Audio and Video Podcasts from the History Class of Dr. Reiman

In today's lecture, our final one of the course, we looked at the specific steps by which Europeans turned their backs on the history of virulent nationalism that had wracked Europe for so long. Beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950, they constructed an ever-expanding union which ultimately surpassed the original goals of wealth creation and economic development. Vodcast of Last Lecture: The History of the EU

Below is a link to a pdf handout of the slides from today's lecture and the two lectures before that, on the Cold War (complete) and the European Union. I hope that it--and all the other handouts found on WebCT Vista--will help you study for the Final exam. The date for the Final exam is on the calendar found on your WebCT site. Handout for the Cold War and the European Union

Today we concluded our overview of the Cold War and saw how and why it ended not with a bang but with a whimper (or, rather, a celebration). But, above all, it ended peacefully. We first looked at the intensification of the Cold War, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the aftermath when both sides began the long road to detente. Finally, we looked at the nature of the European Union in general, as a backdrop to tomorrow's discussion of the historical development of the EU. Cold War (Conclusion) and the EU

In today's lecture we looked at the Cold War's early, very dangerous years (1943-1962). As these dates suggest, the Cold War began in World War II, when suspicions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. were ignited by wartime strategy of the Big Three. Other sources of the Cold War are discussed, as well as its domestic impact upon the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lecture 22, The Cold War: Dangerous Years

Today I took the class on a tour of my web site for World War II (after a brief PowerPoint overview of how the war actually began). Students will need to study at least the front page of this web site because it contains all of the lecture information that I would normally deliver in class on the subject of World War II, and for which you are responsible for the exams. Pay particular attention to the information on the six stages of the war, the reasons for the failure of Holocaust rescue, and the ways in which the war planted the seeds for the Cold War. Lecture 21: Vodcast of World War II, The Web Site

The geopolitics of the 1920s and 1930s cannot be understood without an appreciation for the momentous changes that occurred in the Soviet Union and Germany. To comprehend these, we had to look as much at personality as ideology. Although we defined and analyzed the ideology of Fascism and saw its takeover of Italy and Germany, we also examined the biographies of Hitler and Stalin and how these shaped the history of the interwar years and affected a world careening toward a second global conflict in the twentieth century. Vodcast of Stalin's Russia, Fascism and the Rise of Hitler (Video Ipod format) This entry linked to Wikispaces page (Recent Blog Entries)

Today some of you inquired about the availability of a pdf file of the PowerPoint presentation of the lectures on World War I and the interwar years. By popular demand, here it is. Remember that the vodcasts for this expanded lecture are in the posts just below this one. For the pdf, either right-click on the link to the pdf below and choose open or just click on the link. One or the other method (or both) should permit you to open and view the pdf of this lecture. PDF of World War I and the Years Between the World Wars

Because we finished watching The White Rose (1982) today, we has very little time for a lecture. But we did spare nearly nine minutes for a discussion of the obstacles that the Western democracies faced in the 1930s in confronting a resurgent Germany. These numerous obstacles rewarded Hitler's expansionist foreign policies, which were reckless in the extreme, with a degree of success that they never would have had in "normal" times. But the times were far from normal. In today's lecture, we saw how. Vodcast on Short Lecture, Background to Appeasement

Also today I introduced your assignment for the essay on the White Rose. Remember that you can always find the Learning Module for the assignment on the WebCT home page. The vodcast below provides you more description of what you need to do in the essay. In sum, you need to describe how each document tells the story of the White Rose differently, AND which of the three influences upon a history document is (or are)revealed by each of the six documents. If you have questions, do not hesitate to ask them in class. Vodcast of the In-Class Description of the White Rose assignment

Today we looked at the conclusion of the Great War, including the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Europe emerged from the war battered, broken, in the grips of revolution, and rendered hopeless by the slaughter of the preceeding years. The Treaty of Versailles made the situation even worse, paralyzing the democracies and emboldening the parties on the far right for years to come. We also defined two leading conditions of the 1920s and 1930s, anomie and appeasement. Vodcast of Lecture 19, War, Revolution and the Interwar Years