FRDH Special: How America Got This Way

2016 was by any measure an historic year. A different America revealed itself to its own people and to the rest of the world. Donald Trump was unlike any Presidential candidate in history and now is set to be President. This FRDH podcast special explores How America Got This Way. FRDH stands for First Rough Draft of History, which is what journalists like to say they are writing and in this FRDH special four London-based journalists with a cumulative century of reporting on America and the way America effects the world talk about their own rough drafts of American history.
Robin Lustig, former presenter of Newshour on the BBC World Service, Mina al-Oraibi of pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and Ned Temko, former political editor of The Observer, join Michael Goldfarb to talk about America, isolationism, Iraq, Syria and Putin. They ask can American institutions – especially Congress – stand up to the surprising changes in American society and is 2016 as historic in comparison with other years when modern history changed: 1968 and 1989.


Paradigm shift Today, A Parable From the Past to Help Understand.

Memoir as history. The paradigm in American politics has shifted since the election. It has many people racking their memories for a historical parallel, some source of guidance. This parable from the late 1970’s in New York might help. It’s a story about finding the courage to stand up when bad change happens in your society. Love, literature, torture and courage all figure in this story. It takes place in New York and Athens and in memory. Give me 15 minutes and I will give you the past as prologue to the present.


Memoir as history. The paradigm in American politics has shifted since the election. It has many people racking their memories for a historical parallel, some source of guidance. This parable from the late 1970’s in New York might help. It’s a story about finding the courage to stand up when bad change happens in your society. Love, literature, torture and courage all figure in this story. It takes place in New York and Athens and in memory. Give me 15 minutes and I will give you the past as prologue to the present.

Mass Deportation- Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to deport millions of people who entered America illegally. The history of mass deportation indicates that’s easier said than done.

 


Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to deport millions of people who entered America illegally. The history of mass deportation indicates that’s easier said than done

Mind of the South | Social History: “Whoever wants to understand the heart and mind of America better know baseball” Jacques Barzun. Not really. They better know the South, the region that more than any other shapes US politics. This piece from 2004 foreshadows much of what shaped the election of Donald Trump and great music.


Class Reclassified | Social History: the reclassification of social classes + the history of wine.  What does middle-class mean any more? Working class? What class are you? It’s time for a re-classification of class.  Which reminds me of wine and not just because I’m a person of class.


There is no place of greater safety for civilians and soldiers wounded in today’s wars. In 2016 alone there was nearly one attack every day on a hospital in a conflict zone.The most infamous attack came in 2015, when the United States bombed an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, this podcast asks, Why? Are we seeing the end of the rules that governed warfare and provision of safe spaces for those caught in the crossfire? The origins of the Red Cross and humanitarian law go back to the middle of the 19th Century, to the battle of Solferino in 1859. The French Army under Napoleon III faced off against the Austrian Army led by Emperor Franz Joseph 1st. The politics behind the battle related to Italian independence but the battle is famous for much more.

300,000 men met on the field of battle near Solferino a small town between Milan and Verona. After nine hours of combat nearly five thousand were dead and more than 22,000 were wounded, many lying where they fell receiving no medical treatment.

A Swiss observer of the carnage, Henri Dunant, organized local people to bring some kind of relief to the stricken soldiers. Dunant, a man of private wealth, self-published a book about his experiences, it was the first step in the lobbying that would create the Red Cross in 1863 and the First Geneva Convention or the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, the following year.

War today is different. Emperors no longer command armies into battle in great open spaces. Conflict is everywhere and involves everyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
In WW1 for every 10 soldiers killed 1 civilian died. Today that is reversed. For every soldier killed 10 civilians die.

You Say You Want a Revolution | Political History: The true price of revolution.


Political History: The true price of revolution.