Reflecting History

What caused the Mexican Dirty War? A combination of economic, social, and political grievances built up over the course of hundreds of years to finally explode in the mid-20th century. The geurrilla warfare and the brutal counter-insurgent response from the government during the Dirty War had their roots in historical grievances and narratives that motivated ordinary people in Mexico through decad...

How does the broader context of history affect our personal lives on a daily basis? How does historical memory and narrative storytelling change the way we view the past and the present? This episode asks these questions in the context of the Mexican Dirty War by analyzing the conflict through the lens of the broader themes of Mexican history. Although history may be in the past, it's ghost linger...

The Mexican Dirty War was fought from the 1960's into the 1980's between the Mexican government and geurrilla insurgents. Geurrilla warfare and government counter-insurgency would be a reality of life in many parts of Mexico for years-thousands would lose their lives, families and communities would be destroyed, and grief would linger for generations. This episode is Part I in a series on the Mexi...

"History is a dialogue between the past and the present." So how do we know anything about history? To what extent is our knowledge of history merely modern day historians projecting their own thoughts and interpretations on the past? How do we know that ancient peoples felt the same emotions we do? What role should emotion, feeling, and motivation play in the study of history? Archaelogist Guy Mi...

"Sometimes I burn barns." Things aren't always what they seem in Haruki Murakami's surreal and incredible short story "Barn Burning." What could be read on the surface as the tale of a love triangle and a little arson actually offers insight into the banality of evil, the ambiguity of responsibility, the power of memory, the nature of disappearance, and the reality of metaphor. Much like the narra...

In a dystopian future, humanity is faced with a choice: upload your consciousness into a machine and live forever in paradise, or stay behind and continue being human as we've come to know it. In his short story "Staying Behind," Ken Liu explores a possible future that feels all too real. In the process the story asks big questions about the nature of humanity: what does it mean to be human? What...

In this episode I spoke with historian Chad Williams about his latest book-"The Wounded World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War" We discussed the legacy of Du Bois; his views on identity and double consciousness; World War I and it's causes; the role of black americans and black soldiers in World War I; the connection between race, capitalism, socialism, and the labor movements of the early...

"The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; it's kindness infinite." Piranesi lives in an infinite house, with no long-term memory and only a loose sense of identity. As the secrets of the House deepen and the mystery of his life becomes more sinister, Piranesi must discover who he is and how this brings him closer to the "Great and Secret Knowledge" that the House contains. Touching on themes of me...

What if it was possible to "remember" the future? What if our typical conceptions of cause and effect didn't tell the whole story? If the story of your life was laid out in front of you, how would that change you as a person and your relationship with the people around you? All of these questions and more are discussed in this episode that takes a look at Ted Chiang's legendary short story "Story...

What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to really live? What is the nature of bureaucracy and how does this seep into our everyday lives and relationships? These questions and more are analyzed in Akira Kurosawa's 1952 masterpiece "Ikiru." Life is brief... -Consider Supporting the Podcast!- Leave a rating or review on apple podcasts or spotify ! Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.p...

Yoko Ogawa's 1994 masterpiece "The Memory Police" is much more than a dystopian novel. It delves into the ways that memory connects with everything-from our deepest sense of self, to our friendships and relationships, to our daily routines. What can memory tell us about grief, loss, and resitance to "quiet authoritarianism?" -Consider Supporting the Podcast!- Leave a rating or review on apple podc...

It's been said that you are what you remember. What is the role and function of memory on a personal level and how does this connect to collective memory and history? Does collective memory fuel cycles of violence? What would happen if we suddenly all forgot our shared past? Would the world be more peaceful? Are some things best forgotten? In this episode I explore Kazuo Ishiguro's incredible nove...

Why do we dream? What is the difference between dreaming and being awake? Is the modern world around us merely an "artificial dream"-with it's constant barrage of sensory input, screens to look at, and narratives to dive into? This episode is an examination of Erik Hoel's excellent article "Enter the Supersensorium." The connection between dreams and reality is fascinating, but this connection als...

