The Second (Yes!) Weekly Newsletter

Another Pretentious Working Title: Isochronic Reports?

Shockingly, I’ve managed to produce another update for all of you. A little late to the party (I was working on a number of things last night that took up all of my energy, including the next episode of the show!), but here it is for your weekend amusements. But before we get into that, here is a quick announcement: this weekend we have a new episode of History Impossible in the Infinitesimal Impossibilities series releasing to all patrons over on Patreon and paid subscribers here on Substack before the rest of the public gets to hear it (and without all the ads that will no doubt pepper it), so consider supporting the show. A one-time payment here is probably the most cost-effective way to enjoy all of the exclusive History Impossible content we have on tap. So if you’ve got a couple extra bucks, head over to History Impossible’s Patreon or hit that subscribe button below and consider becoming a supporter today. So with all that said, here’s what I’ve been eating up this week.

What I’m Reading

This is part of what I like to call the strange transition period between books, where I’ve finished one and just started another, so it’s hard to fully judge the new one or to speak about the previous one without being redundant. But as readers of last week’s newsletter no doubt recall, I spoke of reading German political scientist and historian Klaus Gensicke’s The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years. Well, as it happens, I’ve finished it and I’ve got to say, it holds up all the way through. In a lot of ways, it’s probably provided the best pillar of information I’ve used for the Muslim Nazis series so far, in that it remains focused but provides plenty of well-sourced context that is already coming in handy. Expect to hear Gensicke’s name come up periodically as the Muslim Nazis series begins to pick up the pace. In its place, though, I’ve began reading historian Jeffrey Herf’s well-regarded 2009 book, Nazi Propaganda and the Arab World, which covers what the title suggests. I’ve only read its first chapter, but it promises to provide an even wider view of what was happening in the circles in which Hajj Amin al-Husseini traveled during his years in Berlin and the wider Third Reich. I’ll provide more updates as I go. In addition, I’ve been delving into the very specific, but no less unhelpful The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War, by British historian Marko Atilla Hoare, which is providing the main pillar of information for the final part of this series/season premiere I’m working on (which has indeed ballooned to something even bigger than the four to five hour episode I anticipated it would be). This book is extremely niche as far as history goes, but it’s also incredibly valuable to anyone endeavoring to understand the complexities of the Yugosphere’s relationship to ethnic and religious identity, particularly its most historically vulnerable one (in the 20th century, at least).

In terms of reading for pleasure, I’m still moving through the excellent Secret City by James Kirchick—we’re entering the Reagan years of the timeline, which just so happened to be, according to the Kirchick, the gayest presidential administration in history. I get the feeling I will be finishing this in the coming week or so, in which case I’ll provide a fuller analysis of my thoughts on it. I’ve also taken to reading sporadic essays from writers I like, loosely aiming for one a week, and in the case of this week, I read my consistent favorite Christopher Hitchens’ 2001 essay excoriating the dishonesty of a one Noam Chomsky (who has fast become placed back on what I call my “polemical shitlist,” alongside the likes of David Irving, Henry Kissinger, and Nikole Hannah-Jones). This essay, while certainly dated and imbued in the trauma of the immediate aftermath of 9/11, still resonates today—especially since the near-centenarian Chomsky has seen fit to keep inserting himself into the cultural and political fights of our time, such as calling for the unvaccinated to be “isolated” from society—and can be found both online in the archives of The Nation and in the excellent collection Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (where I happened to read it). Much of the politics discussed in the essay feel positively quaint—this was almost two years before the United States even entered the conflict in Iraq, remember—but the historical and ethical implications discussed within it are captivating and, to my eye, eternally relevant.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fiction book I just finished shortly before writing this: Dark Tide II: Ruin by Michael A. Stackpole. Click on that link and you may be surprised (or maybe not) by what you see. Yes, that is indeed a Star Wars book. And it’s actually a Star Wars book I read many years ago, when it first came out, and the Expanded Universe still existed before being retconned into oblivion by Disney. This book is great, but it’s hard to recommend to anyone who didn’t read the previous two books in the overall series into which it plays a part known as The New Jedi Order. When people went out of their way back in 2017 to proclaim that Rian Johnson had breathed new life into Star Wars with his…we’ll say “questionable” outing known as The Last Jedi (which I will very tepidly defend in some very specific instances), especially with claims that his relentless trolling of the fandom represented a “subversion of expectations,” I knew Star Wars was no longer “mine.” Because if it had been my Star Wars, then the The New Jedi Order would have been referenced as inspiration. There is no further subversion of expectations in the entire history of Star Wars than this 20-book-long series, a series that, for decades, remained only half-finished in my library. I aim to rectify that. And if you’ll indulge the occasional expression of nerd-dom regarding the subject, I’ll continue to reference it. I have no shame.

What I’m Watching

This past week has, for some reason, felt relatively barren as far as things I’ve been watching, despite there being more than the previous week, and despite there being more historical content than the previous week. It’s probably because in one case, I didn’t like what I saw and saw very little, and in the other, I’m still processing.

