Author Archives: history1917

Correction to this week’s podcast on Harold Wilson and MI6

In this week’s podcast I referred to the author Stephen Dorril as former MP. This is not the case, and in fact the Stephen Dorril in question is an author and academic who specialises in intelligence work. So there you go, bad me, I am not infallible and get it wrong from time to time.Continue reading “Correction to this week’s podcast on Harold Wilson and MI6”

Pravda and Stalin’s Terror

Noam Chomsky pointed out when he was observing the role of the press during the Vietnam War, that it had a significant role to play in atrocities. The job of print and broadcast media, he argued, was to legitimise and explain away mass killings and to tell the story of why they were necessary. LookingContinue reading “Pravda and Stalin’s Terror”

Getting Churchill wrong. Britain’s obsession with its ‘Greatest Briton’

In 2002, the British public decided by a considerable margin, in a BBC poll, that Sir Winston Spencer Leonard Churchill, Prime Minister from 1940-45 was the greatest Briton of all time. This, culturally, was a watershed moment in many ways. Firstly, it was the culmination of a war fetishism that had been developing for decadesContinue reading “Getting Churchill wrong. Britain’s obsession with its ‘Greatest Briton’”