The Boiled Leather Audio Hour

Bismarck famously refused to engage in colonialism, only to do an about-face in the 1880s to create the third-largest colonial empire of the world. It didn’t do much good. A drain financially, utterly indefensible and diplomatically a heavy burden, it weakened Germany, rather than strengthening it. Nor did it bring any good to the colonized; rather the opposite. The first German genocide was perpetrated on Namibian soil, and it would not be the last. Listen to us discussing this dark topic of history. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Jim’s blog Jim on Twitter.

Bismarck felt, in the colloquial French of the times, the “cauchemar des coalitions”, the nightmare of coalitions. He wanted to keep the peace, but a peace on his terms. Was this ever possible, or was Bismarck’s artful foreign policy in the end only kicking the can down the road, leading to the inevitable breakdown? Listen to find out! Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Jim’s blog Jim on Twitter.

The little known fantasy saga “The Wheel of Time” was picked up by niche channel Amazon Prime and made into a small-budget show of *checks notes* 80 million dollars, which is small compared to the *checks notes again* 500 million Amazon paid for the first season of the upcoming “Lord of the Rings” series. What a time we live in! Sean T. Collins and I take you through a tour of the TV adaption of “The Wheel of Time”, talking about what worked and what didn’t and why we arrive at a solid B- for the show. Spoilers abound, of course, and word of warning: neither of us read the book. Download the episode! Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan on Twitter. Stefan’s blog. Sean on Twitter.

The famous science-fiction epic by James S. A. Corey is now finished, with the ninth and final novel having been published in late 2021. Time to take stock and talk about this series. Is it any good? What is its draw? How does it compare to other novelized epics? With me to talk about this topic is Tim Westmyer, host of the Super Critical Podcast, where I recently talked with him about nuclear weapons in The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Tim’s podcast. Tim on Twitter.

In the latest episode of our Kaiserreich series, we talk about the three great domestic fights that the ruling conservatives fought in the Kaiserreich: political catholicism (the titular Kulturkampf), social democracy and feminism. All these presented challenges to the authority of the status quo, and all of them were fought vigorously. All these fights failed and left these movements stronger than they had started. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Jim’s blog Jim on Twitter.

The Boiled Leather Audio Hour is 10 years old! Congratulating yourselves isn’t a courteous thing to do, we know. But on a podcast, there’s little choice in how to do this, since we have to record, don’t we? And so, Sean and I delve deep into the memory lane. But of course, we cannot keep this a completely navel-gazing affair. And so, I invited a lot of people over to celebrate with us. Amin Javadi, Steven Attewell, Jim McGeehin, Aziz, Manu, Clint and Merry, Joe Magician and Bookshelfstud are all here to take part in the festivities and to discuss a variety of topics. This is the longest running show to date, and I have learned one thing: I suck as a moderator. Please forgive my bad transitions and just enjoy the different segments. Happy Birthday to us! Download the episode! Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan on Twitter. Stefan’s blog. Sean on Twitter.

After waging the Wars of Unification last time, Jim and I now brace a battlefield on an entirely different sort: the smoke-filled backrooms of parliaments. We are following the creation of the German state not on the battlefield, but on the parchment, as the constitution of 1867 is crafted and then ammended into the constitution of 1871. For good measure, we also look at how the constitution develops and changes over time and find some valuable lessons in all of this. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Jim’s blog Jim on Twitter.

After talking about Dune in our Conversationalist-exclusive episode with Sean T. Collins, I’m returning once more to the rolling sands of Arrakis to take a deeper look at the material. After having an expert for movies and storytelling with me last time, this time, I’m bringing one for questions of history and warfare: Bret Deveraux, who was kind enough to join me once again. A few months ago, he published his series on the so-called “Fremen Mirage” on his blog, in which he harshly critized the notion that living in desolate lands makes you superior or even a good fighter. He also had some thoughts on the anti-colonial narrative the new Dune-movie pushes, and so I invited him to talk in more detail about this. As ever with Bret, we also dive deep into other fascinating areas, like the political system of the Dune universe and why it’s great world building, how the fighting styles and technology inform each other and so on and so forth. At some point, the proverbial hour was reached, but I’m sure we could have talkes about even more stuff! Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Bret’s blog. Stefan’s blog.

There are quite a lot stories about superheroes gone bad on offer right now. Amazon Prime alone offers two currently: Invincible, which is a pretty good cartoon series bogged down by some issues, and The Boys, which has some good ideas but ends up as a heap of toxic nerddom. I finished both available seasons of The Boys recently, and I felt the urgent need to talk about it. Luckily, DancingSean was available to throw in his considerable expertise and discuss the show with me. We have some spoilers, but those are necessary to explain the show so you can follow the episode even without having seen The Boys. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Sean on Twitter. Sean on Youtube.

In our second episode of the Kaiserreich series, we’re wading through blood and iron as the new nation state is formed in a series of unification wars. Follow us through Denmark, Bohemia and France towards Versailles. Why does the European power system allow for these wars? Why are they over so quickly? How reckless was Bismarck, really? All this, and more, in the second episode to “Kaiserreich”. Download the episode! Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour. Torrent Our iTunes page. Previous episodes. Podcast RSS feed. Stefan’s blog. Jim’s blog Jim on Twitter.