March 2017

Yale Politic: "Tyranny in Twenty Lessons: Timothy Snyder on the Rise of Trump"

By Ahmed Elbenni, March 8, 2017: Eight days after Donald Trump was elected president, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder posted an ominous warning on Facebook.
 

“Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism,” he began. “Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.”

CUNY TV's "Science Goes to the Movies" featuring Anders Winroth

Anders Winroth joins the show to talk about The History Channel’s Vikings and the accuracy of its portrayal of Viking life. The historical figures on whom characters like Ragnar Lodbrok are based are also discussed, as well as how historians disentangle myth from fact using, in this case, Viking literature and historical objects. Essential questions such as “Why do Vikings have such a bad reputation?” and “How do their descendants, current day Scandinavians, look back on them now?” fill out the rest of this fascinating episode.