Chatter: Politics and National Security in the Star Wars Universe, with Chris Kempshall
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2024
⏱️ 124 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Star Wars universe gets a lot of attention for its lightsabers, space battles, and witty droids. But over the decades, a rich lore has developed around its history and politics.
Dr. Chris Kempshall researches and writes at the intersection of real-world history, with a focus on the First World War, and the Star Wars universe. His books include The History and Politics of Star Wars, which analyzes various aspects of Star Wars compared to our world, and Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, an examination of the Empire from the perspective of an in-universe historian. Chris joined David Priess to discuss World War I-themed video games, how Star Wars creator George Lucas used history, how to get one's hands around the ever-expanded lore of Star Wars, why the movie sequels differed from published books about the aftermath of the Empire's fall, the structure and operations of the Empire, the problematic politics of the Republic, the treatment of non-human species and droids in Star Wars canonical works, controversy over the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, fan theories about the extent of Emperor Palpatine's manipulation of events and about the evidence that Jar Jar Binks was a Sith, and much more.
Works mentioned in this episode:
The Star Wars canon, across all media
Works in Star Wars Legends (formerly the Star Wars Expanded Universe)
The Chatter episode National Security Insights from Board Games, with Volko Ruhnke
The book British, French and American Relations on the Western Front, 1914-1918 by Chris Kempshall
The book The First World War in Computer Games by Chris Kempshall
The book The History and Politics of Star Wars by Chris Kempshall
The book Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Chris Kempshall
The Sharpe Series of books by Bernard Cornwell
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:18.3 | Also, check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings. rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | Welcome to Chatter. I'm David Pries. This week, historian and author Chris Kemschel on politics and national security in the Star Wars universe. |
| 0:45.0 | You know, I own all of the expanded universe books. |
| 0:48.0 | I've read all of the expanded universe books. |
| 0:50.0 | I really enjoy the expanded universe books. |
| 0:51.0 | The expanded universe was a mess. |
| 0:53.4 | You know, the New Republic was always 15 minutes away from being overthrown by some |
| 1:00.4 | Neo Imperial Goblin before you know the Holy Trinity of Han |
| 1:04.3 | Laiya and Luke jumped in the Millennium Falcon and went off to save the day. |
| 1:07.1 | You'd never actually get a vision that this thing that everybody is fighting and |
| 1:11.5 | dying for is worth it, that it actually works. |
| 1:15.2 | There's a what if Star Wars comic where Vader survives and comes back to the light side and appears in this white armour to be like, |
| 1:25.2 | let's go hunt down my master. And I like to imagine everybody else go in the background and go, |
| 1:29.1 | or you could go to jail, or the horrible, horrible things you've done. |
| 1:35.0 | Chris Kemp-Shall, welcome to Chatter. |
| 1:38.0 | Thank you very much for having me. I've been looking forward to this for for ages. |
| 1:42.0 | I've been looking forward to this for almost as long as I've been alive and that's personally awkward because you weren't alive at that point but I was looking forward to it's a whole 21 years |
... |
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