and Communism that were birthed by them.

 

Louis Blanc, leader of the Paris proletarians in the Revolution of 1848

Unit 3, Discussion 4: The Revolution of 1830 in France



In this podcast we look at the false hope that the French Revolution of 1830 put in the hearts of the liberal bourgeoisie (middle class).  “Hearts” is the correct word, because Romanticism was a driving force of this liberal revolution, as the painting by Eugene Delacroix shows here.  The Revolution of 1830 set up the middle class for an awful fall, and the fall came with the bloody revolutions of 1848 all over Europe, revolutions that decoupled liberalism from nationalism and revolution forever afterwards.

 

“Liberty Leading the People,” by Eugene Delacroix (1830)

A Podcast to Help You Prepare for Your Essay Question on the Final Exam



This podcast only concerns Part One of the Final Exam, which consists of the following question that you must answer in an essay. I include the rubric that I will use to grade the essay. Part Two of the Final exam is covered in the Study Guide for the Final Exam for our course in Western Civilization.

Discuss TWO major ideas, developments or events whose origins can be located in the nineteenth century that helped to cause the First World War (1914-1919), and explain how they did so.

Rubric for Essay Question:

8-9

-contains a well-developed thesis that fulfills all topical requirements of the question

-supports the thesis with substantial, relevant information

-understands the complexity of question; deals with both examples in depth although the treatment may not be equal

-exhibits an effective description

-may contain minor errors

5-7

– contains a well-developed thesis that fulfills most but not all topical requirements of the question

-supports the thesis with some factual information

-has a limited understanding of complexity; will deal with both examples but only one in some depth, or with both examples in a more general way

-has limited description

-may contain errors that do not detract from the overall essay and argument

2-4

-lacks a thesis, or the thesis may be confused or undeveloped

-lacks supporting information, or information that is given is minimal, even confused

-ignores complexity; may deal with one example in a general way or both examples in a superficial way

-has no real description

-may contain major errors

0-1

-has an irrelevant or incompetent response

-may simply paraphrase or restate the question

-shows little or no understanding of the question


Primary Source Assignment: Analyzing Vichy France Propaganda



About Your Primary Source Assignment

In this assignment you will analyze a propaganda poster, “Revolution Nationale,” produced by the government of Vichy France between 1940 and 1942.  The student will analyze the image utilizing the graphic worksheet provided by the Library of Congress. 

Copy of the Library of Congress Cartoon Analysis Outline is here. There are 12 questions on this outline.  All 12 questions will appear on the Quiz that you will take for this assignment, which is also linked below.

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Analyze the graphic or cartoon that you see below and, using the Outline as a reference, answer the questions in the Quiz in as much detail as you can.  Make sure that you work alone so that your answers are original to you. If they are not, your work will be scored as a “0.”  You can then transfer your answers from the worksheet to the textboxes for each question in the Quiz.  But make sure that your answers are as specific and as detailed as possible, and in complete, grammatically correct sentences.  A student will lose points for grammatical or other errors that lead to loss of clarity in the student’s answer(s).

I will post an informational podcast here and on the homepage of the course to help you prepare for the assignment. I will post the podcast shortly before this assignment opens. See Calendar for date when this assignment opens and closes.

Make sure that you submit the Quiz by the due date listed in the Calendar.  Your answers will not be accepted in any other format but via the Quiz submission.

You can find a link to the assignment in your GeorgiaVIEW course site

Vichy France Poster

Unit 1, Example 3: Theories of Government in the 17th and 18th Centuries



 

The Age of Absolutism also gave birth to the first modern theories of government. What did they have in common? What made them “modern?”  How did the theories of each of the three men (Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) differ?   Once you know the answers to these questions, which this podcast episode will help you with, you will have unlocked the key to writing well another 50 to 75 words in your 500-word review of the Age of Absolutism.

Episode Transcript for Theories of Government in the 17th and 18th Centuries


Unit 1, Example 4: The Enlightenment, 1700-1789



 

Benjamin Franklin, Exemplar of the Enlightenment

We look in Unit 1, Example 4 at the philosophical movement of the 18th century that owed so much to the 17th century: the Enlightenment.  Join Dr. Reiman on a tour of its most important ideas and philosophers and the impact that they had on the society–and the Revolutions–of the Eighteenth century.


