November 30

Ep. 0127: Breaker Morant: A Dangerous History Movie Review

Breaker Morant is an Australian movie released in 1980 that tells the true story of three Australian soldiers of the Bushveldt Carbineers on trial for war crimes near the end of the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War in South Africa.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • A brief background on the Boer War
  • A brief synopsis of Breaker Morant
  • His thoughts on the movie & the significance of its themes

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Category: Modern World History, Movie Reviews, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 26

Ep. 0126: The Story of Squanto

Tisquantum (or Squanto, as he’s better known today) was a Patuxet Indian with an incredible, complex life story that  very few people have an inkling of today; and when you look at the story of early seventeenth-century New England from his perspective, it’s a very different tale than what you get from standard American mythology.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • Squanto’s early life as a Wampanoag in Dawnland, and his abduction & transportation (possibly more than once) to England as a young man
  • How he finally made it home after years of absence only to find his community had been wiped out by European diseases while he was gone
  • His uneasy relationship with the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit
  • How Squanto used his knowledge of the English language & culture to make himself indispensable to the Pilgrims who began settling on the former site of his village, and tried to leverage that for his own ambition, but ultimately died before any of his ambitions came to pass.

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Category: American History, Podcasts, Specials | 1 Comment on Ep. 0126: The Story of Squanto
November 23

Ep. 0125: Listener Emails #6

LOOOOOOOOOONG overdue for one of these, so here it is, and extra-plus-sized to compensate for lost time.

Join CJ as he shares & responds to messages from listeners on:

  • More thoughts on the historical evolution of Islam
  • Whether there’s any instance in which CJ might consider voting
  • The electoral college
  • The Republic of Cospaia
  • Historical fiction novels
  • Safe haven countries in the event of World War 3?
  • Whether or not the mainstream may be right about things like economics and politics, and CJ & much of the audience of this podcast are crazy
  • Chris Kyle
  • Why are there so many different views on history?
  • Historical examples of anarchism (or something close to it) in practice

Thanks to Max, Penny, Ken, Jan, Kent, Jacob, Darko, Rainer, Rick, & Ary for their questions!

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Category: Listener Emails, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 8

Ep. 0124: 2016 Election Day Special: The American Civil Religion

Ever get the sense that the government and politics in the United States is kinda cult-y? If so, CJ thinks your spidey sense is justifiably tingling, and what you’re picking up on is the phenomenon known as the civil religion.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • The concept of civil religion
  • The origins of the American civil religion, and a brief word on the scholarship on the concept
  • Some of the overtly religious elements that can be found in American government and politics, including: dogmas, rituals, sacred texts, holy places, sermons, sacrifices, sacred days, spells/mantras/incantations/prayers, music, sacred histories/narratives, temples, symbols/totems, priests, and saints
  • The ways in which people of different cultural and ideological predilections can — just like with conventional religion — interpret the civil religion in order to make it fit their preferences
  • How voting fits into this civil religion, and why CJ thinks a reasonable person should reject the civil religion — whether they are theists or not

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Category: American History, Podcasts, Specials | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 30

Ep. 0123: 2016 DHP Halloween Special, Part 1

(BTW, the picture above is CJ’s Jack o’ Lantern from 2014, lovingly hand-carved using only good old-fashioned knives, no namby-pamby power tools.)

I love holidays, and Halloween is probably my favorite holiday of all.  To share the spirit of the season, I decided this year to do a 2-part Halloween special.  I hope you’ll find this fun, enjoyable, and different.

Join CJ as he reads the following scary stories & poems from the 19th and early 20th century:

  • “Alone” by Edgar Allen Poe
  • “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • “The Festival” by H.P. Lovecraft
  • “Darkness” by Lord Byron

Part 2 of the Halloween Special will be a Patreon Bonus Episode with even more great scary stories & poems, just for supporters of the show.

Happy Halloween!

