Hello Otterites and Happy Monday!
Forgive the gap in posts please, Wilson the Wonder Doodle has us running in circles and losing sleep. Still, he’s just so darn cute. Puppies are just the best.
Anyway, I was able to start a new book, Arthur Herman’s “1917: Lenin, Wilson and the Birth of the New World Disorder”. I spied this one on the shelf at a discount book store and immediate grabbed it. One, I like Arthur Herman, as I have “How the Scots Invented the Modern World” and “To Rule The Waves”, and I am all in on any chance to dunk on Woodrow WIlson.
We’ve even done an episode on “To Rule The Waves”. Check in on Episode 1 to hear us talk about Herman’s thesis that the beginnings of the modern British Navy (and thus most navies around the world) was not really to establish Britain politically around the world, but to establish British Protestantism and glorify Queen Elizabeth.
And of course we’ve already shredded Wilson in one of my favorite episodes, “Woodrow Wilson Screws the Pooch”. I’ll link it below for your listening convenience, but in a nutshell, all that fine talk about self-determination and democracy was for white people only, as Wilson was a vile racist and generally an elitist, sanctimonious scumbag who thought his shit didn’t stink and that all he had to do was prance into the Senate and Henry Cabot Lodge could kiss his wide American ass. He had no concept that idealism is fine, but sometimes you have to stoop to convincing others with well reasoned arguments and a little political give and take. In other words, I’m all about linking him to one of history’s “idealist” monsters in Vladimir Lenin. Should be a hoot.
So give a listen, going back to one of our early episodes. Dig the magic. Wilson image above by Harris & Ewing, photographers.
