📙 Part 2: Describe a historical period you would like to know more about

This episode's vocabulary

In passing - if something is said in passing, it is said while talking about something else and is not the main subject of a conversation.

Postbellum (adj.) - relating to the time after a war, especially the American Civil War.

Antebellum (adj.) - relating to the time before a war, especially the American Civil War.

Tension (noun) - a feeling of fear or anger between two groups of people who do not trust each other.

The Confederacy (noun) - the group of southern states in the American Civil War that fought to leave the United States and keep slavery.

To smuggle (verb) - to take things or people to or from a place secretly and often illegally.

Cursory (noun) - quick and probably not detailed.

To inflame (verb) - to cause or increase very strong feelings such as anger or excitement.

To ameliorate (verb) - to make a bad or unpleasant situation better.

Pivotal (adj.) - central and important.

Abolition (noun) - the act of ending an activity or custom officially.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, are you all ready?

R: I am ready.

M: Off you go.

R: It's funny, because I've talked about this before. Although it was just in the passing. I mentioned, I would like to know more about the post and antebellum periods in American history. That's the period just before and just after the Civil War. I suppose of the two I'd like to know more about the antebellum, because that's the one I know the least about. I know it's a period defined by rising tensions between the two blocks of states, the North and the South, and the formation of the Confederacy, and the underground railroad that smuggled escaped slaves north, and the wider fight against slavery. But the key details completely escape me. I've only read about them in a very cursory fashion. So they're really easy to overlook, and probably even easier to forget, now that I think about it. I mean, I have no idea who the President was before Abraham Lincoln, or any of the decisions by the federal and state governments that inflame the tensions or even tried to ameliorate them. Similarly, how the Confederacy was born. I mean, it must be quite difficult to construct or form a government while you're still part of another one, they would have had to do that in secret, I would imagine. It's all fascinating, mostly because there's a huge gap in my knowledge that almost demands to be filled. But also because it's the background to a pivotal moment, or I suppose pivotal series of moments in history. The abolition of slavery wasn't just an American phenomenon. It was a global struggle for people from Britain to Russia, and very few people have any idea how we got there. And I'd really like to be one of those few in order to make it one fewer. I suppose if it weren't for that period in history, who knows how things would have turned out? I mean, I can't imagine what it would be like if we still had slaves in America today and all of the other countries that banned slavery. It would be a completely alien experience.

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