One key aspect of British imperial nostalgia is the argument that most former colonies from the 1950s onwards were mired in corruption. Whilst countries like Kenya and Uganda saw wealth from natural resources and loans from western banks syphoned off into the accounts of presidents and generals, the purpose of this article isn’t to offerContinue reading “Putting dictators to shame”
Monthly Archives: February 2021
Problematic Histories: Teaching Civil Rights in the UK and the BLM moment
How we’ve accidentally taught a generation of UK students that black struggles in the USA are over
The Eighth Airforce Over Germany: In Conversation with David Dean Barrett
Last year, David came on the Explaining History Podcast to discuss the last days of the Pacific War and the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tonight, David was kind enough to return to the show to share his expertise with me on the American air war over Europe. We discussedContinue reading “The Eighth Airforce Over Germany: In Conversation with David Dean Barrett”
Why did Stalin choose collectivisation?
In the late 1920s Stalin faced a seemingly unsolvable economic dilemma. How did the USSR industrialise, build defence industries and protect itself from a hostile world when its weak agriculture could not provide enough grain surpluses for export or to create cheap food to feed the cities? The NEP had produced a social class that,Continue reading “Why did Stalin choose collectivisation?”
Conspiracy theories old and new
One of the defining features of American political discourse in the 21st Century is the almost unstoppable rise of political lying. Throughout the Obama presidency an ecosystem of right wing think tanks, commentators and of course Fox News has propagated everything from willful distortions of events and selective readings of policy to outright fabrication. DonaldContinue reading “Conspiracy theories old and new”
Explaining History Podcast 