By the end of the Taiping Civil War, millions in China felt the grief of being caught in limbo between remembering and forgetting, personal and state, past and future. Ultimately the more intimate, personal grief felt by ordinary survivors of the war contrasted sharply with state sanctioned commemoration and moralistic narrative.  This is the concluding episode in a series covering Tobie Meyer-Fon...

As the deaths piled up during the Taiping Civil War, the grim but pressing reality of how to deal with and commemorate all of the dead bodies lends insight into historical questions of identity and ritual, but also questions of power and authority. To what extent does the loss of bones lead to loss of identity? Why did civilians fear what would happen to their dead body? How did state and local of...

To what extent do questions of who you are and how others see you relate to your personal and philosophical identity? How would this change in a time of war? During the Taiping Civil War, the process of identity formation, identity signaling, and identity assignment reveals interesting questions about the nature of identity, what it means to be physically and spiritually whole, and how we should l...

How did ordinary people make sense of a devastating and apocalyptic event like the Taiping Civil War? To what extent did the logic of divine reward and punishment play a role in the ordinary lives of people impacted by this conflict? How did people combat the horrors of war psychologically? This episode is part one in a series covering Tobie Meyer-Fong's excellent book "What Remains," about some o...

The Taiping Civil War was an apocalyptic event for those who lived through it. For most ordinary civilians, the realties on the ground involved violence, looting, hypocrisy, and danger at all times. The chaos, death, and atrocities would force those who survived to face complicated questions of grief and loss.  This is the fifth episode in a series on the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Rebellion...

The Taiping Civil War is often seen as a product of clashing belief systems and a testament to the power of belief. This episode provides some analysis for how the belief systems of the 3 major players in the conflict interacted and converged: the Taiping version of Christianity, the Qing appeal to Confucian tradition, and the western imperial civilizing mission. This is the fourth episode in a se...

How did Hong Xiuquan transform from ordinary school teacher into the leader of the largest rebellion in modern history and the younger brother of Jesus? What started out as one man's fever dream would slowly reveal itself to be a nightmare in reality for millions of people in China.  This is the third episode in a series on the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Rebellion in China. It focuses on the...

The "Great Man" style of history is often scoffed on, but does it have a part to play in the story of the Taiping Civil War? Which plays a bigger role in history-individual choices and decisions made by powerful individuals, or the larger contextual trends acting on those individuals? Ultimately a mix of these two styles of history may help us understand how mixed cultural and religiously syncreti...

From 1850-1864, China was swallowed by a wave of chaos and destruction that was bizarre, unprecedented, and apocalyptic. Some historians estimate that the Taiping Civil War left more than 20 million dead in it's wake. The tale is often told as the strange story of the Taiping leader Hong Xiuquan, who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus and essentially started his own version of Christianity...

Hey everyone, this is a bonus episode from my Patreon feed. Hope you enjoy it. If you want to support the podcast, you can click the link here: https://www.patreon.com/reflectinghistory "The Bear" by William Faulkner is one of the legendary stories in American literature. Written many decades ago, I think it still has something important to tell us about Manifest Destiny, nature, unity, truth, bea...

In this episode, I sat down with Vietnam War veteran and now best selling author William V. Taylor to talk about his memoir "On Full Automatic: Surviving 13 Months In Vietnam." During the discussion we talked about his enlistment and training process, the types and nature of combat during his time there, the role of the environment and how factors like heat and terrain affected him, his relationsh...

In this episode I sat down with historian Susan Carruthers to discuss her new book "Dear John: Love and Loyalty in Wartime America." We discuss the history of the Dear John letter in times of war, how relationships and emotional life are stressed during times of war, social norms and gender roles in regards to letter writing in times of war, the sweeping changes in the technology of communication...