The Boiled Leather Audio Hour

We are returing to our new series on our favorite moments in A Song of Ice and Fire. After Sean’s pick of the Tower of Joy last time, this time Stefan chooses The Knight of the Laughing Tree, the most influential and important story in the story that’s told in ASOIAF. What does it tell us about Bran, about the history, about the meta and about so many other things? Who is the Knight of the Laughing Tree? Ok, just kidding, it’s Lyanna. But the other questions are really interesting!

After we followed Bismarck’s delicate attempt at maintaining European balance in the favor of German foreign policy interests, we now watch it all crash down as Kaiser Wilhelm II takes the reigns and infuses some panage into the whole thing. Listen to us discuss why France, Britain and Russia are drawing together - and whether or not it could’ve been avoided.

Sean and I start a new series, analyzing our favorite moments of the series. This week is about the Tower of Joy.

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.

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!

Amazon produced a gigantic fantasy series in the hopes of upstaging Game of Thrones - or at least its own "Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power". Did they succeed?

I'm talking about the phenomenon of "The Expanse" with Tim Westmeyr.

The first political conflict of the Kaiserriech is upon us! The Kulturkampf, the first and titular culture war, against the catholic church and the suppression of the social democrats are major factors.

We are ten years old! Almost everyone who is someone in nerddom came over to talk to me and say some kind words.

With the Kaiserreich now founded, Jim and I take a look under the hood and dissect its constitutional framework.