My intentions were to cheer people up and make a few waves in the history podcasting scene, but as the Bismarck project grew, the release date became more and more distant. There was nobody I could have examined for my first such series than Otto von Bismarck [], the Minister-President of Prussia, who became Chancellor of Germany, reimagined European borders, transformed the status quo, and established a legend.
As many of you probably know, Otto von Bismarck has always been a special historical figure to me. As a 15 year old kid with little concept of how our world became our world, I was dazzled and mesmerised by stories of how, in the latter portion of the nineteenth century, a place called Prussia and a man called Bismarck completely transformed the status quo, and effectively created the world or at least Europe as we know it today.
I also remember that it was while looking at Bismarck that the study of how wars begin started to really draw me in. I wanted to learn all there was to know about medieval diplomacy, the proper process for declaring war. And of course, I honed in on the most infamous case of failed diplomacy that there is — the First World War. Bismarck, you could say, was my gateway drug into a fascinating world, where great feats of human endurance, great efforts in manipulation, and great stories of diplomatic initiative could be grappled with.
This obsession with why diplomacy failed was thus with me from an early stage, as was my general obsession with the period , which I retain to this day. I was doing extra reading, and wanted to tell everyone about this Bismarck guy and his accomplishments. How amazing was it, I would say, that this one guy managed to get all of this done!
The obsession and passion never really went away. For a project in sixth year of school twelfth grade to my American history friends I had a genius proposal — Why World War 1 Happened.
