James Hawes @jameshawes2 is a former professional archaeologist and university lecturer in German, Doctor of German literature in the lead-up to WW1, novelist and Kafka biographer.
Jill Lepore joined me on the podcast to discuss The Simulmatics Corporation. Founded in 1959, it mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledgeβdecades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica.
At the end of World War One, the Allies seized the German fleet and held it at Scapa Flow, in Orkney, until the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced. At least, that was the plan. The German navy covertly scuttled their own boats under the noses of their captors, rendering the fleet us...
Francine Hirsch joined me on the pod to discuss the full story of the Nuremberg Trials, one in which the Soviet Union was a defining player.