History Undone

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined once again by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Dr Spencer Jones to discuss what could have become one of the biggest military embarrassments for the British Empire. Also called the South African War, or the Anglo-Boer war, it was a bloody and drawn out conflict that shaped the future of modern South Africa. Yet had the British lost, its im...

On this episode of Origins, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry to discuss a potential meeting between Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin next month where they could discuss a plan for the future of Ukraine. In February 1945, 'the big three' of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta to discuss future European borders after the S...

On this episode of History Undone: Origins, Fergus Macphee is joined by author and host of Silicon Curtain podcast Jonathan Fink. They discuss the reported outbreak of plague from an institution in Russia which has led to the death of a lab worker. Yet nothing is certain, due in part to unclear messaging from the government. This is hardly the first time Russian or Soviet Union administration'...

On this episode of History Undone: Origins, Fergus Macphee speaks with Professor Thomas Juneau from the University of Ottawa to discuss the history of the Houthis and how their influence has grown. Far from just being rebels in Yemen, the group are now a regional power, causing difficulty to Saudi Arabia and the US. Yet how did we get here? This is Origins. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

On this edition of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined once again by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry to discuss one of the most overlooked, but important conflicts of the last 200 years: the Franco-Prussian War. What was supposed to be a chance for Napoleon III to reassert French dominance on the continent, quickly turned into a total nightmare. Poor planning and chaotic strategy saw the French r...

On this episode of Origins, Fergus Macphee is joined by Emeritus Professor of history at The University of Melbourne and an expert on the French Revolutionm, Professor Peter McPhee. They discuss the current protest that have swept through France and, in some places turned violent. The country is used to large-scale demonstrations, but can this be traced back to the Revolution and do the French rea...

Welcome to the first episode of History Undone: Origins. This is the space we will be discussing current affairs and geopolitics, through our historical and counterfactual lense. For the first episode, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry to discuss the decline of the Royal Navy. Rather than one event, this is a story of managed decline over the course of 85 years, but can it al...

On this very special edition of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and show favourite Jonathan Parshall in the studio to mark the release of his book 1942: The Crux of War. In an extended, two hour long conversation, the three discuss the year as a whole and some of the most consequential moments. At the beginning of 1942, things looked bleak for the allies, ye...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Dr Simon Elliott to discuss the culmination of the Second Punic War, which saw the Roman Republic finally defeat its nemesis: Hannibal. Before the battle, the Carthaginian general had already terrorised Rome for 15 long years on the Italian mainland, with some Romans avoiding fighting him at all costs. S...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry once again - this time to discuss the decision by the allies to prioritise the strategic bombing campaign of Germany, rather than the Atlantic. It had huge ramifications for D-Day and the Cold War borders, but was it the right one? This is History Undone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...

On this edition of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Drachinifel to discuss one of the most important events in modern history: the rise of the Nazi party and it's impact on the Second World War. Whilst the fight against Hitler & fascism was at the core of the conflict, there were other reasons for many of the world's great nations to go to war. For...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Nigel Jones to discuss one the allies' biggest breakthroughs in the Second World War: cracking the Enigma code. Despite being deemed 'unbreakable', Polish mathematicians had actually solved a version in 1932 and passed this work on to the British. The work of a group based in Bletchley Park, containing o...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Professor Chandrika Kaul from the University of St Andrews to discuss one of the most important events in the history of modern India and Imperial Britain: the Rebellion of 1857. Also referred to as the 'mutiny', it began on the 10 May when Sepoy soldiers rose up in the city of Meerut near Delhi. A day l...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined once again by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Dr Klaus Schmider to discuss one of the most significant events of the 20th Century: the Spanish Civil War. It was a bloody and fiercely ideological war, that saw Francisco Franco's Nationalists control the country and would see him lead Spain until his death in 1975. Yet today we ask, what...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Nigel Jones to discuss the sometimes chaotic tenure of Winston Churchill during the Second World War. There periods of disquiet when he could have been ousted, assassination attempts, a near miss in the Blitz and ill health; yet he remained. So what if he had not? This is History Undone. Hosted on Acas...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Dr Klaus Schmider to discuss one of the most devastating blockades in history: the siege of Leningrad. It is less mythologised than Stalingrad, perhaps because of the catastrophic loss of life and genocidal implications. Yet the Nazis never pushed on with a full-scale invasion, deciding instead to bomb...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Dr Klaus Schmider to discuss a plan that Nazi Germany never went through with. At the end of 1940, Hitler faced a choice of where to head next and Admiral Raeder's thoughts were clear: head south through the Mediterranean, capture British Empire strongholds and push through to the oil fields. Yet that ne...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Professor Adam Smith to discuss the decision by Britain and France not to officially enter the American Civil War. Both European nations had commercial and diplomatic interests within the Confederacy and their neutrality was not guaranteed. So after the Trent Affair in 1861, how close did the British E...

On this episode of History Undone, our new host Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Dr Siavush Randjbar-Daemi to discuss one of the most important moments in the history of the Middle East which still has lasting ramifications today: the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The monarchy had ruled Iran for over two and half thousand years, but from the end of the 19th century Britain...

On this edition of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry to discuss China's Civil War and the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. The scale and the figures involved in the post WWII phase of the conflict were truly staggering, yet as time wore on it was clear the tide had turned against the nationalist KMT. Yet if the world had not witnessed Mao Zedong's rise, wh...

On this episode of History Undone, Fergus Macphee is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Dr Michael Rowe to discuss one of Napoleon's greatest defeats at the Battle of Leipzig. It was the largest Europe had ever seen until the First World War, ended Napoleon's campaign to the East of the Rhine and saw him exiled to Elba. Yet if he had won that day, the team discover the consequences may have...

On this episode of History Undone, Darryl Morris is joined by channel favourites Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Jonathan Parshall to discuss the 'Kantokuen', or in other words, the drawn up Japanese plan to invade Siberia. Of course, this was never enacted, and in 1941 Japan pushed South and attacked Pearl Harbor. Yet what if they had pushed North instead? Would they have had the resources, and w...

On this edition of History Undone, Darryl Morris is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Professor Sergey Radchenko to discuss the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and one of its most mythologised moments. On the 27th of October, also known as 'Black Saturday' Vasily Arkhipov did not consent to firing a torpedo with the capabilities of the Hiroshima bomb, from Soviet sub B-59. Yet how consequenti...

On this episodes of History Undone, Darryl Morris, Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry & Drachinifel discuss one of the most important moments of naval warfare: The Battle of Tsushima. The encounter that effectively ended the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, it was a catastrophic defeat for Russia and Tsar Nicholas II. Victory saw a changing of the guard on the seas in the Far East, meaning Japan was...

On this episode of History Undone, Darryl Morris is joined by Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry and Drachinifel to discuss one of the most overlooked arenas of the First World War: the Atlantic theatre. Often called the 'first battle of the Atlantic', the German U-boat campaign seriously threatened to starve Britain out of the war, yet only brief periods of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915 and 191...