The Burning Archive

Peter the Great and Catherine the Great dominated Russia's 18th century. The remarkable transformations of Russian government, society, empire and culture that they led are symbolised in the astonishing statue of the Bronze Horseman in St Petersburg. The statue was a gift from Catherine II to Peter I, and it represents the power, energy and military prowess with which Peter transformed the Russian...

Part Two of this extended episode on Russian history in the global 19th century examines the debate between Westerners and Slavophiles, the divide between peasant serfs and urban commerical intelligentsia, and the complex relationship between empire and nations in the Russian empire. And we briefly examine the true history of Russia's defeat of Napoleon and liberation of Europe, that contains less...

Tolstoy's War and Peace is a symbol, a reflection and an expression of a Russian Golden Age in the 19th century. Its story of the events of Russia's defeat of Napoleon's invasion of 1812 is well-known, and this great novel is one of many great cultural artefacts of an extraordinary cultural flowering of the Russian Empire. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Mendel and so many more. The re...

This episode of the Burning Archive reports on the results of all the 2022 Nobel Prize, but most of all on the wonderful choice to award the medal for Literature to Annie Ernaux. I read a short section from Annie Ernaux, The Years , and stay tuned to the end when you will hear briefly from Annie Ernaux herself reading from the same text in French.

The Burning Archive looks ahead to Nobel Prize week, and reviews predictions and the odds of who will win the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature. I also take a brief look at the controversy behind the Nobel Peace Prize. Regular listeners, please note the Burning Archive will be taking a one month release break until early November when the podcast will review the 2022 Winners of the Nobel Prize, and...

Part Two of this extended episode on Mikhail Gorbachev's significance in world history begins with one of Gorbachev's favourite old Soviet songs - Tyomnaya noch'/ Темная ночь/  Dark is the night  (1942). It continues with a discussion of Gorbachev's legacy to the world with each of his key ideas - glasnost, perestroika and peace. The episode includes a section of the fateful press confer...

Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the most important and the most tragic figures of 20th century history. He has largely been presented in media obituaries as helping end the Cold War. In truth, he sued for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, while liberating his society to pursue its own forms of democracy. But he was betrayed abroad by the USA, whose leaders were convinced they had ended histo...

We cannot hope to find peace with Russia unless we seek to understand Russian history in all its complexity, its highs and lows, its tragedies and its farces, its inspirations and its horrors. To understand that rich history, we need to confront the Black Legend of Russian History, which tells a story of a benighted people, cursed to poverty, despotism and the dark strivings of the Russian soul. W...

History can be an aid to making good decisions - in government, in any walk of life, in your personal life. History is not only useful for leaders of governments and professors. It helps us all make sense of the events around us, and free us from false narratives and misleading comparisons that we all fall prey to from time to time. History can even be an antidote to doom-scrolling. Find out how o...

The Burning Archive podcast explores how the past is not dead, the past is not even past. But if that is so, what are the uses and lessons of history? How can history be used for guidance in our lives, and to advise governments on the big decisions that shape our fates. A recent Australian book, Lessons from History: Leading Historians Tackle Australia's Greatest Challenges, eds, Holbrook, Megarri...

As the multipolar world takes shape and tensions over Taiwan rise, it is timely to ask, what should be Australia's role in the emerging multipolar world? Are we, as Hugh White suggests in his recent Quarterly Essay, sleepwalking to war with China? Have we given up on framing our own foreign and defence policy to service the will of that "indispensable nation", America. What will it take to develop...

Three spectres are haunting America - the ghosts of the American Mind, the American State, and the American Empire. Faced with intertwined crises of culture, governing and international dominance, the 20th century's Uncle Sam has not aged well, and become the 21st century's Bad Granpa Joe. Will America break? That is the question on this episode of The Burning Archive .

The Burning Archiv e revisits the predictions of Samuel Huntington Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) about Ukraine. Is it a "fault-line" state on the borders of a clash of civilizations between the West and Russia? Could Huntington's ideas have both caused and prevented the latest war in Ukraine? This episode also gives an update on the four vectors of the conflict betw...

