Explaining History

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 veteran left intellectual Tariq Ali argues in a powerful Substack essay, this is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of a global trend – and it is a direct consequence of t...

# Episode DescriptionIn 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 America. This is, of course, nonsense. History doesn't work like that. The civil rights movement achieved significant gains, but the idea that racism was so...

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 catastrophic surrender at Kut in April 1916 had left the War Cabinet deeply risk-averse. General Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, feared that occupying Baghdad would leave British forces isolated and vulnerable to a re...

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 British and Indian soldiers, starved into submission, were marched into captivity and then worked to death building Ottoman railways. The British government was deeply wary of any further advances in...

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 years since. The referendum did not create the forces that produced it – it gave them permission to speak openly. Racist discourse, once hinted at, is now shouted. Social media has amplified far-right invective. And poli...

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 had demonstrated the power of industrialised warfare – railroads, telegraphs, modern rifles – and Russia had been humiliated.War Minister D. A. Milyutin, a reformer shaped by the shock of defeat, understood that the army...

Hegseth's War – The Catastrophic Consequences of Maximum LethalityIn 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 ProgrammeThe story begins with a programme called Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR). It was a relatively new initiative, adopted after years of heavy civilian tolls in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Its mission was to station personnel within major regional commands to d...

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 riots of the 1940s to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and the ferocious campus debates over Israel-Palestine today. Loeffler argues that antisemitism has always been a uniquely contested...

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 ideals. The truth is more complex: Wilson was a corporatist, a believer in a managed mixed economy where private enterprise would be guided, not bullied, by the st...

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 ability to make trade agreements with other countries, effectively preventing it from diversifying its economy beyond the United States. They target the Canadian automotive industry, Quebec's French language and cultural rights, critical minerals, and agricultural markets. Taken to...

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 Georgia and discovered that despite the Voting Rights Act, African American representation in elected office was staggeringly low. The problem was not voter registration – Black and white registration was near parity – but st...

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 pursuit of cheap resources, cheap labour, and captive markets. Britain's transformation from a middling European kingdom to a global superpower was built on the extraction of wealth from its colonies – from the...

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 snuffed out by Western powers. Drawing on Susan Williams's brilliant White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonialisation of Africa, we explore the relationship between Ghana and Congo, and the forces that destroyed the hopes...

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 healthcare system into a global outlier.The United States spends more on healthcare than any other advanced nation – by a staggering margin – yet its health outcomes rank near the bo...

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, California was a lawless frontier. There were no courts, no jails, no police. Vigilantes and self‑appointed "tribunals" dispensed "justice" with fists, guns and ropes. White paramilitary groups like the Houn...

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 families of volunteers from the North East of England – one of the industrial heartlands hit hardest by the Great Depression. Through letters, diaries, and previously unpublished documents from the Russian archives, it brings to...

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the complex dynamics of the Mesopotamian campaign during the First World War – where subject peoples, caught between the collapsing Ottoman Empire and the advancing British, navigated their loyalties with survival in mind.**Drawing on Eugene Rogan's masterful *The Fall of the Ottomans*, we examine the Arab rebellions that erupted in the Middle Euphrates region in 1915. The Ottomans, desperate to hold their empire together, attempted to enforce conscription among their Arab subjects – many of whom had no desire to die in a war they had not chosen. When...

False Dawn – Russia's Two Utopian Experiments and the Legacy of Shock Therapyhttps://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 First World War, John Maynard Keynes warned that the Carthaginian peace imposed on Germany would lead to endless instability. The Treaty of Versailles was a missed opportunity – and so, in a differen...

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 blood and ruins", Overy traces the roots of global conflict to the late 19th century, when newly modernising nations – Germany, Italy, Japan – sought to prove their greatness by acquiring colonies. Empire was not just an econo...

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 politics – is a defence of wealthy interests dressed up in progressive language. The Democrats and the post-Thatcher Labour Party share a common DNA: they believe in markets, they court Wall Street and Si...