Heather Cox Richardson. Heather Cox Richardson is an American political historian who has been posting daily blogposts about American politics. Like the rest of us, she is shut in at home, so she has decided to do two weekly videos. The first is, I suspect, a quick run through of her American History 101 and a tie-in with her recent book How the South Won the Civil War. The other weekly video is a Q&A about recent political events in America. Given that I never studied American history, I’m interested in her Thursday (US time) American history series. She just sits there and it all spiels out, so she’s obviously done this before. Now that I am actually on a phone plan that gives me plenty of data, I just stream it while I’m walking because there’s nothing to see other than a woman sitting in front of bookshelves. But she’s very fluent, and clear and engaging. You can get the videos through her Facebook page. Excellent listening.
Rear Vision (ABC) Of course, I’m far more interested in Latin American history now that I’m learning Spanish. Rear Vision has a really good podcast from May 2018 that gives a summary of Latin American history in the twentieth and twenty-first century, especially in view of what seemed to be in 2018 a return to right wing government. (It hasn’t completely turned out that way, Jair Bolsonaro notwithstanding). Latin America makes a right turn is an excellent, if somewhat outdated, summary.
Somewhat more recent is the program A destructive mine and a civil war: Bougainville’s path to an independence vote. Well, after the referendum they were supposed to go to the polls to elect their regional council in May this year- I doubt that will happen. And the program Protests in Lebanon, also from November 2019 is about the protests against the sectarian carve up of politics in the Lebanese constitution. It’s strange to listen to these programs now that the world has been turned upside down by coronavirus, but of course the issues won’t go away.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 