December 31

Ep. 0131: Opening Gambits: The Not-So-Civil War Part 1

Drum roll please……………..Here we go — the first podcast installment in a monstrous enterprise, CJ’s White Whale: the Dangerous History Podcast’s coverage of the War Between the States!

In this first installment, we’ll cover the opening moves, from December 1860 to November 1861.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • The secession of the seven states of the Deep South following the election of Abraham Lincoln
  • The formation of the Confederate States of America, including its constitution
  • The accession to office of the Lincoln Administration
  • The firing on Fort Sumter
  • Sumter’s impact on the North and the South, including the secession of the Upper South
  • Lincoln’s actions to try to keep the Border States in the Union, by any means neccessary
  • Preparations for war & early skirmishes
  • The Battle of Manassas (or First Bull Run) and its impact
  • Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (written in Nov. 1861) as portent of the total war-crusade to come

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Category: American History, Military History, Podcasts | 2 Comments on Ep. 0131: Opening Gambits: The Not-So-Civil War Part 1
December 19

Ep. 0130: CJ’s 25 Favorite Antiwar Songs

Encompassing a variety of musical genres & a variety of wars, here they are, CJ’s favorite 25 antiwar songs.

Links below on the song titles are to CJ’s favorite version that’s available on Youtube of each song. Some are versions by the original artist, and some are covers that CJ actually likes a little better than the originals.

Join CJ as he discusses:

Or listen to them all in a row as a playlist (thanks to listener Jon for slapping that together.)

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Category: Cultural History, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 12

Ep. 0129: The Psychology of Power & Obedience with Jim Cunagin

On this episode of the Dangerous History Podcast, CJ talks with Dr. Jim Cunagin, a practicing psychiatrist, about the psychology of power and obedience and some of the experiments that can help us understand these phenomena.

Join CJ & Jim as they discuss:

  • Stanley Milgram’s experiments
  • Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment
  • The conformity experiments of Solomon Asch
  • The Bystander Effect (or ‘Kitty Genovese Effect’)
  • Jane Elliot’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment
  • The lessons and meaning of these experiments when it comes to understanding power,

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(image ‘Stand Out From the Crowd’ courtesy Renjith Krishnan at freedigitalphotos.net)

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Category: Concepts and Theories, Interviews, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 7

Ep. 0128: Foundation of the Permanent Garrison State

Between 1946 and 1953, the cornerstones of a permanent garrison state were laid within the structure of the US government.

Join CJ as he discusses:

  • Henry Luce’s 1941 article “The American Century” & the construction of the Pentagon (begun on Sept. 11th, 1941 -the pic above shows the Pentagon under construction, BTW) as harbingers of this change
  • George Kennan’s original, much more limited strategy of ‘containment’ towards the USSR
  • American intervention in Greece, 1946
  • The National Security Act of 1947 (the single most important piece of formal legislation in this process)
  • NSC-68
  • Proof of a revolution within the form: Harry Truman’s sending of American forces into significant combat in 1950 without a declaration of war
  • How the Eisenhower Administration tacitly ratified all this into permanence, despite Ike’s occasional statements that indicate his misgivings about the whole thing

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Category: American History, Military History, Podcasts | LEAVE A COMMENT
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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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/

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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