History in the Making - A Livre Ouvert

Christopher De Bellaigue is a journalist and author who has spent time in Iran and knows the country and its complexities. His book Patriot of Persia is a good read for those interested in learning about Mossadegh, the man who had great ambition to modernise Iran. Jack Straw is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010. His book, The English job provides insight into why Ira...

If all roads lead to Munich 1938, then our foreign policy options are restricted to belligerence or betrayal. In the absence of American muscle power, shouldn’t the EU, explore the fine art of diplomacy? Neo-Conservatism is an ideology that adheres firmly to the view that military might-not diplomacy or negotiations must achieve foreign policy goals. But is Neo-conservatism, allied with Neo-Libera...

Zone into Africa and you will notice that Rwanda’s neighbours are Burundi (slightly larger than Rwanda) Uganda (9 times bigger than Rwanda), Tanzania (35 times bigger than Rwanda), and Congo (89 times bigger than Rwanda). Rwanda is the smallest in size, but over the years because of military backing from the West, ( mainly the US) Rwanda has managed to bully all its neighbours, including the large...

The Special envoy for Ukraine, retired lieutenant General Kellogg has laid out America's shift in foreign policy; it draws inspiration from Prof. Paul Kennedy's book,The rise and fall of Great powers. Trump unlike his predecessor does not want war with Russia because his administration believe that great powers historically fail when they get entangled in strategic overreach or military ov...

The Democrats have betrayed themselves for decades to the point that they synchronised the vicious circle with the Republicans that gave Trump his triumphant victory. The current American political scene should serve as a wake up call for the rest of the West. Up until now it made sense for the collective West to rally behind the US and look up to their leadership in terms of freedom and democracy...

What, in your opinion, is truly the driving force behind the democratic process in America? Well, one of the key factors for me is the PAC and the Super PAC. A political action committee is a tax exempt entity that collects funding from contributors for its political causes. Although money cannot be handed directly to the candidates, unlimited funding can be poured into groups and organisations wh...

On the 22nd of September, President Zelensky addressed the Canadian Parliament and shortly after his speech the speaker of the House, Anthony Rota, made references of a Ukrainian hero called Yaroslav Hunka. The Parliament broke into thundering applause. However, barely 24 hours later it emerged that Mr. Hunka was a member of the SS Galician or the 14th Waffen Grenadier which is also known as the F...

Did you know that the constitution of India says, " India, that is Bharat "? Where does India get her name from? And for that matter where does Bharat come from? Listen in to get an idea of the bizarre battle to change India into Bharat.

On the 20th of September 1973, Billie Jean King took on the proud male chauvinist Bobby Riggs in a heavily publicised match called the Battle of the Sexes. On that day Billie Jean King won in straight sets, but she was fighting the wider malaise of social injustice. She might have won the battle, but the war still rages on. Can equality be likened to fairness? The desire to perform or rather outpe...

Who were the Greenshirts and the Blueshirts? How far did Nazi ideology spread? And Who funded the Nazis? History books rarely cover these two aspects of WWII. Hitler rose to power in 1933 through a dodgy backroom political deal that effectively announced the demise of Weimar democracy. This was at a time when German pride was at its lowest, but Hitler had held out the promise of bringing back the...

Today marks the first death anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II. The thing that stood out for me during her funeral was that only two people read lessons for her ceremony, one of course was the then prime minister Liz Truss, but the other was Baroness Scotland, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth. That itself should give us an idea of how important a place the Commonwealth had in the Queen&#39...

What are the Opiums wars? Why do they continue to flame modern Chinese nationalism ? In the early nineteenth century, the opium trade from India to China became a significant source of British income, but the Son of Heaven outlawed the use of opium because his population had grown excessively addicted to it. Despite the ban, the British and the Americans were using illegal routes to trade their op...

How did women contribute to WWI? WWI forced millions of men into fighting on different fronts and inadvertently left women to run factories, trams, trains, postal services, fields and farms. Every place they were once told they were too dainty, to delicate, too inadequate to even frequent was now up and running thanks to the weaker sex. The French socialist leader René Viviani made a passionate ca...

On 20th August 1968, in the horrors of Operation Danube unfolded on the peoples of Czechoslovakia. This Podcast is dedicated to all those to lost their lives in the 1968 Soviet led Warsaw Pact invasion. The Historian Prokop Tomek puts that figure at 137 but hopes and dreams of millions were crushed by the invasion. Under the leadership of Alexander Dubček, the communist party in Czechoslovakia too...

Seventy-six years ago, on this very day, India got her independence. The death of the British Raj at least in the Indian subcontinent led to the birth of India and Pakistan. In 1947, India was partitioned on religious grounds. The Muslims of the Indian subcontinent felt they would be better off under Islamic law in their own land. On the 15th of August, India declared herself as secular, but on th...

At the outset, I'd like to dedicate this podcast to Frits Veerman, the Dutch Whistleblower. This episode explores Oppenheimer's fears of a global nuclear race. How did North Korea get its Nuclear Bomb? Did you know that Gaddafi, the despot gave up his nuclear technology in exchange for closer ties to the West? Listen to the episode learn more!

When Great democracies peddle lies, despots, dictators, and theocrats are empowered to undermine the very idea of democracy. Two lessons to take away from Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 This was the first war that went live on CNN. The virtualization of war took away information and analysis and left people glued to their television sets. It set the stage for war as entertainment (as lon...

Too Many Books, too Few Centuries! When I read Franz Fischer’s book titled, Germany’s Aims in the First World War , I was left with the impression that Germany was indeed guilty as charged. History is a narrative best sold with facts, but historians or even writers (for that matter) use a certain set of facts to garrison their narrative and they naturally tend to drop the facts not useful to their...

The Austro-Hungarian empire was enormous in size only second to Russia, but a lot weaker than Germany, France, Russia and  of course, Great Britain. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm was Queen Victoria's oldest grandson and until 1914 had enjoyed great popularity in Great Britain. Not a soul could imagine that Great Britain would go to war with Germany. But the Balance of powers in the region was c...

Welcome to A livre Ouvert with me Avanti Victoire, A Livre Ouvert literally means an open book, but it also implies the promise of transparency and knowledge. If you are exhausted with Left or Right electoral politics & wish to explore different views on current affairs, then your journey begins here. My first episode is titled , To French or not to French. I wrote this article in the aftermat...