Western Civ

Woodrow Wilson came home from Paris thinking the hard part was behind him. Little did he realize Republican opposition and his own intransigence would doom his League of Nations and nearly cost him his life. 

Western Civ 2.0

Today we step back and catch up with events we passed in the Great War as the Russian Revolution unfolded. We follow the war to its brutal conclusion. Then we pick up the Russian Civil War and take that to its equally brutal end with a sprinkling of influenza for good measure.

Western Civ 2.0

The Bolsheviks did not need to take over Russia. It was never a foregone conclusion. But after October 1917, it became increasingly inevitable.

Western Civ 2.0

The Russian Revolution's final result was never a foregone conclusion. Lenin made several crucial mistakes early on that might have resulted in his demise. We see that today. 

Free Trial Western Civ 2.0

It is that time. The Russian Revolution would be a lot different without Vladimir Lenin (Lenin is not his real name by the way...) But Lenin strikes a deal with the Germans who hope that he can steer Russia out of the Great War and he hits Petrograd like a lightning bolt. 

Western Civ 2.0 

The Russian Revolution did not come out of nowhere. It was not merely the result of World War One. Its legacy is long. Today, we go all the way back to the abolition of serfdom and hit the main events that lead to that critical month: March 1917.

Western Civ Podcast 2.0

1916 is one of the most depressing years in human history and today we're covering it. This is the year that makes World War One the horror it is. This is the year of Verdun, of the Somme, and of countless deaths on other fronts.

It is also the year everyone starts wondering: will it all be worth it?

Support Western Civ

The western front grinds to a slow halt, despite the best efforts of the generals on both sides who appear to be overly committed to killing their own men in pointless offensives... Across the pond, America tries to stay neutral while watching the unfolding Mexican Revolution to the south. 

Western Civ 2.0 

The Eastern Front in World War One is often overlooked. But, even beyond the Battle of Tannenberg, the Eastern Front is critical not only in understanding the outcome of the war but the 20th century as a whole.

Western Civ 2.0 

In this bonus, author interview, I sit down with Marc Baer and discuss his latest book: Children of Abraham: The 1,400-Year History of Jewish–Muslim Relations. 

Today, the dominant narrative of the relationship between Jewish and Muslim peoples assumes a long history of violent hostility. In Children of Abraham, historian Marc David Baer lays this myth to rest, showing how Jews and Muslims lived together in the Middle East and Europe, more often in cooperation than in conflict, for more than a millennium. When Islam emerged in the seventh century, Muslims and Jews were bound by shared religious tenets and common cultural practices, and for centuries afterward, they were often allies.

Baer introduces readers to Muslim warriors fighting for a medieval Turkish Jewish kingdom on the Caspian Sea, Jewish viziers leading the Muslim sultan’s troops in Spain, and Jewish literary lights and political party leaders in modern Egypt and Iraq. But Baer resists the alluring fable that Jews and Muslims ever lived in interfaith utopia, and he shows how European colonization and nationalism fed the emergence of modern antisemitism and Islamophobia and helped to drive these two peoples further and further apart.

Traversing the full spectrum of Jewish–Muslim relations, this is an urgent, essential history for understanding today’s unending conflicts in the Middle East and beyond.

Buy The Book HERE