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Bumper music for this episode:

Danse Macabre – Violin Hook Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Category: Podcasts, Specials | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 29

Ep. 0122: Principal Ruffian & Chief Among Plunderers: The Norman Conquest of England

In 1066, the course of English history was dramatically altered, as the realm was conquered by Normans from across the Channel.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • Some backstory on Medieval England & Normandy
  • The death of Edward the Confessor & coronation of Harold Godwinson
  • William of Normandy’s preparations for invasion to seize the English crown
  • The invasion of Northern England by Harald Hardrada of Norway, and Harold Godwinson’s defeat of this force at Stamford Bridge
  • William’s invasion of Southern England shortly after Stamford Bridge
  • The climactic Battle of Hastings,  a hard-fought battle that was ultimately won by the forces of William
  • The aftermath and legacies of the Norman conquest of England

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Category: Medieval History, Military History, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 16

Ep. 0121: Ravenous: A Dangerous History Movie Review

In the spirit of the season, in this episode CJ reviews the 1999 film Ravenous, a horror movie about cannibalism on the American frontier in the heyday of Manifest Destiny in the mid-nineteenth century.  This film was directed by Antonia Bird and stars Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, and Jeffrey Jones.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • A few words about his recent experience of Hurricane Matthew
  • A synopsis of the movie, CJ’s take on it, and some of the deeper themes in the film

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Category: American History, Movie Reviews, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 2

Ep. 0120: DHP Heroes: Major General Smedley Butler

In this episode, CJ profiles Major General Smedley Darlington Butler of the United States Marine Corps, probably most famous for being a very highly decorated Marine (the most decorated at the time of his death in 1940), and for writing War is a Racket.  Butler was a very complex man to say the least, and CJ covers the good, the bad, the ugly and, of course, the dangerous about his life and legacy.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • A brief look at Smedley’s family history & childhood, to his joining of the Marines in 1898 during the Spanish-American War
  • Subsequent services in places as wide-ranging as the Philippines, China, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, Quantico, Philadelphia, San Diego, and China (again), as he rose through the ranks from Second Lieutenant all the way to Major General
  • Smedley’s increasing disillusionment with the ulterior motives of American foreign policy and military interventionism
  • His retirement in 1931, and the last 9 years of his life, during which he became an ever-more radical, outspoken critic of American militarism and imperialism, right up until his death in June of 1940, including his exposure of an alleged Wall Street plot to overthrow the FDR administration, and his authorship of War is a Racket
  • A little bit about Smedley’s legacy and why CJ considers him a DHP Hero

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Category: American History, DHP Heroes, Military History, Podcasts | 2 Comments on Ep. 0120: DHP Heroes: Major General Smedley Butler
September 24

Ep. 0119: Party Systems in American History, Part II

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • The latter Third Party System during the Gilded Age (c. 1870s-1890s)
  • The 1896 election, which ended the Third Party System & ushered in the Fourth
  • The characteristics of the Fourth Party System (1896-1932)
  • The Fifth Party System (1932-1968?1980? The present?)
  • The controversial Sixth Party system (which we may be in now)
  • The possible implications of the current freakshow — I mean, “election”

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Category: American History, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
September 20

Ep. 0118: Party Systems in American History, Part I

In light of the currently ongoing freakshow — er, ‘campaign’ — I decided to talk a bit about the big-picture view of the history of American political party systems.  (BTW, audio quality gets better about 2/3 of the through — I did the first part of the episode when I was a bit hoarse & it was storming outside; last third was done the following morning.  These are the trials & travails of being a super-busy guerrilla podcaster with a day job & a family, who has to lay down the tracks whenever he has a chance, whether things are ideal or not.)

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • What “party systems” are in American political history
  • The First Party System (Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans, ~1792-1820ish)
  • The Second Party System (Democrats vs. Whigs, ~1828-1854)
  • The Second Great Awakening, the differences between “Pietist” and “Liturgical” Christians, and the impact of this on political party preferences
  • The Third Party System (Democrats vs. Republicans, 1856-1896)

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Category: American History, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT