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In Our Time Podcast: Clausewitz and On War

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss On War, a treatise on the theory and practice of warfare written by the Prussian soldier and intellectual Carl von Clausewitz. First published in 1832, Clausewitz’s magnum opus is commonly regarded as the most important book about military theory ever written. Informed by its author’s experience of fighting against the mighty armies of Napoleon, the work looks not just at the practicalities of warfare, but offers a subtle philosophical analysis of the nature of war and its relationship with politics. Notions such as the Clausewitzian Trinity have had an enormous effect on later military leaders. But its influence is felt today not just on the battlefield but also in politics and business.

LSE Lecture – From Kaiser Wilhelm to Chancellor Merkel. The German Question on the European Stage

Speaker: Professor Andreas Rödder

Recorded on 7 November 2012 in New Theatre, East Building.
The German Question has kept Europe in suspense for more than a century. It appeared to have eventually been solved by German unification and through the integration of the D-Mark – the German “atomic bomb” – into the European Monetary Union. However, after losing two world wars and a third of its territory, having committed the holocaust and expelled huge numbers of its elites, after Europeanising central elements of its power and yet being strained by the economical impact of reunification, Germany is once more suspected of aspiring to supremacy. The lecture will follow the twisted story of Germany in Europe since the late 19th century. In particular it will analyse the connection between German reunification and the decision to introduce the Euro in order to highlight the current “German question” from a historical perspective.

Andreas Rödder holds the chair for Contemporary History at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Germany). He has published books on the mid 19th-century English Conservatives, in German foreign politics in the interwar period as well as on Germany in the 1970s and 80s and at last on German reunification.

Doris Kearns Goodwin On Lincoln And His 'Team Of Rivals'

When Tony Kushner and Steven Spielberg were working on the film Lincoln, they had many conversations with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, is about Lincoln’s relationship with his cabinet. Both her book and the film showcase Lincoln’s remarkable political skills.

When Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, he appointed three men who’d competed with him for the Republican presidential nomination to his cabinet: New York Sen. William H. Seward, Ohio Gov. Salmon P. Chase, and Missouri’s distinguished elder statesman Edward Bates.

In Team of Rivals Goodwin recounts the life and work of our 16th president and his relationship with these powerful men.
Goodwin won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She has also written books about Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys.

Opinion Poll, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, 1899

  1. Who is the greatest statesman of the century?
  2. Who is the greatest military commander of the century?
  3. Whom would you name the greatest hero of the century?
  4. Who was the most significant woman of the century?
  5. Who is the greatest inventor…?
  6. Which is the most useful invention/discovery?
  7. The greatest historical event…?
  8. The most important battle?
  9. The greatest deed of civilization?
  10. What was the happiest period of time in this century?
  11. The unhappiest period?
  12. Who were the two greatest Berliners?

Responses:

1. Bismarck (Baron vom Stein got a few dozen votes; Gladstone mentioned)
2. Napoleon (3300 votes); Moltke (3000); “alcoholism” because it conquers all generals.
3. Wilhelm I (2400); Bismarck (1600): Stanley, Garibaldi mentioned; Dr. Mueller of Vienna nominated himself.
4. Queen Luise of Prussia (2100); Queen Victoria (800); George Sand
5. Edison; Stephenson, Morse, Fulton, Howe distant runners-up
6. The railroad; also mentioned electric power, steamship, telegraph, x-ray
7. German unification (some say defeat of Napoleon; a few, the Revolution of 1848)
8. Battle of Leipzig (4300); Sedan (2000)
9. Slave emancipation (a close second, colonialism); social legislation of the Reich; Suez Canal
10. The majority, 1871-1900; a close second, 1871-1880
11. 1806-1812; a few, 1815-1848; 1867-73; 1848, 1878-1890
12. Alexander von Humboldt (1500); Wilhelm I (1200); Wilhelm II mentioned.

From Kaiser Wilhelm to Chancellor Merkel. The German Question on the European Stage

Recorded at LSE on 7 November 2012.

The German Question has kept Europe in suspense for more than a century. It appeared to have eventually been solved by German unification and through the integration of the D-Mark – the German “atomic bomb” – into the European Monetary Union. However, after losing two world wars and a third of its territory, having committed the holocaust and expelled huge numbers of its elites, after Europeanising central elements of its power and yet being strained by the economical impact of reunification, Germany is once more suspected of aspiring to supremacy. The lecture will follow the twisted story of Germany in Europe since the late 19th century. In particular it will analyse the connection between German reunification and the decision to introduce the Euro in order to highlight the current “German question” from a historical perspective.

Andreas Rödder holds the chair for Contemporary History at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Germany).

Then and Now: Why the rich look down on the poor

In the ancient world, the rich held themselves to very different standards from the poor. Not much has changed, argues classical historian Mary Beard…

“By and large, posh Romans didn’t have much time for poor Romans, free or slave – although they were no doubt a bit scared of them too. They regularly referred to them as a “turba” (rabble) or “multitudo” (the masses).

Interestingly, given the recent fuss, plebs wasn’t usually their insult of choice. It’s true that they did sometimes use the word in that way.

