Albert Einstein becomes an American citizen (October 1940) Between the 1889s and 1914, revolutionary changes occurred in our understanding of science, psychology and physics…
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The theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, presented in the Communist Manifesto (1848), was yet another theory of progress so popular in the nineteenth century, along with Darwinism, Positivism and nationalism. Marxism was popular with the proletarians created by the Industrial Revolution, because it predicted that they would one day win a successful proletarian revolution against the bourgeoisie all over the world, one whose success was the inevitable product of class conflict between the two classes. For the same reason, the middle class hated this theory and fought the rise of the proletariat. The theories of Marx and Engels would never be borne out or live up to their predictions. BUt it was a major fear factor that explains much about the politics of the middle class in the late nineteenth century and the birth of social welfare legislation, which Marx had never foreseen or predicted.
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Here is a link to a transcript of this Episode
Who was Charles Darwin, this Newton of the Nineteenth century? And what was his theory of the evolution of species by natural selection. How did it impact virtually every aspect of Western Civilization, from political ideologies to psychology and philosophy? In this special landmark podcast, Dr. Reiman explores his significance.
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ationalism took a dark turn for the worse after 1848. Nations that came into existence after 1848–such as Germany and Italy–were unified by military monarchies adopting the strategies of statecraft and war. In this podcast, Dr. Reiman traces the ways in which these two nations buried liberalism in their countries and strengthened autocratic government between 1848 and 1871, lighting the long fuse to World War I.
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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.
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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.
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Here we trace the reasons why the Industrial Revolution in its first place and time, 1750-1848 Great Britain was so unregulated and cruel.
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Between 1750 and 1840, Great Britain was alone in experiencing the first Industrial Revolution. In this podcast I discuss what every nation first has to possess in order to experience an Industrial Revolution of its own, and what Great Britain did possess by 1750.
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In this Introduction, we look at the definition and revolutionary consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
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Many leaders of the nineteenth century, reflected Romantic ideas by their actions. Among the most notable was Abraham Lincoln, US president from 1861 to 1865. Here our podcast looks at the ways in which Lincoln reflected the values of Romanticism in his person, actions and ideas, and how he would never have been heard from had there not been a Romantic movement.
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In this podcast we continue talking about the French Revolution, specifically its ideas and the events within the Revolution that represent those ideas and helped to trigger them.
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In this brief essay we review your textbook’s list of causes of the French Revolution.
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Here we look at the French Revolution’s consequences, as a prelude to looking at its causes. Why reverse the logical order of this analysis? If you understand the consequences of the French Revolution, namely its importance, you should then be in a position to be interested in learning next about its causes.
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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
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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.
A 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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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