Yesterday evening I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole that I wanted to tell more folks about because I found it fascinating. I’m always so intrigued by people who actually know what they are talking about and can explain it well. I had run across Timothy Snyder before; recently there were pictures of him actually sitting down with both the President of Ukraine and the First Lady, so I knew he was a big deal. I didn’t realize he was actually a functioning, working professor at Yale. But not only is he that, he also decided to open up all his new class lectures to the world online; and his new class is all about Ukraine, and a historical context for the current war.

In a sense, nothing he says is particularly new, but the depth and clarity with which he explains the history of Ukraine - and, in doing so, the history of Europe, democracy and the existence of nation-states - makes everything such a joy to listen to. I’ll attach 3 videos that I particularly admire; the first two are the lectures from the class, which is ongoing; the third is a great interview he did for a UK news station. They are, admittedly, long, but they are worth every second if you truly want to understand why Putin and Russia did this, why the Ukrainians are fighting back, why they are doing it successfully, and what that means for the rest of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LaEmaMAkpM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdvjslwvIU

An extra special mention goes out to that third video because, despite being on a mainstream news channel, the interview is well-composed, the interviewer asks actually intelligent questions, and overall the quality of discourse is so high compared to what we’re used to.