Author Archives: residentjudge

Global Roaming (ABC) I usually listen to Global Roaming with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald, but don’t always blog it because it is too topical. But in the episode What does a West-less future look like? they interview Dr Samir Puri whose book Westlessness: The great global rebalancing isn’t one of those ” Shock! Horror! Decline of the West!” arguments, but instead, a look at the rebalancing of power and cultural influence to blocs that do not have Western members e.g. BRICS (which now includes Indonesia, so I suppose it’s now BRIICS.) He draws a distinction between perceptions of maritime colonialism (e.g. the British Empire on the High Seas) and neighbourhood colonialism (e.g. India with the Mughals, and perhaps Russia/Ukraine??) Interesting distinction.

The Rest is History Episode 550 The Road to 1066 Rise of the Normans (Part 3) I think that I knew, but didn’t quite understand, that the rise of the dukes in France (Normandy, Anjou etc) constituted a revolutionary new political, social and military worldview. This is all pretty chaotic in both England and in France as various branches of the royal family vie with each other- real Game of Thrones stuff, with Queen Emma acting stupidly and treacherously. To quote the show notes:

Born into a world of treachery, violence and death, William of Normandy defied all expectations, forging a legacy that lasts to this day. Born out of wedlock and dismissed as an upstart, he was originally known as William the Bastard. Inheriting the Duchy of Normandy at just eight years old, William was faced with betrayal, bloodshed, and anarchy. From the restless Normans, who expanded across Europe as mercenaries and horsemen, to the growing threat of Anjou, the early years of his reign were blighted by power struggles. Following the brutal murder of his guardians, and with Normandy on the brink of collapse, William was forced to survive in a world without loyalty, where ambition was the ultimate currency. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the English throne was in turmoil, as the sons of Æthelred the Unready fought for survival and power… [and somehow Ethelred’s progeny, Harold, ended up on the throne after all]

The Human Subject (BBC) The Children Whose Teeth Were Destroyed This is the story of the more than 600 patients at Vipeholm Hospital in Sweden who, in 1946, were enrolled in a set of unexpectedly dark studies now known as the ‘sugar experiments’. Vipeholm was an institution for ‘feeble minded’ individuals who had come from other institutions where they had been labelled ‘hard to handle’. At this time, it was not really known what caused tooth decay, and people worldwide had very bad teeth. For example, in both WWI and WWII you only needed to have 6 opposing teeth for enlistment. The experiments at first were preventative ie. giving half the amount of sugar of a ‘normal’ Swedish diet at the time, with vitamin supplements. The second phase of the experiments moved to inducing tooth decay by providing large amounts of sugar in their food, as sugary drinks with meals, and most damagingly, between meals when children were allowed to eat 25 toffees a day (toffees, because as we all know, they stick to teeth). When the toffees caused huge numbers of cavities, the teeth were pulled, leaving 660 inmates without teeth. To this day, Swedish children only really have sweets on Saturday.

In the Shadows of Utopia: S2 Episode 5: The Path to the Second Indo-China War – Part Two– The CIA, the NLF and Diem. Time Period Covered 1954 – 1961. So why did the US get involved and get sucked into a situation that the French had been unable to resolve before them. There are three approaches to the war in the historiography: (i) anti-war (ii) domino theory (iii) the Vietnamese perspective. The CIA viewed the Geneva Accords as disastrous because they did not stop the growth of communism. Edward Lansdale of the CIA led small groups of US ‘advisors’ as the Saigon Military Mission, which blew up the railway in Hanoi. By 1956 the United States was pouring aid, especially military aid, into South Vietnam. Despite some private doubts about the suitability of Diem, Eisenhower welcomed him to Washington and pledged his support. The Diem government was full of nepotism and corruption, and he led harsh crackdowns on communism. However, there was still strong resistance in rural areas, and the South Vietnamese communists began appealing to North Vietnam to start up an organization of resistance- the National Liberation Front. Village chiefs were put under pressure by both the NLF and the government troops. Eisenhower changed the rules of engagement, making it possible for US advisors to accompany South Vietnamese troops. In 1959 the first US soldiers died and two years later Kennedy was elected: now it was his problem.

I have been travelling overseas with family, and so I didn’t have many opportunities to listen to podcasts, and those that I did listen to were mainly on current affairs (e.g. The Rest is Politics UK and US) and so not really worth recording.

The Rest is History The Road to 1066. One of the few books that I had bought for me as a child was a poetry book about 1066 which I think must have been 1066 and All That. I can’t for the life of me work out why I wanted that book, or how I even knew about it. Nonetheless, I have always been aware of that 1066 was an important date. This 4 part series is right down Tom Holland’s alley, as he wrote the book Millenium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom which looks at the turn of the first millenium, and he takes the running in these podcasts. Taking from ‘The Rest is History’ page (largely because I have lost my own notes), Episode 548: The Road to 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse (Part 1)The Norman Conquest of 1066, culminating in the legendary Battle of Hastings, is perhaps the greatest turning point in the history of the English nation. It was a year that changed the fate of England forever, forging empires, and settling continents. And yet, despite its infamy and significance, the true nature of those totemic events are often forgotten. So what happened in the build up to the Battle of Hastings? The dramas of 1066 were set in motion by a succession crisis in 975 AD, following the death of King Edgar. England by that time was the wealthiest and best run government in Northern Europe, a kingdom of united English speaking peoples, established by Alfred the Great and his successors. Following the mysterious death of Edgar’s first son, Edward, his second son, Æthelred – later known as ‘The Unready’ – took the throne. For many years his kingdom flourished, until disaster struck: the Vikings returned to reign terror upon the Anglo-Saxon people, under the leadership of the terrifying Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway. With his coffers straining, his people enslaved, and his lands shrinking, Æthelred, now wed to the foreign Emma of Normandy, finally decided to take drastic action, and weed the Vikings out once and for all. So it was that with the dawning of the millennium, a terrible, bloody massacre began….

And then in Episode 549: The Road to 1066 The Revenge of the Vikings Pt 2 Following the bloody St Brice’s Day Massacre, of the 13th of November 1002, which saw King Æthelred brutally exterminating the Danes from England, the Vikings were hungry for revenge. None more so than the terrifying Scandinavian King, Sweyn Forkbeard. Having capitalised on his famous father, Harold Bluetooth’s unification of Norway and Denmark, through his aggressive christianisation of the formerly pagan peoples there, Sweyn had built up a formidable force. It was this power that Æthelred had unwisely taunted, underestimating the might of the Danes. He would pay the price only a few short months later when Sweyn’s terrible fleet landed at Wilton Abbey in Wessex – one of the greatest symbols of the House of Alfred the Great – to bleed England dry, and destroy her King. Time and time again, from this date onwards, Sweyn’s Danish raids would devastate England, even going so far as to lock the Archbishop of Canterbury in a cage…by 1013 Æthelred’s reign was essentially over, his family having fled to Normandy, and England under Danish rule. But then, the death of Sweyn Forkbeard would change everything, setting in motion another titanic war of succession, this time pitting the Scandinavian Cnut against Æthelred’s son Edmund Ironside.