How do you turn a local conflict into a world war? Create an intricate set of alliances that guarantees it! Dave takes us on a tour of the construction of the alliance system from the Emperors’ Leagues to the Congress of Berlin to the Triple Alliance to the Reinsurance Treaty and more. How British and Bismarckian Balance-of-Power games made things so balanced that they could only collapse, in our second episode on the causes of WW1.
Month: September 2022
In Real Time with Stan Cox 6: Challenging CO2 Pipelines
CO2 pipelines are proof of the principle that “the greatest source of problems is solutions”. Stan Cox is back to shoot down the notion that CO2 pipelines are going to save us. Justin, meanwhile, has finally read Rachel Carson’s 1962 classic Silent Spring, which as an environmental prof he should have read decades ago. Find out who’s fighting the pipelines to nowhere and what Rachel Carson had to say about the human liver, in September’s dispatch.
World War Civ 1: The Intro
The Scramble for Africa is over. Greedy European powers can now only expand at one another’s expense. Du Bois and Lenin both thought this made a big European war inevitable. But others at the time thought it impossible. After two years we are ready to begin the 20th century with something your history classes never fail to discuss – the causes of World War 1. And so we begin the new series, World War Civ, which will include WW1, the Interwar period, WW2, and the aftermath, which will be followed by our Civilizations:Decolonization series – but that will be a while, so relax and get ready for World War Civ.
AER 114: Why Democracy (TM) Fails the Global South
Democracy means “the people rule”. But do the people rule in the “democratic” systems that form governments all over the world? Are these democratic governments less repressive or authoritarian than those without the democratic certification? And does the democratic system of frequent multiparty elections deliver the developmental goods?
Talking to Vik Sohonie, former journalist who runs the grammy-award nominated Ostinato Records, about why Democracy (TM) fails the Global South.