A 24-year-old Oxford history graduate is doing something wonderful for all of you right now: narrate World War II in Twitter, in real time. It may not be as academic as a John Keegan book, but so far it’s excellent.
The first tweet was:
SS Troops dressed as Poles are attacking radio transmitter in Gleiwitz, to provide pretext for Germany to attack Poland.
The beginning of the invasion.
Alwyn Collinson, the name of the Oxford grad, thinks that telling the story in real time will give people a feeling of its gravity and importance. Just like it happened with recent real worldwide events, like the Egypt revolution or the war in Libya.
Indeed, “experiencing” an event of this magnitude evolve in real time is a completely different experience than reading about it as an account of the past, even if it’s limited to 140 characters. It is much powerful. It gives you time to pause and understand the scope of what is “happening”, the timing of it all.
I certainly experienced a sense of wonderment listening in real time to the Apollo 11 landing and transmitting the event live. I’m experiencing the same with this.
If you were ever interested in the war that made the world what it is today, you should follow this account. You will learn a lot and, I’m sure, enjoy it at the same time.
[Twitter via Toronto Star via Necedades]
Travis
Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 10:41 AMI hope he planned it well with a script so he doesn’t get side tracked.
Andrew
Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 2:35 PMHe started September 1st, so he is a bit of a ways in.
Callie
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 5:05 PMas a History nut, this really is just awesome.
Deb
Monday, November 14, 2011 at 2:21 PMHave only seen this first post, but, isn’t providing context that wouldn’t have been available when the information first came out a bit wrong? Cause then it’s not really that much of a ‘play by play’ but more of a documentary. I think it’s an awesome idea nonetheless!