A New Episode for a New Series of Minute Biographies, this one, the inaugural episode on “Franklin D. Roosevelt”



A projected new series of “Hijacking History,” “Pod Pops: History in a Blitz,” will present “minute biographies” of 5 to 10 minutes or so in length on famous individuals in American history. Here, while on the on the go or on your commute, you can catch up on the people you thought you knew from school, but wanted a refresher on, or a more updated dive from the latest knowledge of historical scholarship. For more information on FDR, see: Roger Daniels, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Road to the New Deal, and Roger Daniels, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years (University of Illinois Press, 2016), William Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940 (Harper Perennial, 2009), Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Little, Brown, 1990).


Today in “Hijacking History:” My Review of Howard P. Willens, “History Will Prove Us Right: Inside the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy”



n this podcast I episode, I review Howard P. Willens’s 2013 book in the context of decades of conspiracy theorizing and what we thought we knew about the first official investigation of the assassination of John Kennedy, the Warren Commission.  While most people simultaneously somehow manage both to disbelieve the findings of the Commission’s Report and refuse to read it, Willens walks us through what actually occurred during the investigation. He also reinforced the excellent case, already made by rational scholars, that the mistakes of the Warren Commission were neither terribly unusual for an investigation by human beings, nor destructive of its conclusions.  Willens takes us through the evidence and makes a strong case that the Warren Commission essentially was the best explanation for that tragic event, and that it remains standing in spite of the conspiracizing and the imagining that has usually. taken the place of a serious regard for the facts.


Review of “The Ratline,” a Podcast Series by Philippe Sands and the BBC, available on iTunes



Hi, this is Rick Reiman, host of the podcast “Hijacking History” In this episode, I review the Podcast series, “The Ratline,” a program in the series “Intrigue” by BBC 4.  I do not here discuss the plot lines of the story for the most part. Instead I explore the implications for the effort to prevent the nightmares of the past from repeating themselves, when that effort requires an honest and forthright confrontation with that past. “The Ratline” suggests that such a confronting is not easy and cannot be taken for granted.

Music for this podcast was by Sonnik, composed by Fjador Lavrov, and made available under a Creative Commons Share-alike Attribution License.  Consistent with this license, brief clips from the music were used for transitional purposes only.


Metacognitive Minutes: Acing the Unit 5 Essay Assignment in HIST 2111 on the War with Mexico, 1846



Your Unit 5 Essay Assignment is explained in detail in the Assignment section of your GeorgiaVIEW course site.  In fact it is a most excellent–and necessary–description.  But, to maximize your chances for an “A” on this assignment, introduce a little “metacognition” to your preparation for this assignment.  Remember that metacognition is “thinking about thinking.”  In this podcast episode, I want you to think about the structure of this assignment: What are you asked to do? What are the specific questions–all the questions–that you need to answer? How many paragraphs must there be, and what should be the job of each paragraph?  How long does each paragraph need to be? What role does the graded rubric play in your understanding of, and preparation for, the assignment?  This episode will direct you to these questions and more. Mastering them in advance will increase the odds that you make no mistakes in the content of your essay. Then, proofreading should allow you to avoid the last hurdle–grammatical problems–that will definitely cost you points if they exist.


Metacognitive Minutes: How to Do Well on Your New Deal Discussion Assignment



Metacognitive Minutes is a part of my podcast, “History Revisited,” which you can subscribe to on this site,  In today;s episode I explain how “thinking about thinking: (or “metacognition”) is an excellent way to approach your New Deal assignment in HIST 2112, and not only do well on it, but know when you submit it that you ARE going to do well on it. Simply follow the advice in this podcast and think about it before you read the assignment instructions. Then think about it again after you do so, or, better yet, listen to this episode again before you write.  Good luck (but if you use these metacognitive techniques, you won’t need good luck).


“History’s Revisitings:” Episode 1, September 5, 2018



On September 5, 2018, an anonymous “senior official in the Trump administration” published an Op-Ed in the New York Times, raising a seeming unprecedented cry of alarm. He (or she) claimed to be trying to keep an unhinged president from going off the rails by working against the president when he threatened peace and democracy. What are the historical precedents for this sort of thing? This podcast was recorded the day of the Op-Ed’s release.