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Episode Summary: In this episode of Explaining History, Nick returns to Philip Knightley’s seminal work, The First Casualty, to examine how British and American journalists covered the Vietnam War. While American reporters were often “embedded” and compromised by military PR, British correspondents like John Pilger offered a searing, independent critique of the conflict. We explore the endemic corruption of Saigon—a city described as a “vast brothel” of black marketeering—and the staggering scale of theft from the US military. But beyond the graft, we delve into the darker psychological toll of the war: how racism was weaponized to motivate GIs, turning patriotism into…
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In this episode of Explaining History, Nick delves into the institutional failures of the Imperial Russian Army in the critical decade before World War I. Drawing from the essay collection Reforming the Tsar’s Army, we explore how the disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 shook the foundations of Tsarist power. We examine the struggle between military modernizers like General N.P. Mikhnevich, who sought to adapt to the new realities of machine guns and trenches, and traditionalists who clung to the Napoleonic dictum of “bayonets before bullets.” Why did the Russian General Staff fail to develop a coherent doctrine for modern…
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Episode Summary: In this episode of Explaining History, Nick delves into Jonathan Frankel’s seminal work, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews. We explore how moments of acute crisis—from the Damascus Affair of 1840 to the pogroms of 1881—shaped the political and intellectual life of Jewish communities in the Russian Empire. How did a diaspora community, scattered across Europe and lacking a sovereign state, respond to existential threats? We examine the triadic conflict between traditionalism, liberal assimilation, and the rising tide of Jewish nationalism (ZionismZionism Full Description:A modern political ideology and nationalist movement that advocates for the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish state…
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In this episode of Explaining History, Nick analyzes the newly published 2025 US National Security Strategy, a document that could be considered a foundational text for the global far-right. We explore how this strategy, with its language of “civilizational erasure” and “European greatness,” mirrors the rhetoric of leaders like Viktor Orban and the conspiracy theories of the “Great Replacement.” Nick argues that this is not just ideology; it is a manifesto for American interference in European elections, designed to undermine social democracy and pave the way for deregulationDeregulation Full Description:The systematic removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain…
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In 1840, a monk disappeared in Damascus, and the ancient, deadly accusation of “blood libel” was levelled against the city’s Jewish community. This event, known as the Damascus Affair, became a pivotal moment in 19th-century Jewish history, sending shockwaves from the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire ottoman-empire The Islamic empire centred on Istanbul that ruled Anatolia, the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe from the fourteenth century to its dissolution after the First World War. Its collapse created the modern states of the Middle East, Turkey, and the Balkans in ways that continue to shape regional politics. At its peak…
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Episode Summary: In this episode of Explaining History, Nick delves into the harrowing yet complex world of child labour during the British Industrial Revolution. Moving beyond the Dickensian caricatures of helpless victims, we explore Emma Griffin’s groundbreaking book, Liberty’s Dawn: A People’s History of the Industrial Revolution. Through the voices of those who lived it—captured in hundreds of working-class autobiographies—we uncover the brutal reality of 13-hour shifts in cotton mills and lonely vigils in sheep pastures. But we also find stories of agency, survival, and the nuanced family decisions that sent children as young as six into the workforce. Why did some…
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In this episode of Explaining History, Nick revisits Nikolaus Wachsmann’s monumental study, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. We explore a critical and often misunderstood aspect of the HolocaustHolocaust holocaust The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. It was the culmination of a programme of escalating persecution, exclusion, and ultimately industrialised genocide without precedent in human history. The Holocaust — the Hebrew term is Shoah, meaning catastrophe — unfolded in stages. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 brought immediately a regime committed to removing Jews…
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Episode Summary: In this episode of Explaining History, Nick moves beyond the familiar trenches of the Western Front to explore the terrifying reality of the Eastern Front in 1914. Drawing from Alexander Watson’s masterful book Ring of Steel, we examine how the German and Austro-Hungarian empires experienced the outbreak of World War I not just as a military conflict, but as a fight for survival against a “despotic” Russian invader. We delve into the panic that gripped the border city of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland) as Tsarist troops advanced, bringing with them rumors of Cossack atrocities and a “jarringly modern ambition” to…
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Episode Summary: In this episode of Explaining History, Nick delves into the critical years of 1928-1929, exploring the mindset of the Soviet leadership on the eve of the Great Famine. Drawing from Robert Conquest’s seminal work The Harvest of Sorrow, we examine how StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More’s paranoia and Marxist-Leninist ideology filtered his understanding of the peasantry. Why did the Bolsheviks view grain reserves as evidence of a “KulakKulak Full Description A Russian term…
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As we close out 2025, Nick takes stock of the first year of Donald Trump’s second term. While some liberal commentators hold out hope that the upcoming 2026 midterms will curb his power, Nick argues that the real conflict isn’t between Left and Right, but between two factions of capital: the liberal-democratic establishment and the nativist, protectionist forces embodied by Trump. We explore the failure of the Democratic Party to offer a meaningful alternative to neoliberalismMonetarism Monetarism is the economic school of thought associated with Milton Friedman, which rose to dominance as a counter to Keynesian economics. It posits that inflation…