LL-L "History" 2008.05.16 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 16 May 2008 - Volume 04
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
=========================================================================

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Dear Lowlanders,

Those of you that can understand German and are interested in history ought
to check out the online version of a full-length documentary broadcast by
Germany's ZDF TV station: *Karl der Große* (Charlemagne).

http://dokumentation.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/25/0,1872,5540825,00.html?dr=1

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/216460?inPopup=true

I have not yet watched the program in its entirety. So far I can say that
the technical quality is excellent. The presentation is a simplified,
jazzed-up, somewhat bombastic show-and-tell that does, however, seem to come
with merits other than the latest cinematographic bells and whistles. Most
importantly, after centuries of celebrating Charlemagne ("Charles the
Great") as a unifying hero, it introduces mainstream audiences to the notion
that this Frankish king was a brutal conqueror that got away with murder in
the name of Christianization. It introduces the average person to the real
Saxon: the ancestors of most people that are now North Germans and Eastern
Netherlanders, and it introduces them to the fact that Charlemagne's
eventual victory after three decades of war against the Saxons spelled the
end of Continental Saxon independence.

If you don't understand German well, even if not at all, you might like to
take a look at the pictures anyway, for they do tell the story as well.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080516/7e6c590c/attachment.htm>