217: The Unending Quest

November 22, 2020November 14, 2020 Mark Podcast

Map of India in 1700. Note that Europeans control only a few small enclaves.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Mughal India was the largest economy in the world, renowned for its cotton textiles.

But as the Mughal Empire weakened, its trade partner, the British East India Company picked up the slack, until the Emperor was a mere figurehead and India came under the rule of a multinational corporation, a development without parallel in world history.

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Fanfare

Opening Theme

Rondeau from Suite of Symphonies No. 1
Composed in 1729 by Jean-Joseph Mouret. Public domain.

“Mumbai Meditation”

Closing Theme

Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

216: A Return to Normalcy

November 8, 2020November 6, 2020 Mark Podcast

Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th President of the United States.

No matter how highly you might regard Woodrow Wilson’s peacetime policies, no matter how happy you might be that the Allies won the war, it was indiputable that the two years since the Armistice had been difficult ones for the United States.

The Republican field was divided in the 1920 primary season, and at the convention emerged the improbable candidacy of Warren G. Harding, who had articulated American voters’ hopes when he promised a return to normalcy.

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Fanfare

Opening Theme

“I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time”
Composed in 1920 by Albert Von Tilzer and Neville Fleeson. Public domain.

“Swanee”
Composed in 1919 by George Gershwin and Irving Caesar. Public domain.
Performed by George Gershwin. Used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme

215: 1919 – Germany VI

November 1, 2020October 25, 2020 Mark Podcast

A fifty billion mark note. That’s a European billion, meaning 50,000,000,000,000, or fifty trillion, as we would say in the USA. It was worth about US$12.

The German government continued to drag its feet on reparations payments, sparking a Franco-Belgian invasion of the Ruhr region.

Inflation ran wild, owing to the government’s policy of simply printing new money to pay the bills. Strikes and unrest broke out across the country, while in Munich, right-wing extremists attempted a coup.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Fantaisie – Impromptu
Composed in 1834 by Frédéric Chopin. Public domain.
Performed by Frank Levy. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme

214: 1919 – Germany V

October 25, 2020October 18, 2020 Mark Podcast

Memorial service for Walther Rathenau, held at the German Reichstag.

Reparations payments started coming due in 1921. The German government, wrestling with inflation and debt, resisted payment from the beginning.

The German right opposed paying reparations altogether and condemned the national political leaders as the “November criminals.” Some centrist political figures were assassinated by the right.

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Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 3
Composed in 1883 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme

213: 1919 – Germany IV

October 18, 2020October 11, 2020 Mark Podcast

A German Freikorps unit, bearing the military flag of the now-defunct German Empire, marches through Berlin during the Kapp Putsch of 1920.

When the Germans finally received the Treaty of Versailles, they were told to accept it as written, or else the Allies would restart the war.

It was a painful decision, but the National Assembly in Weimar approved the Treaty. Almost at once, they were denounced as traitors by the German right.

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Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 5
Composed in 1808 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme

212: 1919 – Germany III

October 4, 2020September 28, 2020 Mark Podcast

Period US political cartoon expressing the view that Allied reparations demands were excessive.

If people know only one thing about the Treaty of Versailles, they know that it imposed heavy reparations payments on Germany.

In this episode, we look at why the Allies made these demands and whether they were as big a burden as the German government made them out to be.

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Fanfare

Opening Theme

Intermezzo No. 2
Composed in 1892 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by Markus Staab, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme

211: 1919 – Germany II

September 27, 2020September 26, 2020 Mark Podcast

SMS Bayern sinking off Scapa Flow after being scuttled by her crew.

After the German Revolution, the new democratic government was feeling pretty good. Woodrow Wilson had said America’s quarrel was with the Kaiser, not the German people, and they were the representatives of the German people.

They looked forward to a generous peace offer, based on the Fourteen Points. They were dreaming.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 2
Composed in 1802 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme

210: 1919 – Germany I

September 20, 2020 Mark Podcast

Following the abdication (or deposition) of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany was declared a republic. But what kind of republic would it be?

In a split reminiscent of Russia in 1917, the central government was in the hands of Reichstag deputies, who administered the old Imperial bureaucracy, while across the country, workers’ councils, like the Russian soviets, were taking power locally.