During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which pitted a left-leaning Republic, suported by the Soviet Union, against right-leaning nationalists, supported by the Nazi, more than 35,000 people from more than 50 countries went to Spain to fight against fascism for the Republic. Today’s guest, Lisa Kirschenbaum, talks about who some of those people were and […]
Episode 87: Nigeria’s Civil War & The Origins of American Humanitarian Interventions
US Survey Course: Civil War (1861-1865)
During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA.
Episode 58: Islam’s First Civil War
In picking up where Episode 57 left off, guest Shahrzad Ahmadi describes the tragic turn of events that sent shockwaves through the nascent Islamic community, and that continue to reverberate today.
Harper’s Weekly’s Portrayal of the Civil War: The New Archive (No. 11)
By Charley S. Binkow Images of war surround us today. We see high-definition photographs and videos of violence on our televisions, smartphones, and laptops almost constantly. But what was living through war like when people didn’t have instant videos or photographs? George Mason University’s Virginia Civil War Archive gives us a glimpse into the American […]
Episode 22: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (Part 2)
Episode 21: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 1)
Two documentaries on Guatemala’s violent civil war
Denese Joy Becker, a cosmotologist living in Iowa, was adopted as a child from Guatemala. Although she remembers nearly nothing about her past, a cousin from her American family realizes that Denese’s age corresponds with the period of la violencia in Guatemala
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1999)
In his introduction to Confederates in the Attic, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horwitz recounts the very strange moment when his weekend sleep-in was rudely interrupted by the loud cracking of gunfire.
Debating the Causes of the Civil War
As we remember the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, we should also not forget that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of another tragic episode: this country’s Civil War that left more than 600,000 dead in its wake.
A torrent of controversy has in fact arisen alongside the Civil War’s sesquicentennial, the most prevalent being debates over the war’s causation.