Early in the second world war, the Germans found themselves with a metaphorical pebble in their shoe. The pebble was actually a rather large rock that happened to guard the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.
Unfortunately for them, it happened to be controlled by the British.
If they could remove the British, they could solve their problem and maybe do something for Hitler’s friend, Francisco Franco.
Learn more about Operation Felix, the planned German invasion of Gibraltar via Spain, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Professor Martin’s A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World(Yale, 2022) is a survey of Early Modern European history from the Age of Discovery to the French Revolution with two important distinctions. First, Professor Martin views modernity through the enduring dream of the Apocalypse (which he calls the “stamp of modernity,” 250); second, he compares the Christian philosophy of the Apocalypse to the views of the two other great European religious traditions in this era—Judaism and Islam. The result is a magisterial survey of the age that presents familiar stories examined from a new angle.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike understood the rapidly-changing, modern world they shared in terms of their common Abrahamic faith with its messianic elements, or “Apocalyptic Braid” (13). And, in addition, Christian Habsburgs and Muslim Ottomans entertained competing narratives of World Empire contested on continental battlefields and in the Mediterranean Sea as well as in literature. The Beautiful Ending ultimately was both the balm for the terrible uncertainties of the age but also a motivation for the modern Europeans to shape their own destiny—a motivation that Professor Martin argues has remained with us until today—“the idea that we are not simply made by history but also make history continues to stem from faith, and it matters little whether or not this faith is religious” (247).
John Jeffries Martin is a historian of early modern Europe at Duke University. He specializes in social, cultural, and intellectual history of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is the author of Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (1993), which won the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association, Myths of Renaissance Individualism (2004), as well as this book, A Beautiful Ending. He is the author of over 50 articles and essays and several edited volumes, including The Renaissance World (2007).
After recording this interview about history for the New Books in History Podcast, Krzysztof Odyniec and John Jeffries Martin recorded a second conversation about Apocalypse from the Early Modern period to the present day for the Almost Good Catholics podcast; the link is here.
Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of the Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World, specializing in sixteenth-century diplomacy and travel. His forthcoming book is Diplomacy at the Edges of Empires: Johannes Dantiscus in Spain, 1519-1352 (published by Brepols). He also hosts and produces the Almost Good Catholics podcast.
What to know about political polling, and private beliefs, as Election Day nears, and about a new accusation in one of the most closely-watched races.
Also: mortgage rates hit a two-decade high, while the biggest tech companies face new lows.
Plus: what major change could be coming for the way you charge your iPhone, what Elon Musk was carrying as he visited Twitter’s headquarters, and what dream job a man got after posting to TikTok every day for nearly a year…
Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!
Pennsylvania Senate candidates John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz met on Tuesday for one of the most highly anticipated debates of this midterm election cycle. They covered everything from abortion rights to fracking to immigration, in a race that could determine control of Congress.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently released a report on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed workplaces and its impact on workers' mental health. Dr. Murthy joins us to discuss those findings, and how businesses are responding.
And in headlines: Iranian protesters marked 40 days since Mahsa Amini's death, another woman claimed that Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid for her abortion, and Elon Musk made a splashy entrance to Twitter's headquarters just days before he's set to acquire the company.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
Colorado graphic artist Lorie Smith doesn't want to be forced to create wedding websites for same-sex couples.
"I've always been creative, I've always wanted to design for weddings, and I want to design and create for weddings in a way that's consistent with God's view of marriage," Smith says.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization, says Smith’s right to freedom of speech allows her to decline to create messages promoting homosexual marriage.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Smith’s case Dec. 5.
Smith and her Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Kellie Fiedorek, join "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the case and how the nine justices may rule.
Paris Marx is joined by Dave Karpf to discuss Meta’s misguided attempt to turn Facebook into a metaverse company, how Wired Magazine has evolved, and why the tech billionaires are destroying the world.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
An investigation into child welfare agencies around the country uncovered that the vast majority of searches of home environments happen without anything like a warrant, increasing the stress for parents as well as the children whose welfare is supposed to be being protected.
Guest: Eli Hager, ProPublica reporter covering issues affecting children and teens in the Southwest.
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When Steve Gosser heard the song of a scarlet tanager in the woods, he knew to look for a bright-red bird with black wings. But when he laid eyes on the singer, he saw instead a dark-colored head, black-and-white body, with a splash of red on its chest. "Well, that sort of looks like a first-year male rose-breasted grosbeak," he said. The song of one bird coming out of the body of another suggested this little guy could be a rare hybrid. Gosser enlisted the help of some pros, including biologist David Toews, who conducted a genetic analysis to see if this was truly the offspring of two species that diverged 10 million years ago, and today run in very different circles. On today's episode, Gosser and Toews fill Aaron in on this avian mystery, and what hybrid animals can teach us about evolution.
Pulitzer Prize winning-author Annie Proulx tells Leila Fadel that she learns by writing. So when she wanted to better understand the wetlands – and how they're being affected by the climate crisis – she dove into nonfiction. Her new book, Fen, Bog & Swamp, does not concern itself with how the natural world serves humans, but rather how it serves itself.
