Mildly interesting, absurdly anglocentric and overwhelmingly negative portrait of history.
Sufficient enough background noise. A few interesting bits. Riddled with historical inaccuracies (it’s the 3/5 compromise not 2/3 compromise. Georgia was the 13th colony. I’m sure there are others I missed. I mean come on people this would have taken a Google to correct?) inserts England into every story and gives them undue importance perhaps to nurse the wounded imperial egos of the denizens of that now 3rd rate power. Sure they were important but they were not the masterminds of all global conflict between 1500 and 1950? Nevertheless there are some very interesting bits that make it worth listening to. I especially found the history of Brazil section very interesting and a nice introduction to the topic to inspire further reading. Stopping at WWI is a serious mistake especially in the case of the US; America in 1914 and today are hardly the same country! How can you discuss what America is today without discussing how it became a superpower, the 1960s immigration reform, the expanding definition of whiteness, white flight, Cuban exiles, Jewish immigration, the Cold War, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement? In 1914 America was a country where Jews and Italians as well as Chinese, Mexican and Black Americans were lynched with relative regularity; it was far whiter than today and far less populated; defining American cities like Miami and Los Angeles barely existed. Today America on the verge of becoming a minority-majority country; we have a vice president who is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. until recently the Supreme Court was entirely Catholic and Jewish. That’s not to say racism isn’t still a problem: it’s still at the heart of American culture and politics. But by stopping in 1914 you cut out the greater part of Americas transformation into perhaps the most diverse place on earth. The other big flaw of this series is the habit of overwhelmingly focusing on the negative aspects of countries histories. (Except Germany weirdly?) it’s simply untrue that Italian unification was exclusively the result of foreign decisions for example. It would not have succeeded without the active participation of Italians and Italian revolutionaries. And to describe the Revolutions of 1848 as not nationalistic in character is just somewhat absurd. Italy and America are probably the worst series in this podcast. Skip them. Brazil is good, as is Germany. Spain is also pretty good. If they keep going I hope they do some more non European countries (Mexico maybe, or India, Taiwan, Japan, Israel all very interesting choices)
Alabama's no. 1 TS fan via Apple Podcasts · United States of America · 07/17/21
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