In the first case, I watched the first episode of Netflix’s Bridgerton. Yes, that Bridgerton. And no, it was not my cup of tea. But it certainly was my partner Molly’s, who has, put simply, become somewhat obsessed. And I get it; it’s a much more salacious/trashy version of Downton Abbey, with beautiful people getting into all sorts of sexually explicit rom-com hijinks and intrigue. I won’t pretend I wasn’t a massive fan of early 2000s staple The O.C. (and don’t remain one to this day), but it was clear within five minutes that this period show was not for me. I’ve heard this show getting slotted into the same category of anti-woke commentary that lambastes Netflix’s Cleopatra because of its diverse casting, but honestly, that just doesn’t resonate with me. This is mostly because this show is very clearly not purporting to be anything other than period-piece trash, akin to Pride and Prejudice or, hell, Black Adder (which is probably one of the funniest shows of all time). The only people, as best I can tell, who are trying to make a positive big deal out of Bridgerton’s “diversity question” is the usual suspects of the over-analyzing commentariat (whose articles I will not link here because they don’t need my promotion; just look it up on places like Vox or other trash sites). In the end, it seems to me that, barring objectively terrible shows like Velma or She-Hulk, the main issue always seems to be a show pops up, doing its own thing, gets a bunch of shallow praise for its diversity, which then prompts a (sometimes deserved) reactionary backlash toward the coverage, all the while raising the show’s profile. It’s just self-enriching fodder and while I can appreciate a good grift, I think I’ll pass. The show is well made, but the subject matter just isn’t my thing. But I’ll never ask Molly to turn it off while I’m in the room; I can just as easily do a crossword or play Goldeneye 007 on the Switch.

Now in the other case of what I watched this week, I finally got around to seeing The Forgotten Battle, the hidden gem of a WWII drama also on Netflix, centering on three different groups of characters in the Zeeland region of the Netherlands in 1944, namely in the lead up to and during the Battle of Scheldt. The first group, led by Tom Felton, the actor who played Draco Malfoy in a pretty impressive performance that doesn’t involve sneering and saying “Pottah” at Daniel Radcliffe, is the crew of a downed British glider trying to survive behind enemy lines. The second group is a Dutch family suffering under the heel of the Nazi administration after the son throws a rock through a German truck, causing the deaths of three soldiers. And finally, there’s a young Dutch soldier fighting for the Reich. This is not often done in WWII films—showing the war from multiple perspectives, that is. The last I can recall this being done in a relatively mainstream film (and this thing does appear to have a mainstream budget) was Clint Eastwood’s Iwo Jima duology of 2006-2007. This runs the risk of spreading the action and drama too thin, and while this film does kind of feel like it’s gotten close to that, I think it largely avoided it. The fact that humanizing Nazis during the war is still somehow taboo has always rubbed me the wrong way—especially when discussing the conscripted men, especially from other countries—and I’m glad this film attempts it while also depicting the emotions and circumstances that drive the local population into active, noble resistance. In any case, this is a rarity among cinema, and it makes me happy that I’ll get to see at least one other historical film this year, with Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer.

What I’m Playing

I am still working at A Plague Tale: Requiem—over half-done, based on the little percentage marker on my PS5 home screen—so I have very little to report on this front, except that this thing is truly a sight to behold. The setting, as I covered last week, is right up my alley as well, and really captures how isolated paradises during the Black Death could suddenly find themselves overrun and destroyed. But aside from that, there’s very little else to say. Again, I’ll make sure to provide some more analysis/opinion once I’ve finished it.

I also decided to reinstall the WWII-set stealth shooter Sniper Elite 5, and give that a bit of a whirl again. Stealth games/immersive sims really are my cup of tea, and I think this game does a profoundly good job at scratching that itch, plus also being relentlessly addictive when it comes to finding great sniping spots to blast off Nazi heads. This whole series—one I didn’t really play until last year leading up to this one—has a long history of being a cult classic, and with this most recent one—which I did play last year—I think they’ve perfected it. The story is really nothing to write home about, but it’s definitely the best setting for any WWII-set story—France in 1944. Plenty of references to Saving Private Ryan abound the maps (namely the first one, with its radar tower), but also just really good vibe-producing set-pieces everywhere. One little feature that’s been present at least since the fourth entry (perhaps the third; that, plus the original on I wanna say PS2, is the only one I haven’t played) is when you scout your enemies with your binoculars, a little biographical blurb pops up with them. Sometimes, it’ll outline how these German soldiers have abused their power, stabbed their comrades in the back, and even committed or participated in atrocities. But other times, it’ll have little blurbs that cause you to stop yourself from shooting: “He misses his mother”, or “Secretly gives food to a local family”, or “Stopped his comrades from killing a dog.” Granted, this is all simulation—these guys do not exist. And yet…it raises that fundamental question of humanizing Nazis (something not lost on a totally hysterical critic of the game over on Mashable who believed that this was tantamount to genocide apologia; again, I won’t link it, but it’s easy enough to find). Regardless, this game, for anyone with a WWII itch that needs scratching and who likes sandbox stealth games, is a must-play. If I can figure out how to set it up on my PS5, I just may add it to the History Impossible Twitch playlist.

…Oh and I forgot to mention, while passing the time with Bridgerton playing on the TV, I’ve been really upping my Angry Birds 2 game.

That’s All She Wrote…AGAIN…

So here we are at the end. Again. I did it! We have two weekly newsletters to show for it. And I’m having fun with it. I haven’t considered what will happen if I manage to consume nothing new for the entire week, but we live in a hyper modern consumptive age. I find it unlikely. But in the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments and feel free to leave any recommendations you think I might enjoy. Or please: tell me why I’m insane for any of the takes I’ve given.

Happiest of weekends to you all!