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Our TTBOOK team was working on a completely different show when Russia invaded Ukraine. Like many of you, we’ve been glued to social media, watching and reading as the news unfolds, day by day, hour by hour.
As a weekly cultural program, our bailiwick is not daily news. But, we can step back and think about it, ask questions and bring you interviews with people who take a deeper look.
So this week we explore history, peering through the lens of past wars in our show "The Tangled Roots of War and Peace." Parallels between then and now abound, including the force and role of individual personalities. At this very moment, our ears and eyes are tuned to the two leaders on opposite sides – Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin. We look for signs of their individual natures – are they willing to back down, what do they really want, and, how far will they go? It is unsettling to watch this in real time as we are; it must be terrifying to be living it.
There might be clues though, in the past. In 1936, political writer and anti-fascist George Orwell planted roses. This simple act of what author Rebecca Solnit sees as everyday rebellion inspired her book "Orwell’s Roses." A famous meeting in 1945, the Yalta Conference, brought together Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. But what was lesser known was Churchill, Roosevelt and W. Averell Harriman — the U.S ambassador to what was then known as the Soviet Union— brought their daughters to the conference. Author Catherine Grace Katz tells the behind the scenes geopolitical story from the daughters’ point of view.
And, we hear too from war historian Margaret MacMillan, who reminds us war goes back a very long time, but that she also thinks humans can, eventually, overcome these inherent tendencies to start war. As to how most wars get started, MacMillan says: “I tend to see it as greed - you have something that someone else wants. Maybe that’s territory, maybe it’s silver or gold, or maybe they want to make your people into slaves. You may also go to war out of fear that someone’s about to attack you or because you fear for your survival. The final category is what I call ideas and ideologies we believe in. Religion can do that. If you want to build a paradise on earth or you want to achieve your salvation in eternity, you may go to war because you’ll feel less frightened of death and you’re part of a much greater cause.”
–Shannon