The historian Tacitus, for example, wrote of the plebs sordida (and you don’t need me to translate that). But plebs was just as often used to refer, in neutral or even complimentary terms, to the noble stock of the worthy Roman yeomanry.

It was only in English, and in the late 18th Century that the word lost its final “s” and became solely derogatory, as in “you filthy little pleb”…

The other way in which the comfortably-off traditionally talk of those less fortunate than themselves is, of course, to divide them into the Good Poor and the Bad Poor.

In fact, when Tacitus wrote of the plebs sordida it was explicitly to contrast them with what he called “the respectable elements among the common people”.Talk

ing about the death of the monstrous emperor Nero, he claimed the “filthy poor”, the squanderers and the racing addicts, lamented the death (for Nero had been an easy touch for entertainments and hand-outs).

Predictably enough, the “respectable elements” were those who welcomed the new regime of austerity and cost-cutting under the in-coming emperor Galba.

That division is still with us. The 19th Century notoriously had its “deserving” and “undeserving poor”. Our own equivalent of the “deserving poor” is “hard-working families”.

Mudslinging in 1800 and Beyond

I want to push back a bit on the Diehl-Rocks thesis that the election of 1828 is the genesis of dirty campaigning. Thomas Jefferson supporters accused Adams of being a hermaphrodite with “neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” In response, the Adams campaign accused Jefferson of being the son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a mulatto father.

Of course the election of 1800 is just the beginning. One of my favorites was in 1876 when Democrats accused Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes of shooting his own mother and stealing the pay of dead soldiers while he was a Union general.
None of the above had to show their original long form birth certificate.

NPC Conference 2012

China’s ruling Communist Party is about to hold an important congress and usher in sweeping leadership changes which could have a profound impact on the country’s future direction.
With China now the world’s second largest economy and an increasingly important global player, the changes will be closely watched around the world.

What are the main issues at this year’s meeting?

How China sees a multicultural world

The vast majority of the Chinese population regard themselves as belonging to the same race, a stark contrast to the multiracial composition of other populous countries. What effect does this have on how China views the world?

More than nine out of 10 Chinese people think of themselves as belonging to just one race, the Han. This is remarkable. It is quite different from the world’s other most populous nations: India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil. All recognise themselves to be, in varying degrees, multiracial and multicultural.

Why is this? The BBC answers

Ethnic minorities in China

Ethnic Uyghur grandfather holds child

Of the 55 recognised ethnic minority groups, the 10 largest are:

  • Zhuang (16.9 million)
  • Hui (10.59 million)
  • Manchu (10.39 million)
  • Uyghur (10.07 million)
  • Miao (9.43 million)
  • Yi (8.7 million)
  • Tujia (8.35 million)
  • Tibetan (6.28 million)
  • Mongol (5.98 million)
  • Buyei (2.87 million)

Source: 2010 China census

Reforming the north-east – Rustbelt revival


A decade after an explosion of unrest in China’s north-east, a remarkable recovery is under way

The outgoing party chief, Jiang Zemin, was trying to promote a new catchphrase for the party called the “three represents”, including the notion that the party represented “the fundamental interests of the majority”. The workers who took to the streets in the spring of 2002, in the cities of Daqing, Fushun and Liaoyang were in effect saying that the party did not represent them and had indeed failed them.

Within a year of taking over from Mr Jiang, Hu Jintao launched a campaign to “revive the north-east”. It was an ambitious project for a region that had few of the advantages of the fast-growing Yangzi and Pearl River deltas, with their better-developed private sectors and ready access to investment and know-how from abroad, especially Hong Kong and Taiwan. Of the north-east’s GDP, two-thirds was being produced by state-owned firms
Much work remains to be done, from the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to boosting social-security provisions. But a decade on, as Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, prepare to step down, the party is likely to tout the north-east’s revival as one of its successes.

Problems for migrants “Don’t complain about things that you can’t change”

After a generation of migration, barriers to social mobility remain…

THE greatest wave of voluntary migration in human history transformed China’s cities, and the global economy, in a single generation. It has also created a huge task for those cities, by raising the expectations of the next generation of migrants from the countryside, and of second-generation migrant children. They have grown up in cities in which neither the jobs nor the education offered them have improved much.

This matters because the next generation of migrants has already arrived in staggering numbers. Shanghai’s migrant population almost trebled between 2000 and 2010, to 9m of the municipality’s 23m people. Nearly 60% of Shanghai’s 7.5m or so 20-to-34-year-olds are migrants.

44% of young migrants worked in manufacturing and another 10% in construction.

Nearly half worried about the monotony of their work and despaired of their career prospects. Only 8.6% reported being “comfortable” at work. One worker told researchers: “We have become robots, and I don’t want to be a robot who only works with machines.”

One obstacle to a better job is their parents. In China’s system of household registration (known as hukou)…They are fated to grow up on a separate path from children of Shanghainese parents. Migrant children are eligible to attend local primary and middle schools, but barred from Shanghai’s high schools. For years reformers have called for changes in the hukou system.