Autocracy in America. This really is a very good series. Episode 5 Join the Kleptocracy In a kleptocracy, those in authority are united by the need to undermine the rule of law and to suppress the people in order to steal. A financial elite emerges slowly, hiding its money. From the shownotes: “Since the earliest days of the republic, America’s international friendships have shaped domestic politics. And some of those friendships helped America strengthen its democratic principles. So what happens if America’s new friends are autocrats? John Bolton, former national security adviser for President Donald Trump, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island argue that if America no longer leads the democratic world and instead imports secrecy and kleptocracy from the autocratic world, American citizens will feel even more powerless, apathetic, disengaged, and cynical.” They particularly discuss the nexus between Venezuela, China, Russia, Iran and Cuba. Within America itself, we have the emergence of SuperPACs, and the baleful influence of Elon Musk (I just can’t believe how much like a cartoon villain he is). They look at Ukraine, where the present government came to power as a rejection of strategic corruption- and look where it got them. The U.S. is vulnerable.
Episode 6 Politicize Freedom From the shownotes: “Freedom in the United States is a word that has had more than one meaning. It has meant freedom for some people and the repression of others. In a democracy, freedom also means the right to take part in politics. So how can that freedom best be secured? ” Apparently all America is united by an attachment to ‘freedom’, but I must admit that I’m always suspicious of it, especially in its American form. There is freedom in democracy but also the freedom to act in defiance of government. It’s a paradox that often those who demand ‘freedom’ most vehemently want to control the government so that they can transform the central power into their own vision. Is everything hopeless? (especially since this series was broadcast prior to Trump’s victory?) They turn to the Suffragettes, who managed to make sufficiently strong alliances with people whose politics were opposite to theirs, in order to make a common cause over the thing most important to them.
The Rest is History Episode 451: Custer’s Last Stand: The Charge of the 7th Cavalry. Do you know, I am so ignorant of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ that I don’t even know who won the Battle of Little Bighorn? From the shownotes: “The U.S. was cast into a spiralling panic following the economic depression of 1873, and waves of paramilitary violence swept through the south as the debates surrounding Reconstruction swirled on. Amidst this uncertainty, the government, under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant and his chief advisors, began drawing up a cold blooded plan to strike into the heart of Montana and settle the issue of the Plains Indians once and for all. Meanwhile, the drumbeats of war were sounding amongst the newly united Lakota and Cheyenne themselves, spearheaded by their war chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, as the pressures of white settlers and the railroads increased. Their numbers swelled in the wake of a failed winter campaign lead by General Crook, as swarms of refugees accumulated into Sitting Bull’s village – the largest assembly of Lakota ever seen on the Plains. The stage seemed set for a mighty reckoning in the summer of 1876, as the Federal government geared up for another assault. Much to his delight George Custer, spared from the brink of disaster by his reckless impetuosity, was recruited to the 7th Cavalry marching on one of the armies closing in on the Lakota encampment near the Little Bighorn River…the Battle of the Rosebud that followed would see a six hour struggle of monumental violence.”
Spoiler alert: Custer is going to die. Tom and Dominic sheet quite a bit of blame to Benteen, but there was ambiguity in Custer’s instructions to him to come quickly and bring firearms (even though this would cause delay). It was a gruesome battle, although Custer wasn’t as mutilated as he might have been, as the Native Americans probably didn’t recognize him. News of the defeat reached New York on the 5th July, the day after America celebrated its centenary. New Yorkers read a 40,000 word report of the battle, which took the reporter 22 hours to dictate). Custer was described a slight, but vivid, figure in history.
We Live Here Now (The Atlantic). Sneaky Atlantic- it played this episode at the end of ‘Autocracy in America’ and I was hooked. It features Lauren Ober and Hanna Rosin, journalists and partners in Washington DC whose liberal and progressive neighbourhood was jarred by the arrival of a black SUV plastered with January 6 decals.
Episode 1 “We’re Allowed to Live Here’ sets the scene as Lauren and Hanna realize that their new neighbours in the house called ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ (shades of Hitler, anyone) are supporters of the January 6 rioters, and that one of them is in fact Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the only person shot by a Capitol Police officer that day, after she climbed through a broken glass panel.
In Episode 2 “You’ve Got to Get Your Militias Straight” they visit their new neighbours, and one of them accompanies Micki to the nightly vigil that she holds outside the ‘DC gulag’ where the January 6 insurrectionists are either incarcerated or awaiting jail. There they see how January 6 is mythologized, and see how the story has been changed over time.
History Hit The Golden Age of the Country House. I need to get away from all this American stuff. What better than a good old British Country House? This episode features Adrian Tinniswood, the author of The Power and the Glory: The Country House Before the Great War (Vintage, 2024) His book spans 1870 to 1914. He points out that there is no ‘typical’ owner of a Country House: there were traditional owners, nouveau riche, industrialists and Americans (like Astor, Carnegie and Rothschild) and outsiders (like Sikh princes). This tolerant upper class milieu reflected Edward 7th (the former Prince of Wales) who was tolerant of ‘new’ people. Quite a few of these people built their country houses from new, often reflecting medieval, chivalric ideals. A religious presence in the village through attendance at church services and philanthropy was important in cementing the owners’ place in the community. Despite the Downton Abbey scenario, most domestic servants (who by this time were almost all women) shifted jobs quite often, and only had a ‘career’ in domestic service of about 12 years. Country houses did have their share of murders and ghosts. The Country House phenomenon continued after WWI, but by then it had lost its confidence.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 