In the fourth and final of the series on civilizations, the Burning Archive contrasts the doom of Oswald Spengler's 1918 classic, The Decline of the West to the over-confident American optimism of the 1991 game, Civilization . What is the story of the Rise of the West? Do civilizations have a life cycle, from cradle to grave? Is the West locked in a clash of civilizations with the Rest? Should we...

This episode is part three of an extended four part series Civilization - the game, the concept and the examples from across the globe. In this episode, I look at four environments and five matching civilizations. First, I look at Sumerian civilization (approx 3000-1500 BC) in the alluvial river valleys of Mesopotamia, the original "cradle" of civilization. Then, I travel to the highlands of MesoA...

In part two of an extended four part series of eipisodes on the game Civilization , the Burning Archive examines three types of environment adapted by people for civilization - deserts of ice, uncultivable grasslands and tropical lowlands. These three environments were traditionally seen as hostile or incompatible with the kind of Civilization descended from the cradle of civilization, but are sho...

Civilization , the game, is soon to be released in its 7th edition. In this episode of The Burning Archive Jeff Rich responds to a listener question prompted by this game that puts the player in the shoes of all manner of leaders of civilizations. What is meant by the phrase 'cradle of civilization', and how is the concept of civilization relevant to today's multi-polar world facing climate-change...

Immerse yourself in Renaissance Florence and with the aid of Assassin's Creed take a virtual historical tour through the remarkable lives and turbulent times of the Medici family. For full details of references from this episode see www.theburningarchive.com

When we play computer games, especially role play games like World of Warcraft or Skyrim , it is no surprise we don’t do our day job. Noone wants to play a night elf project manager in WOW or a Nord uber contract driver in Skyrim . In games, we see a different pre-modern world of work - of artisans, craft skills and guilds. Was this world ever real, and what does this fantasy world of work tell us...

War is terrible. War is troubling. War poses difficult questions for us all. This war in Ukraine, which is spreading globally through sanctions, bans, social media and slogans, presents those questions too. This episode of The Burning Archive responds to a listener question that just might help us get closer to peace, and that make us think of Tolstoy's War and Peace .

What do the listeners of The Burning Archive lovest well - history, poetry, culture, surprising twists and turns of the stories behind our everyday lives. This 5oth and first anniversary edition of The Burning Archive takes a closer look at the line from Ezra Pound's Canto LXXXI - "what thou lovest well will not be reft from thee" - what does it tell us about how we can treat the past as not even...

The Norse myths - Thor, Odin, Freya, the Valkyries, Loki, Ragnorak and the World Tree, Yggdrassil - are so well known, they are almost hidden. We have made them so familiar in games, movies, children's stories - that their original power and strangeness is lost. This guide to Norse myths and the mental world of the Vikings recovers that strangeness with the help of two changes in perspective. 1. A...

In this penultimate special episode on the Ukraine conflict, blooming into a World Crisis, the Burning Archive discusses Joe Biden's references to food shortages and regime change, and then zeroes in on the differing interpretations of history presented by leading figures ranging from Vladimir Putin, Dmitri Medvedev, distinguished historians, Dominic Lieven and Timothy Snyder, and Francis Fukuyama...

Is it possible to tell the history of dragons without also speaking of the epics of dragon slayers? In this episode of the Burning Archive , Jeff Rich returns to the questions posed by Isaac Rich in episode 32, This Archive is for the Players , and responds to the question on the history of dragons. Travelling all over the world and, in time, from 1500 BC to the final episode of Game of Thrones ,...

The latest Burning Archive podcast on the Ukraine Conflict provides a situation report as of 18 March 2022 when tens of thousands of citizens have been freed from Mariupol; American diplomacy picks fights with China, India and anyone else; cracks appear in the Great Media Wall; and the sanctions from hell backfire. And I ask - who has made the greatest miscalculation of all - could it be America,...