Explaining History

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Keith Jeffery's official history of MI6 to examine a question that gets to the heart of how the secret state was built: who became a spy, and why? When the First World War broke out, Mansfield Cumming – the first "C" of the Secret Intelligence Service – faced a peculiar problem. At a moment when all the young men wanted...

China’s war against Japan was one of the largest, bloodiest and most consequential theatres of the Second World War — yet it is still too often treated as peripheral to the wider conflict. In this episode of the Explaining History podcast, we examine China’s experience of war through Max Hastings’ All Hell Let Loose , exploring the struggle between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s C...

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the American withdrawal from Iraq – the product of Trump's war with Iran, and a strategic defeat of historic proportions. Iraq has been enormously important to the United States since the end of the Cold War. It has served multiple strategic, foreign policy and domestic purposes. Its loss – the effective expulsion of American p...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by historian Peter Parker to discuss the remarkable rediscovery of James Courage's A Way of Love – widely regarded as the first gay novel by a New Zealander – and what it tells us about gay life in post-war Britain. First published in 1959 and banned in New Zealand in 1961, A Way of Love has returned to print after nearly seven d...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Susan Pedersen's *The Guardians* – the definitive history of the mandate system – to examine one of its darkest chapters: the French bombing of Damascus in October 1925. The French had acquired Syria under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, though the British never really accepted their claim to it. Lawrence of Arabia had raced to Damascu...

**In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore Srinath Raghavan's brilliant *India's War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939–1945* – a book that places India at the centre of the Second World War, rather than at its margins.** India is frequently overlooked in histories of the Second World War. When it appears at all, it is as a source of manpower for the British Empire –...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore Keith Lowe's *Prisoners of History* and the contested world of memorialisation – focusing on one of the strangest and most controversial memorial sites in Europe. Monuments occupy public space, and they impose meaning on it. Walk through any city and you'll find statues placed with particular agendas – to memorialise the past in certain...

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the Macmillan years – that remarkable, contradictory period of post-war British history when the country was forced to confront its diminished place in the world, even as it sought to cling to the vestiges of imperial power. When Anthony Eden led Britain into the Suez Crisis in 1956, he did so believing that Britain could still act...

MI6 and the First World War – The Birth of the Secret State In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the origins of MI6 – the Secret Intelligence Service – during the First World War, drawing on Keith Jeffery's official history of the organisation. Intelligence history matters, not because of the romantic glamour of espionage, but because of the place secret organisations occu...

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the recent electoral victory of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt – and what it tells us about the global resurgence of the far right. The AFD's crushing victory has alarmed commentators around the world. An openly fascist party emerging in Germany has a special and terrifying significance. But as vete...

# Episode Description In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we tackle one of the most persistent problems in how we teach and understand the civil rights movement: the "happy ever after" narrative. For many years, students have been taught that the struggles of the 1950s and 60s culminated in victory – that the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act somehow "solved" racism in...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we continue our exploration of Eugene Rogan's masterful The Fall of the Ottomans , examining the fall of Baghdad to British forces in March 1917 – a victory that transformed Britain's position in the Middle East and revealed the imperial ambitions that would shape the post-war world. The British capture of Baghdad was far from inevitable. The cata...

The Fall of Baghdad In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we continue our exploration of Eugene Rogan's masterful The Fall of the Ottomans , examining the British campaign to capture Baghdad in 1917 – a victory that helped redeem the catastrophic humiliation of Kut. The surrender at Kut in April 1916 had been one of the worst disasters in British military history. Thousands of Br...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the transformation of British society since Brexit – a story of the weaponisation of immigration, the erosion of the NHS, and the narrowing of who counts as "British." Drawing on Liam Stanley's excellent book, Britain Alone , we examine how the anxieties that gave rise to the 2016 referendum have been magnified and entrenched in the yea...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore one of the most significant transformations of 19th-century Russia: the introduction of universal military service in 1874. The Crimean War had exposed the profound weaknesses of the Russian Empire. Its army, composed largely of serfs serving 25-year terms, was backward, poorly equipped, and utterly demoralised. The British and French h...

Hegseth's War – The Catastrophic Consequences of Maximum Lethality In this week's solo episode, I examine a ProPublica investigation into Pete Hegseth's tenure as US Defence Secretary – and the catastrophic consequences of his "maximum lethality" doctrine. Here, I want to expand on some of the key themes we discussed. The Civilian Protection Programme The story begins with a programme called Civil...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by James Loeffler, the Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss his new book, An Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America . The book traces a century of struggle over antisemitism and free speech in the United States, from the violent anti-Jewish r...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the life and legacy of Harold Wilson – the most successful Labour Prime Minister of the 20th century, and the man who attracted the most fevered paranoia from the British right. Wilson is often misunderstood. To the right, he was a crypto-communist, a threat to the British way of life. To some on the left, he was a betrayer of socialist...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I examine the extraordinary diplomatic demands the United States has placed on Canada – demands that echo the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 and raise profound questions about American intentions. The Trump administration's trade demands on Canada are not mere negotiations. They include provisions that would restrict Canada's ab...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by David F. Walbert, a veteran voting rights attorney whose new book, Stealing Elections American Style , traces the long, sordid history of contested and corrupted elections from the mid‑19th century to the present day. David's career spans decades of litigation on voting rights cases, beginning in the early 1970s when he moved to G...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we step back from the specific history of Congo to examine the broader theoretical framework of neocolonialism – and how the decline of formal empire prepared the ground for the neoliberal revolution. Drawing on thinkers from Marx and Lenin to J.A. Hobson and Rosa Luxemburg, we explore the purpose of empire from the perspective of capital: the pur...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we begin a journey into one of the darkest and most overlooked chapters of the 20th century: the establishment of neocolonialism in Africa after the formal end of European empires. After the Second World War, the dreams of a genuinely independent Africa – of nations free from exploitation, able to chart their own futures – were mercilessly sn...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by John McDonagh, professor of practice at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, former Massachusetts state legislator, and key architect of Obamacare. He is here to discuss his new book, America's Wrong Turn: U.S. Healthcare in the Neoliberal Era – a searing diagnosis of how a revolution in economic thinking turned the American...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore a little‑known chapter of American history: the establishment of California's penal system as a form of coerced labour that replaced chattel slavery. When we think of slavery in America, we think of the southern states. But California has a far more complex and underexplored history. In 1849, the year after gold was discovered, Californ...

The International Brigades and the Fight for Spain **In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by Tony Fox, organiser of the Northeast Volunteers for Liberty and the International Brigades Memorial Organisation, to discuss the newly published collection, *Remember Me to My Comrades: Letters from Spain to Britain*.** The book emerged from a remarkable collaboration with the f...