Unit 1 Overview: From the Age of Absolutism to the Enlightenment, Inventing the Modern, 1648-1776

Absolutism, Unit 1 The Age of Absolutism

 

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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Unit 1, Discussion 3: The Scientific Revolution

Absolutism, Unit 1 The Age of Absolutism

 

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.

Link to Transcript of this Episode, The Scientific Revolution

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

Absolutism, Uncategorized, Unit 1 The Age of Absolutism

 

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

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

Absolutism, Uncategorized, Unit 1 The Age of Absolutism

 

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.

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Unit 1 Vignette: Louis XIV and the Fronde

Absolutism, Unit 1 The Age of Absolutism

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.

 

Episode Transcript for Unit 1 Episode, Louis XIV and the Fronde

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For Those in a Hurry: Summarizing the Evidence in the JFK Assassination

John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory

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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New in our “Minute Biographies” series: Anne Frank (1929-1945)

Germany, Holocaust, Memory, World War II

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

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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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Peter Jackson’s New Film, “They Shall Not Grow Old”

Films, Memory, Reviews, World War I,

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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The Causes of the Civil War: The First Century After

Civil War, Historiography, Memory

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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Five-Minute Review on the Audiobook of Philippe Sands’s “East West Street: on the Origins Of ‘Genocide’ and ‘Crimes Against Humanity'”

Audiobook Review, Holocaust, Memory, World War II, ,

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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About America’s Electoral System, for Europeans (and Americans)

Elections, Politics, U.S. Constitution, ,

In the wake of the American Midterm elections in November 2018, “Hijacking History” looks at how the elections are likely to be viewed in the light of history.  In order to understand how, we have to see them in the context of the rules of the Constitutional process in America. What to outsiders may have seemed like a mixed verdict on the Trump administrations, looks very different when framed by the structure of America’s political system.  Some knowledge of how America’s electoral system is structured give Democrats reason to hope in 2020, based on the outcome of the Midterm elections of 2018.

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My Germany: Teaching and Living in Germany on an American Fulbright, 2007-2008 (Episode 2 of 2)

Fulbright, Germany,

In this second of two episodes I conclude my recollections of my Fulbright semester in Halle an der Saale, Germany in 2007-2008.  What did Germans want to know most about Americans, and what do Americans need to know about Germans?  I discuss my talks before German audiences in Chemnitz, the former Karl Marx Stadt.  Interest in the American presidential election of 2008 was keen here, even though these citizens hardly ever even saw an American.   The positive and negative aspects of the German way of life are subjects of reflection. The rise of the radical right neo-Nazi party, NPD, and the day it made an appearance in Halle is also discussed.  Few nations have to deal with political factions so radical as does Germany, but few nations have the experience in doing so that Germans have had in the last 72 years.

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Coming in March 2019: A 4-Part Podcast Series, “The Politics of Disbelief,” on “Hijacking History”

Holocaust, United States history, World War II,

   Watch for my 4-part podcast series on “The Politics of Disbelief: America’s Response to the Holocaust, 1929-1945,” coming in March 2019.  They will be the best episodes I have created thus far.

Here is a trailer for the podcast series coming in March.

Topics covered in trailer:

  • What are the difficulties in understanding America’s role in the Holocaust?
  • How do we analyze what knowing and not knowing means in the face of the Holocaust?
  • Why will four episodes suffice to tell this story?
  • What is the thesis of David Wyman and why might the truth be different than his view?

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My Germany: Teaching and Living in Germany on an American Fulbright, 2007-2008 (Episode 1 of 2)

Memory

In this edition of “Hijacking History,” the first of two episodes on the same topic, I look at the first half of my experience as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Germany during the autumn-winter semester, 2007-2008.  This podcast provides a Rashoman-like series of impressions that I drew from the experience.  Some of the things that I thought that I learned turned out to be a bit wide of the truth but this podcast is how it all seemed to me at the time.  It is impossible to really know your own culture until you have experience in another.  This was the experience of a lifetime and I aspire to capture parts of it in these two episodes.  Watch for episode Two in this two-part series in the next few days.  Happy listening!

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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”

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

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

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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.

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

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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).

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