Episodes

In this podcast, I get more specific about the structure of your Good War Discussion post. How many examples of your topic do you discuss? What might be good topics for you to discuss? Which ones were positive and which were negative? You need to give one specific example each and explain how it was negative or positive. I hope that this helps. This is what you need to listen to instead of coming to class the week of October 21. You also should spend your time that week preparing for and submitt...

Click here for a Transcript of this Episode Why did the American Revolution stop being a revolution and, in the words of historian Eugen Weber, the French Revolution by contrast became an avalanche of social change? Why was it that the American Revolution escaped the fate of all other revolutions, and did not become, like the French Revolution, a prelude to a violent overturning of the social order? Listen (or read) here for my answer. Click here for a Transcript of this episode.

In 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. Freistadt ( Upper Austria ). Mühlviertler Schlossmuseum: Painted targets ( 1848 ) commemorating the revolution of 1848. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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 audio podcasts, each about three minutes long. The first is the introduction, 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 list...

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.

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.

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 wil 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.

We close this Unit with 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.

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.

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? In the next episode, I summarize the equally-strong evidence against conspiracy in the case.

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 bir...

A projected new series of "Hijacking History," 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.

This podcast episode reviews the film director Peter Jackson's new film about World War I, "They Shall Never 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.

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...

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."

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 it 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 struct...

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...

A trailer for my upcoming podcast series, "The Politics of Disbelief," about the American response ot the Holocaust, 1929-1945, coming in March.

Twitter Facebook 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 kn...

Twitter Facebook 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 ca...

Hi, this is Rick Reiman, host of the podcast "History Revisited" 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 c...

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 q...

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,...

In this podcast episode, I walk students through the two assignments on the book by Rebecca Skloot. First I show how you use GALILEO to find a scholarly book review on the book, how to distinguish the review portion from the summary portion, and how to generate a correct citation using GALILEO's code generator. You will need to provide all this information in Step 1, the Quiz. Then I discuss Step 2 and how to write an essay that satisfies the requirement for the final graded assignment for the c...