New Videos and Books

After nearly a year, I finally finished editing and releasing another video, “The Habsburg Dynasty in 5 Minutes.” I also rewatched the video “The Peace of Westphalia: The Setting,” which is actually just me reading a couple of pages (some of my favourite pages, of course) from my book, and decided that it was better than I realized. It has never gotten many hits, possibly because the audio is so quiet and possibly because the title sounds boring, so I remastered the audio and re-released as “They negotiated WHERE?” I was rather optimistic about that video when I first made it, and I had thought I would do more readings; maybe this will get it some more attention. Or maybe not.

I received this massive tome in the mail on Wednesday. It is over1000 pages and weighs over 5 pounds. It is a collection of chapters from different authors, mostly in German but some in English, including my chapter on peacemaking in the Thirty Years’ War. As always when I learn about a new book on a subject I’m interested in, I have mixed feelings: excitement to learn a subject more in depth, but frustration that I have to read more to keep up with scholarship. Seriously, people, there are too many books already. Stop writing so much.

I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, since another article of mine also appeared recently: ‘The Historical Context of “A Westphalia for the Middle East?”’ in the new Journal of Applied History. In my defense, both this article and the one in the “Handbook of Peace” were solicited. This one was actually supposed to be part of a special issue specifically devoted to the “Westphalia for the Middle East” project, but apparently not enough articles made the cut to warrant a special issue. Mine feels kind of out of place outside of a special issue, but I think they will be publishing more articles on the subject in coming issues, and it does make sense to put the historical context early in the process.