A Conversation with Philip Pomper

In my last post, I talked about history's losers. Vladimir Ilyich Ulanov, known to history as "Lenin," cannot properly be called a loser or a winner, but he can be deemed a Person of Significance.

Any book knowledge I previously had of Lenin was confined to my experience as an undergraduate political-science major (I did see plenty of his busts in Eastern Europe when I lived in Soviet-era Germany!). I wasn't at all sure what to expect when I picked up "Lenin's Brother: The Origins of the October Revolution" (Norton) by Philip Pomper, a professor of history at Wesleyan University.

If you have even the tiniest interest in the history of the 20th century (which most of you reading this should, since you probably lived in it to a greater or lesser extent), I encourage you to watch this interview. Pomper's elucidation of his field of "psycho-history" would be interesting enough in itself -- but when applied to one of modern history's greatest ideologues, it's compelling.