Explaining History

False Dawn – Russia's Two Utopian Experiments and the Legacy of Shock Therapy https://explaininghistory.org/historiography/russian-revolution/ In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore John Gray's False Dawn and the remarkable parallels between two failed attempts to remake Russia on a Western model – Bolshevism and the "shock therapy" of the post‑Soviet 1990s. After the F...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we dive into Richard Overy's magnificent *Blood and Ruins* – a history that reframes the Second World War not simply as a struggle between democracy and fascism, but as the bloody climax of a centuries‑long competition between rival imperial powers.** Drawing on Leonard Woolf's 1928 warning that imperialism would either be "buried peacefully or in...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I explore the striking parallels between the British Labour Party's war on Jeremy Corbyn and the Democrat establishment's growing fear of Zohran Mamdani – a new kind of left politics that refuses to be bullied. We begin with the uncomfortable truth that much of what passes for "liberalism" in American politics – and "moderation" in British politic...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by award-winning French Canadian author Mireille Gagné to discuss her acclaimed novel, *Horsefly* – a powerful, genre-defying work inspired by a top‑secret biological warfare laboratory that operated on Québec's Grosse Île during the Second World War. The novel draws on a forgotten chapter of shared Allied history. In 1942, British,...

Northern Ireland, the Far-Right, and the Battle for Democracy with Heidi Birick In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined again by Heidi Birick of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism to discuss the recent far-right violence in Northern Ireland – and the global networks that fuelled it. In recent weeks, Northern Ireland was rocked by a series of violent attacks aga...

The Toscanini Conspiracy – Arturo Toscanini, Fascism, and the Italian Resistance with Filippo Iannarone In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by Italian author Filippo Iannarone to discuss his acclaimed crime novel, The Toscanini Conspiracy – a story that weaves together a real‑life cold case, the anti‑fascist resistance of conductor Arturo Toscanini, and the author's ow...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by investigative journalist Jasper Craven to discuss his new book, *God Forgives, Brothers Don’t: Inside the Violent, Hypermasculine World of America’s Military Schools*. The conversation ranges far beyond military academies to explore how the US military has become the defining institution of American manhood – and what that means f...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the opening moves of the Ottoman Empire’s war against Britain – a desperate, audacious campaign to seize the Suez Canal that has been largely forgotten but which revealed the fragility of the British Empire and the resilience of the Ottoman army. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire saw itself surrounded by enemies...

*The history that this podcast episode explores involves harm and neglect to children and some listeners may find the details disclosed distressing. In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by Paige Towers to discuss her new book, What They Stole – a deeply researched exploration of intercountry adoption from Korea to the United States, rooted in a family tragedy that shook...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by cultural historian Murray Pittock to discuss his new book, The Shortest History of Scotland – a concise but richly detailed journey through two millennia of Scottish history, from the Picts to the present day. Scotland’s geography – the “land of the mountain and the flood”, in Walter Scott’s phrase – made it virtually impenetrable...

In this episode of the Explaining History podcast, Nick sets the scene for an upcoming interview with historian Murray Pittock on The Shortest History of Scotland , reflecting on the current wave of nationalist politics across Scotland, Wales, and Ireland—and how these movements connect to wider shifts in British and English identity. From there, Nick turns to global affairs, unpacking the stark c...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by author Piers Blofeld to discuss his new book, Master of Lies: The Untold Story of Anthony Blunt, which re‑examines the most underestimated member of the Cambridge Spy Ring. Anthony Blunt was exposed as a Soviet agent in 1979 – long after the defections of Burgess, Maclean and Philby. For decades, he has been treated as something o...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine a remarkable moment: the leading architect of the Project for a New American Century, Robert Kagan, admitting that the Iran crisis is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions – and that America has effectively lost the war.** The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was the neoconservative think tank that shaped the foreign polic...

**In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Eric Hobsbawm's magisterial overview of the 20th century, *Age of Extremes*, to explore the paradoxes that shaped our world – and the crisis that defines our present.** Hobsbawm argued that the "short twentieth century" – from 1914 to 1991 – was defined by the confrontation between capitalism and communism. But the relationship...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore a little‑known but revealing corner of Russian history: the military press during the reign of Alexander II. After the humiliating defeat in the Crimean War, it was clear that Russia's army – and the autocracy that sustained it – needed fundamental change. Alexander II, who came to power as the war dragged on, embarked on a series of "G...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the enduring legacy of austerity – a policy that officially ran from 2010 to 2024, but whose cultural and political effects are still very much with us. The Labour government has made token gestures toward rolling back austerity – ending the two‑child benefit cap, for example – but the structural damage done to British society is likely...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by author Douglas Brunt to discuss his fascinating new book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel – the story of the greatest oil magnate you've never heard of, and the turbulent Russian decades that swept him away. Emmanuel Nobel, nephew of the more famous Alfred (inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes), built an oil empi...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I examine the slow-motion collapse of the political order that has defined British politics for a century – and what is likely to replace it. The term "political earthquake" gets overused. What is happening in Great Britain is more like a once‑in‑a‑century end of a political order. It began in 2024 with the death of the Conservative Party – a part...

**In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by Wendy Via of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism – a former Southern Poverty Law Center staffer – to discuss a new report on the transnational activities of far-right and anti-migrant groups around the world.** We often think of hate and xenophobia as local phenomena, but just like organised violence, the far‑right has...

There are roughly two camps. One argues that there is an overarching grand plan behind America's actions in Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, and against Russia's shadow fleet – a coherent strategy to choke off China's industries and make Europe energy-dependent on the United States. The other, more plausible camp sees imperial decline and the chaos that decline inevitably brings. I explore both. John M...

On 29th January 1991, President George H.W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress. America was at war with Iraq, having launched Operation Desert Storm to expel Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. Bush's tone was sombre, measured—a contrast to the triumphalism of his State of the Union a year earlier, when he had spoken of communism crumbling and a new era for the world. Now he spoke of some...

In the 21st century, China stands as a global economic powerhouse, a trajectory heavily influenced by the reforms initiated in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping. This episode delves into Deng's pivotal role, positioning him as the consequential figure bridging Mao Zedong's era and the present-day leadership of Xi Jinping. Drawing on David Harvey's "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," we explore the economic...

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we step back from the daily news cycle to examine a question that has shaped the modern world: what is the relationship between capitalism and democracy? For decades, we have been told that economic freedom and political freedom are two sides of the same coin—that the ability of capital to move freely, to invest, to accrue profits, is the mir...

What happens if NATO collapses—or if the United States simply walks away? In this episode, we speculate on a future that feels closer than ever. With the Trump administration openly hostile to the alliance and European allies refusing to be dragged into an illegal war in the Persian Gulf, the post-WW2 transatlantic bargain is coming undone. We go back to the beginning: why NATO was founded to keep...

It's all too easy, when reading history, to see the world through the eyes of the coloniser rather than the colonised. The mandate system—the League of Nations framework through which Britain and France claimed legitimacy for their post-war territorial grabs—is often presented as a progressive innovation: a move from old-fashioned colonialism to enlightened trusteeship. But what did it look like f...