In this brief essay we review your textbook’s list of causes of the French Revolution.
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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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n this brief overview, we preview the other podcasts in this episode, which define the ideas of liberalism, nationalism and romanticism, and we preview their role as triggers of two very different kinds of revolution in the nineteenth century to come.
n this brief overview, we preview the other podcasts in this episode, which define the ideas of liberalism, nationalism and romanticism, and we preview their role as triggers of two very different kinds of revolution in the nineteenth century to come.
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In this audio podcast I introduce the first Unit of the Course, “Inventing the Modern West,” with this three-minute video, “The Seventeenth Century, Inventing the Modern.” Each Unit has 5 to 6 audio podcasts, each about ten minutes long. The first is the introduction or “Overview,” the next three each look at a different example of the themes set out in the first podcast. The final podcast of each Unit discusses the consequences of this pivotal period in the History of the Modern West (1650-present).As you listen, or re-listen, to this podcast in your home, please have the PowerPoint for this Unit, “The First Modern Century, the 1600s,” open for you to follow along with.
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In this first of three examples of what was so modern about the 17th century, we look at the emergence of the modern nation-state. This brief podcast will help you discuss one topic (in 50 words) that will become part of your 500-word essay on the Unit.
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Here we look at the role of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century (the 1600s) in making that century the first modern century. This podcast will help you with that portion of your 500-word description of this period that is devoted the the example of the Scientific Revolution (75 to 125 words). At the end of this podcast episode I give you a question to try to answer in this 75-125 word portion of your 500-word Unit Essay.
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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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In this vignette of the life of Louis XIV, you will listen to contact that will serve as the source material for your topics to write your 500-word “Personification” essay. How did Louis personify the Age of Absolutism. This podcast contains topics that are excellent for such an analysis. Choose one and show how. The podcast speaks of Hyacnith Rigauld’s portrait of Louis XIV, the palace of Versailles and El Cid, by Pierre Corneille, among other things. Here are images that show these three subjects.
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In this first part of two brief episodes, I summarize the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald. The evidence discussed was presented first by the Warren Commission investigation in 1964 and has only been further strengthened in the years since. This episode focuses on only one of the two key questions: Did Oswald fire the shots that hit JFK and Texas Governor John Connally? For Oswald’s motives, click here to buy my NEW Amazon ebook entry on the subject.
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Our minute biography series continues with this reflection on the life of Anne Frank, Holocaust victim and diarist non pareil. Many people regard her diary as the most famous “Holocaust book.” Yet the diary is not a book about the Holocaust nor was it written by one who was, at the time she wrote it, a Holocaust victim. Nevertheless the story of Anne Frank is essential for those hoping for a world of respect for diversity and human rights. This year, the ninetieth anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth, is the perfect time for this new addition to the “Minute Biography” series on Hijacking History. Audio segments are used in this program by permission as provided under Creative Commons licenses. They include “Amesterdam Bells Birds,” by everythingsounds, licensed under the Attribution CC Unported license, no changes made; “Angry Nazi Clatters,” by kineticturtle, licensed under the Attribution CC 3.0 Unported license, no changes made; and “The Letter from Anne Frank,” by stanrams, licensed under the Attribition Non-Commercial 3.0 Unported license, no changes made.
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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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This podcast episode reviews the film director Peter Jackson’s new film about World War I, “They Shall Not Grow Old.” Using new technologies and old-fashioned respect for the facts, Jackson has crafted a documentary that brings old newsreels vividly to live, converting what the film was able to capture into what the cameramen of 1918 actually saw through their lens.
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Historians today largely agree that slavery was central to the causation of the American Civil War. Prior to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, however, other factors had pride of place in the estimation of most (though not all) historians. After the nationalist historians of the late nineteenth century, who did see slavery as central to the causing of the war, historians, reflecting their times, seemed to stress everything but slavery. Economic differences between North and South, geographic determinism, irrationality and incompetence all seemed more central to historians in the first half of the twentieth century than did slavery. This is ironic because in the last half century, slavery has resumed its position as the crucial issue, without which the coming of the Civil War makes little sense.
In this podcast, I summarize the issues and discuss the conclusions of Thomas J. Pressly, in his book, “Americans Interpret Their Civil War.”
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Here is my five-minute review on the remarkable, recent book by Philippe Sands on the intersection of four individual lives and the sweeping changes in international law brought about by World War II and the Holocaust, today in “Hijacking HIstory.”
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