Explaining History

At the end of the Second World War, savage reprisals against anyone suspected of collaborating with the Nazis swept Europe. In many instances, however, political and personal motivations led to widespread violence and killing. 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, ple...

In November 1963, shortly before he was assassinated, John F Kennedy ordered the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. Diem, a corrupt authoritarian had become an embarrassment and his lack of support meant the likelihood of a communist takeover in Vietnam was steadily growing. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert inter...

In September 1939 Lord Linlithgow, the British Viceroy of India declared war on Nazi Germany without consulting any of India's political parties. The war presented Indian politicians with opportunities to further their agendas and the British used divide and rule tactics to maintain their control.* visit www.audiopi.co.uk and use the discount code Explain for ten percent off all podcasts and subsc...

Following the failure of Germany's last bid to defeat Britain, France and America in the west, a counter offensive took advantage of the Kaiser Army's weakness. The decisive moment, politically and militarily came on August 8th 1918 with the Battle of Amiens, after which Germany's leaders saw the war as unwinnable. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversat...

In 1933, as Hitler consolidated his power, he signed an agreement or 'concordat' with the Catholic Church, removing the power of the Papacy from German politics. Within months, however, the deal was abandoned and persecution of the church began. This podcast explores the reasons for the Nazis betrayal of the church. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversa...

For the first time in its history, British popular music became radically politicised in the mid 1970s as a result of the rise of far right racist groups in Britain. This radicalism lasted long into the 1980s, ending with the advent of New Labour. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If yo...

What factors led to the destruction of Yugoslavia and the death of 140,000 people over a decade? This podcast examines the mounting tensions that communism's failure unleashed. 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 &...

By the late 1960s anxieties over rapid social change and racial tensions promoted a conservative backlash against the perceived permissiveness of the decade. Richard Nixon and then Ronald Reagan used the criminalisation of drugs to present themselves as defenders of American values but the consequences of their policies in America and beyond have been catastrophic. Explaining History helps you und...

In the decade and a half before the Spanish Civil War, a bitterly divided society existed in constant conflict. Wealthy landowners and industrialists, supported by the army and civil guard viewed the peasantry as a subhuman 'other' and feared the threat of communism. Subscribe to the Explaining History YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXutxjOzJ8vTGHkVWikl0NQ Explaining Histor...

In 1946, following the formation of a Hindu dominated transitional government in India, inter ethnic violence broke out in Calcutta. Hindus and Muslims killed their neighbours in days of rioting, but the violence continued for two years, during and after the partition. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past...

Throughout the Second World War, Britain saw its colonies as sources of available manpower, food and finance. As Britain's fortunes changed throughout the conflict, so did its attitude to the present and future of the rest of the empire. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy th...

Harlem was the epicentre of black cultural and intellectual life in the inter war decades. Competing radical nationalist and communist parties struggled with each other to attract members from with black community. Each attempted to address the problems of discrimination and prejudice that black Americans faced. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversation...

After 1936 the Spanish Civil War became the focal issue for Europe's socialist and communist parties. The rise of Hitler to power had made anti fascist struggle the most important battle for communist movements, especially as Stalin had encouraged political divisions between communist and social democratic parties in the run up to 1933. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century thro...

Did Britain have a sexual revolution in the 1960s? All indications suggest that momentous change occurred in attitudes to pregnancy, marriage, divorce and homosexuality in that decade. However, in reality Britain had experienced a long century of changing attitudes to sex and private life. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews...

At the end of the Second World War, intense ethnic hatreds had been reawoken in Yugoslavia and Josef Tito's victorious communist partisans took advantage of internecine feuds and attempted to suppress them in order to establish Yugoslavia as a communist state. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the p...

In the second half of the 1930s, after explosive economic growth during the five year plans the USSR was convulsed by murderous political violence. The phenomenon of Stalinist terror has occupied the writing of historians for decades and in this podcast we examine two perspectives. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We con...

In 1845, at the height of Britain's industrial revolution, Friedrich Engels, the son of a German cotton industrialist came to live in Manchester. His study of the lives of the English working classes was the first major work to highlight the appalling effects of the industrial revolution on the poor. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert...

In the middle years of the Second World War, Bulgaria became a target for repeated and heavy RAF and USAAF bombing raids. Bulgaria's alliance with Germany proved to be a disaster for the country, but there was very little real strategic value for the western allies in the Balkans. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We conn...

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, railways and steam boats became tools for European powers to colonially exploit a weakened China. Following the 1911 revolution however, rail became a key device by the nationalist Sun Yat Sen to unify a chaotic and fissile country. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect th...

In the 1920s and 1930s the ownership of Britain's newspapers concentrated in an ever smaller number of hands. Lords Northcliffe, Rothermere and Beaverbrook were able to wield unprecedented political power because they had captured a mass audience of readers. They advanced their own political agendas and existed on the far right of the political spectrum in an age of political uncertainty and crisi...

In 1905 the destruction of the Russian fleet by the Japanese sent political and cultural shockwaves throughout the world. Colonised Asia saw weaknesses in European power that had hitherto never been revealed. The implications for European colonial powers like Britain and France were significant. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert inte...

In March 1933 the arrest of thousands of communists, socialists and trade unions saw the birth of Hitler's concentration camp system. However, the idea that the camps were a product of an ordered and planned seizure of power should be revised as new evidence suggests that the camps grew out of chaos and the autonomous actions of the SA.****The new A level history series that gives teachers some fr...

Why did British, American and European philosophers, writers and journalists embrace Maoism and the violent repression of China after 1949? This podcast attempts to explore the thoughts and motivations of a range of sympathetic 'fellow travellers'. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If y...

In the mid to late 1970s, faith in politicians and a belief in the moral sanctity of the office of President went into decline in the USA. The Watergate Scandal that ended the career of Richard Nixon was followed by the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Both men were seen as weak and ineffective by wide sections of the public. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century th...

How did the British Labour Party emerge after 1900, from a wide array of affiliated socialist parties and trade unions? This podcast explores the origins and the rise of the party and its effect on British politics in the Edwardian era. 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...