News and Riddleblog Updates:

• I will soon wrap up season two of the Blessed Hope Podcast in which we worked our way though Paul’s two Thessalonian letters. Watch for an announcement about season three and some possible episodes on various topics before the new season three episodes (on Paul’s Corinthian letters) begin.

Recently Read:

For those interested in Victorian history and the background to World War One, you will enjoy this fascinating book from Miranda Carter on three remarkable first cousins and grandchildren of Queen Victoria. George Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Cousins and the Road to World War I. How did three first cousins (King George, Czar Nicolas, and Kaiser Wilhelm) bring the three great European nations they led from apparent peace and prosperity into the Great War with its unprecedented death and mass destruction. Carter describes the way in which both the unique personalities of each, along with events beyond their control (especially in the Baltic), brought about this horrific cataclysm.

Why did Wilhelm choose to wage war on England and Russia and his royal first cousins who led them. Carter’s narrative asserts that while Victoria was alive, she was able to keep all three vastly different personalities in check (along with a host of other Europeans royals related to her in one way or another). But Victoria could not live forever. Kaiser Wilhelm was the aggressor in the Great War. Carter describes how Wilhelm’s anglophilia gave way over time to an aggressive German nationalism. Wilhelm coveted a navy as powerful Britain’s, he wanted a greater share of the colonial pie, and he came to resent his cousin George. Nicolas was a self-isolated milquetoast of a man, who did little as his nation careened toward a horrible war and a bloody Bolshevik Revolution in which he and his family would perish. King George presided over a colonial empire at the end of an industrial revolution which left England with serious social ills and growing resentment of the crown.

As one reviewer put it, this is “history at its most entertaining, full of scathing and often witty descriptions of the follies and tragedies of royalty, and the way in which the three royal cousins’ lives, despite the deep social divide between the royals and ordinary people, became intertwined with the changes and the dangers confronting the major European powers in the early years of the 20th century. It is a splendid picture, splendidly narrated.” I agree.

To read the rest of June Musings, follow the link below