A Concert of Empires and a Sandwich
November 11, 2015 8:37 PM   Subscribe

Extra History: The Seminal Tragedy (2, 3, 4), wherein Extra Credits' history subseries (previously) takes us into the series of coincidences, missed saves, miscommunications and bad decisions that led the world improbably into The Great War. (Bonus: Corrections, Retractions, and Lies!)
posted by Navelgazer (4 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Worth watching for the Sandwich Of Doom.

Extra History is a pop mostly-military history appendix to a games youtube channel but they've been releasing some interesting videos.
posted by sukeban at 12:55 AM on November 12, 2015


ARG. So much glibly wrong! Overstatement of the Concert of Europe, bizarre focus on Great Man theory of history, a failure to recognize things like the Revolutions of 1848, mistaken motivations for Kaiser Wilhelm II's colonial ambitions, misreading the governance structure of the Russian Empire… and that's just the first episode!

Entertaining but frustrating, at least so far.
posted by klangklangston at 11:20 AM on November 12, 2015


Revolutions of 1848, a few other revolutions, anarchist terrorism and bunch of wars... plus the unification of Italy. But hey, it's a webseries with peanut-bodied cartoons and funny voices. It won't substitute for a real book but it's entertaining to watch as an introduction.

bizarre focus on Great Man theory of history

Military history ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by sukeban at 12:07 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I do have to give credit to Extra History for always surprising me with topics that I'd never heard about, or was only vaguely aware of, like the South Seas bubble, Zulu empire, and the Japanese invasion of Korea. And they can be good storytellers.

I got much more out of Indy Niedell's "Great War" channel on Youtube, and Dan Carlin's "Blueprint for Armageddon" podcasts. While I appreciate that it's still pop history, the sheer volume of the content they put out means they have time to cover a lot more, and I can get an idea of the effort and arguments involved in the true historical research.
posted by other barry at 5:18 PM on November 12, 2015


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