The Burning Archive

When we play computer games, especially role play games like World of Warcraft or Skyrim, it is no surprise we don’t do our day job. Noone wants to play a night elf project manager in WOW or a Nord uber contract driver in Skyrim. In games, we see a different pre-modern world of work - of artisans, craft skills and guilds. Was this world ever real, and what does this fantasy world of work tell us of our collective memory of work and collective organisation? Join Jeff Rich on this fascinating tour of the history of work, guilds and unions, and the global transformations of ideas of work in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

More details on references in the show are at www.theburningarchive.com.

War is terrible. War is troubling. War poses difficult questions for us all. This war in Ukraine, which is spreading globally through sanctions, bans, social media and slogans, presents those questions too. This episode of The Burning Archive responds to a listener question that just might help us get closer to peace, and that make us think of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

What do the listeners of The Burning Archive lovest well - history, poetry, culture, surprising twists and turns of the stories behind our everyday lives. This 5oth and first anniversary edition of The Burning Archive takes a closer look at the line from Ezra Pound's Canto LXXXI - "what thou lovest well will not be reft from thee" - what does it tell us about how we can treat the past as not even past.

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The Norse myths - Thor, Odin, Freya, the Valkyries, Loki, Ragnorak and the World Tree, Yggdrassil - are so well known, they are almost hidden. We have made them so familiar in games, movies, children's stories - that their original power and strangeness is lost. This guide to Norse myths and the mental world of the Vikings recovers that strangeness with the help of two changes in perspective. 1. A fine book, Neil Price, The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (2020), and 2. the view form Lake Ilopango in El Salvador. What does El Salvador have to do with the Norse myths? Listen to the show and find out.

Also check out episode 32, This Archive is for the Players, when listener, Isaac Rich, joined the show and asked questions related to the theme of computer games and history, including about the Norse Myths.

In this penultimate special episode on the Ukraine conflict, blooming into a World Crisis, the Burning Archive discusses Joe Biden's references to food shortages and regime change, and then zeroes in on the differing interpretations of history presented by leading figures ranging from Vladimir Putin, Dmitri Medvedev, distinguished historians, Dominic Lieven and Timothy Snyder, and Francis Fukuyama. There will be one more Burning Archive podcast on the Ukraine conflict that will focus on a brilliant listener question received this weekend, and then the discussion of geopolitics will move to a new channel, while the Burning Archive will focus on history and culture.

Is it possible to tell the history of dragons without also speaking of the epics of dragon slayers? In this episode of the Burning Archive, Jeff Rich returns to the questions posed by Isaac Rich in episode 32, This Archive is for the Players, and responds to the question on the history of dragons. Travelling all over the world and, in time, from 1500 BC to the final episode of Game of Thrones, this podcast explores how the magic and the power of dragons has appeared in many cultures - from the Rig Veda to The Song of Ice and Fire, from Beowulf to St George and the Dragon in Vladimir Putin's banner flags, and from World of Warcraft to that great masterpiece of modern culture, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Thanks to Skyrim and World of Warcraft for some sound credits.

The latest Burning Archive podcast on the Ukraine Conflict provides a situation report as of 18 March 2022 when tens of thousands of citizens have been freed from Mariupol; American diplomacy picks fights with China, India and anyone else; cracks appear in the Great Media Wall; and the sanctions from hell backfire. And I ask - who has made the greatest miscalculation of all - could it be America, not Russia? 

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the conflict in Ukraine, security in Europe, the NATO v Russia war, and the emergence of the multipolar world. This episode (recorded on 12 March) looks at different names and mental models for the conflict - invasion, war of choice, Cold War II, incursion, special military operation and Cold War III. And it makes the case for thinking of this conflict as the first episode in the Wars of the Anglo-American Succession. Plus cameos from biolabs, Kamala Harris, MK Bhadrakhumar, the Saker and much much more.

Full notes and links going up on theburningarchive.com soon.

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the war in Ukraine, security in Europe, and the NATO vs Russia War. This episode (recorded on 9 March, Melbourne time) explores the revelations that the USA has operated over 30 Biolabs in Ukraine, the American concerns about Russian control of those facilities and what records may reveal about compliance with bans on biological and chemical weapons, and the role of Victoria Nuland in domestic "democratic" Ukrainian politics. Stay sane all.

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the war in Ukraine, security in Europe, and the NATO vs Russia War. This episode (recorded on 7 March, Melbourne time) explores the current situation with humanitarian corridors around main Ukrainian cities enabling evacuations, and also looks at the diplomatic positions of major players of China, India and the Gulf States. Is the world really unified against Russia? Geopolitics Upside Down will continue exploring the military, economic, information and diplomatic vectors of the emrging war for the multipolar world.

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