Entry #2 - The Blog to End All Blogs...

The Great War

 Alright so this is a kind of different medium than I talked (typed?) about last time but it's nonetheless an absolutely captivating topic.  I am talking about the pseudo-vlog "The Great War" series that can be found on YouTube.  This series is awesome.  Even if you aren't like the hubster and I and don't find history fascinating and exciting, this is still very interesting.  It's narrated by Indiana "Indy" Neidell and the format is absolutely ingenious.  Here's a very short "The Great War Channel 101" that gives a brief overview and explanation of how to start viewing, or more accurately where to start. 

They started the series in 2014 and it covers the exact week but one hundred years ago at the start of World War I.  It's updated weekly and each video goes over "this week in time, 100 years ago".  Essentially it follows World War I week by week, discussing what was happening on a world stage and all of the actions that played into the start of the war itself and the full build up into it and throughout.  It's explained well, at least in simple ways that I'm able to follow without getting horribly lost.  Since each video covers only a week at a time they're able to get into interesting details a bit more deeply than most lessons about the war would contain.  

While they had other attempts at replicating this channel in Germany and Poland and a few other countries, those projects didn't end up lasting.  But here in America, we seem to love our history and, largely through crowd sourcing, The Great War channel has remained alive and well for the past three years.  Another absolutely amazing aspect that helped keep the channel alive refers to a video game called Battlefield 1.  Mr. Neidell and his research assistant, Markus Linke, contributed research and wrote in-game codex entries for the game.  In fact, Mr. Neidell actually named all of the "medals" that serve as Battlefield 1's achievement trophies.  Here's a short video of them discussing this:

Honestly, I hope that you check this channel out even if you aren't a huge history nerd like I am.  It's well done, engrossing and I actually have managed to learn more about this period in time than I have in any history class I took in school.  While I know that this post is much shorter (and I'm sure you're all grateful for that) and somewhat lacking in my usual sarcasm, I really just can't get too sarcastic about something that's done so well.  There's a lot of amusing bits here and there and Mr. Neidell does an excellent job narrating each week's events.  If you happen to check it out, let me know what you think!  Sit tight and stay tuned for what's coming up next!