Explaining History

Before the First World War, Munich was the home of Germany's avante garde, with vibrant socialist and anarchist parties, whereas Berlin was the home of militarism and conservatism. By the mid 1920s, this had reversed, with Munich producing Nazism and Berlin seeing radical political, cultural and social liberation. This inversion would have profound implications for the fate of Germany in the 1930s...

One key part of Nazi racial policy was the 'cleansing of the aryan racial body', which meant extreme repressive policies to poor, criminal, deviant and unemployed Germans who did not conform to the stereotype of German masculinity or femininity. For those deemed asocial, mass incarceration was their punishment. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations...

In the 1930s a generation of young Soviet citizens were motivated to work for the development of a socialist society. Massive urban reconstruction projects, an obsession with aviation and the development of a new urban Stalinist aesthetic began to dramatically transform Russia, along with huge increases in literacy and urbanisation. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through...

Between August and October 1914, the Ottoman Empire attempted to play both sides in the First World War off against the other. The empire pledged to Germany that it would go to war against Russia and its allies, while offering reassurances to the Russians that it would not. Eventually, Germany would force the Ottoman's hand and ensure that the empire joined the war on Germany's side. Explaining Hi...

The death of Roosevelt in 1945 left Harry Truman a politician with limited foreign policy experience surrounded by Roosevelt's top aides and ministers. Truman had little knowledge of international affairs and yet was far quicker to take a stand against the USSR than his predecessor Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We con...

This is a special feature length episode of the Explaining History podcast, featuring an interview with Joanna Lillis who brings with her thirteen years of experience in Kazakhstan. We discuss the experience of the communism, free market capitalism, famine and cultural suppression on the Kazakh people and ask what the future holds for the oil rich former soviet republic. Explaining History helps y...

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Britain's wartime policy of national service continued as a result of Britain's acute need for military manpower around the world. This podcast explores the politics of national service and its origins. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present...

Despite the hunger, hardship and terror, a generation of young Soviet citizens were committed to a bright vision of the future where technology conquered nature and a modern socialist society emerged. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸...

Italy's final offensive of the First World War and the only outright victory the Italian army gained, as fought with French and British help but begun after Austria Hungary had called for an armistice. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share....

When Stalin died, Mao felt entitled to lead the world communist movement and looked upon Khrushchev as an insignificant upstart. However, Soviet attitudes towards China only brought about greater resentment between the two powers, with catastrophic consequences in China. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the pa...

In 1933 the Nazi Party came to power and encountered a once powerful workers movement that was now deeply weakened and which hoped for compromise. Hitler was determined to destroy the trade unions which he believed were the source of Germany's downfall in 1918. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the...

Review of Susan Paul Pattie's Armenian Legionnaires, published by IB Tauris. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join the Community & Cont...

In the aftermath of the Second World War, British fascist Oswald Mosley, free from internment, attempted to revive his political career. In the 1950s he used non white immigration to re-build a political platform but this met in the end with political failure. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the p...

In the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, there was a power vacuum in Petrograd that the Bolsheviks seemed to fill in name only. The new Bolshevik government had the loosest grasp on power but were able to effectively channel violence. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If yo...

In 1945 there was every chance that America might retreat into isolationism once more. The US population sought to avoid overseas commitments, but the American foreign policy establishment recognised that in the new conditions of the Cold War, they were unavoidable Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to...

The shortages of the command economy and the failings of Stalinism made speculation, theft and the black market an essential part of everyday life in the Soviet Union Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclus...

As the 1930s progressed, the experience of life for prisoners in the camps became ever more regimented and focused on back breaking manual labour. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a...

Long accustomed to dealing with the challenge of national movements within the Austro Hungarian Empire, the various police and intelligence forces merged to combat sedition during the First World War, but ultimately failed to prevent the break up of the empire Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the p...

In America and much of the developed world, two decades of dramatically increased birth rates caused profound demographic, social and economic change. Newfound economic security and post war prosperity was the basis of this unprecedented social change. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present....

By 1968 counter cultural movements existed across the world. This podcast explores the British context and the art house and avant garde scene that surrounded it. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive...

The extent to which Hitler coopted and controlled Germany's industrialists has been a topic of fierce debate. The complicity of Krupp and IG Farben with the Nazis crimes has also been examined in depth by historians. This podcast begins to explore Hitler's approach to German capitalism and the Nazis incorporation of industry into their own racial world view. Explaining History helps you understand...

The devastating humiliation of defeat and occupation during the Second World War meant that for the new Gaullist Fourth Republic, regaining world status through empire was vital. However, the failure to stamp out independence movements in Lebanon and Syria meant that France's dreams of a new post war empire were fatally undermined. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through c...

The overwhelming pressures that the First World War placed on Russia resulted in chaos to the empire's food economy. Russia had plentiful food supplies but railway chaos, and peasants who could not get paid fairly for their produce led to the food economy breaking down and the end of Tsarism. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert intervi...

When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944 and began mass deportations to Auschwitz, two unlikely saviours, a diplomat from Franco's Spain and a businessman from Mussolini's Italy, worked to save over 5,000 Jews from the Nazis and their Hungarian Arrow Cross accomplices. Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the Explaining Histor...

When the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf unilaterally there was considerable anger. This was replaced by concern and growing support for fighting a war against fascist aggression following Hitler's devastating successes in France in the summer of 1940. Explaining History is funded through advertising and donations. For more content, journalism and ideas, visit the...