Monday, March 10, 2014

NPR Explores World War I

Studying World War I? All things Considered reviews the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in this short broadcast in advance of the centennial this summer.

The question they ask listeners and historians is: what would have happened if the archduke had not been shot? They call this a" counterfacutal" history of the war and will explore it further in two other broadcasts about the war this week.

Thanks to my colleague, Mary Anne Cohen, for sending me the link.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One element that seemed to be left out of the coverage was the motivation behind the plot - why did the Serb nationalists want to kill the Archduke? Focusing on the drama of the botched attempts, wrong turn, and the consequences misses a big piece of why it happened in the first place and the consequences of empire.