6. 990848 文科段子：历史发展
Last time, we outlined how the Civil War finally got started. I want to talk today about the political management of the war on both sides: the north under Abraham Lincoln and the south under Jefferson Davis. An important task for both of these presidents was to justify for their citizens just why the war was necessary. In 1861, on July 4th, Lincoln gave his first major speech in which he presented the northern reasons for the war. It was, he said, to preserve democracy. Lincoln suggested that this war was a noble crusade that would determine the future of democracy through out the world. For him the issue was whether or not this government of the people, by the people could maintain its integrity, could it remain complete and survive its domestic foes. In other words, could a few discontented individuals and by that he meant those who led the southern rebellion, could they arbitrarily break up the government and put an end to free government on earth? The only way for the nation to survive was to crush the rebellion. At the time, he was hopeful that the war wouldn't last long and the slave owners would be put down forever, but he underestimated how difficult the war would be. It would be harder than any the Americans had thought before or since, largely because the north had to break the will of the southern people, not just by its army. But Lincoln rallied northerners to a deep commitment to the cause. They came to perceive the war as a kind of democratic crusade against southern society.
7. 981042 文科段子：传媒变迁
Moving away from newspapers, let's now focus on magazines. Now the first magazine was a little periodical called the Review and it was started in London in 1704. It looked a lot like the newspapers of the time, but in terms of its contents it was much different. Newspapers were concerned mainly with news events but the Review focused on important domestic issues of the day, as well as the policies of the government. Now, in England at the time, people could still be thrown in jail for publishing articles that were critical of the king. And that is what happened to Daniel Defoe. He was the outspoken founder of the review. Defoe actually wrote the first issue of the Review from prison. You see, he had been arrested because of his writings that criticized the policies of the Church of England, which was headed by the king. After his release, Defoe continued to produce the Review and the magazine started to appear on a more frequent schedule, about three times a week. It didn't take long for other magazines to start popping up. In 1709, a magazine called the Tattler began publication. This new magazine contained a mixture of news, poetry, political analysis and philosophical essays. |
