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What You’ll Learn in This Episode Why the Civil War lasted three years and drew in foreign armies The White movement’s fatal divisions and why it lost How Trotsky built the Red Army under fire The role of peasant and Green armies in the conflict How the war forged Soviet authoritarianism A War on Every Front The Russian Civil War (1917–22) pitted the Bolshevik Red Army against multiple White armies, nationalist movements, and troops from over a dozen foreign nations. Millions died through combat, famine, and disease. The White Movement The Whites were united only by opposition to Bolshevism. They…
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There are few economists in the 20th Century who have had the effect on politics and economics in the western world that Friedrich Hayek achieved. His central thesis on the size of the state and the threat of dictatorship influenced politicians from the 190s onwards and has shaped the world we inhabit today. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join the Community &…
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Between 1924 and 1929 Germany’s economy and politics seemed to stabilise and recover from the violence, unrest and revolution of the previous four years. A vibrant avante garde culture flourished in Berlin, and the fortunes of the Nazi Party and the Communists slumped as Germans enjoyed prosperity. The recovery proved to be an illusion and politics once again polarised to the extremes of left and right after 1929 and the Wall Street Crash. For more on Germany, you can download my two ebooks here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reaction-Revolution-Century-Germany-ebook/dp/B00DQT4HYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373383502&sr=1-1and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Explaining-Nazi-Germany-ebook/dp/B00DL1DCZU/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373383814&sr=1-9 Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews.…
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In 1956 Britain suffered her greatest post war humiliation with following Colonel NasserNasser nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70), President of Egypt from 1956 to 1970, who nationalised the Suez Canal, championed pan-Arab nationalism, and became the most charismatic and influential Arab leader of the twentieth century. His political legacy is inseparable from the 1967 military catastrophe that destroyed the pan-Arab project he embodied. Nasser came to power through the 1952 Free Officers’ coup that overthrew King Farouk, gradually consolidating his authority against other military figures to emerge as undisputed leader by 1954. His nationalisation of the Suez Canal in July…
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In 1921 Britain, America and Japan were among ten powers that met in Washington DC for the world’s first ever disarmament conference. The declining power of the British and the rising confidence of Japan in Asia created the conditions for possible future conflict and all three nations positioned themselves to safeguard their interests. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join the Community &…
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Why did Stalin and Hitler, mortal enemies, sign a non aggression pact in 1939 on the eve of the Second World War? This podcast explores the origins and the consequences of the pact. If you’d like to know more you can check out my ebook Hitler, Stalin and the Destruction of Poland: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitler-Stalin-Destruction-Poland-Shepley-ebook/dp/B00E0KVDFW Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join the Community &…
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In 1963 John Profumo, Harold Macmillan’s Minister for War was forced to resign following an affair with a young call girl Christine Keeler. Even though the scandal was relatively trivial it came to dominate the headlines and defined the modern sex scandal. It revealed far more about the anxieties of Britain in a time of growing prosperity than it did about the private life of a junior minister. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support…
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In 1920 the sale, import and manufacture of alcohol in America was banned and for the next thirteen years the government waged an increasingly fruitless war against smugglers and gangsters to keep America dry. How did a society that cherished libertarian principals and the limited role of the state come to enact such far reaching laws? Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join…
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Artist and Propagandist Leni Riefenstahl is the most contested figure in the history of cinema. Her two major documentary films — Triumph of the Will (1935), recording the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, and Olympia (1938), documenting the Berlin Olympics — are technically extraordinary works that transformed the language of documentary filmmaking. They are also among the most effective propaganda films ever made, produced in service of a regime engaged in the systematic persecution of Jews and the preparation of a war of conquest. The question of how to hold these two facts simultaneously — and what the relationship between them tells…
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Harold Wilson was Britain’s Prime Minister from 1964-1970, a period in which optimistic visions of a new country faltered and faded. By the end of the decade the modern, meritocratic and scientific country that he promised in 1964 had not materialised. This podcast explores Wilson and the challenges he and Britain faced. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share. ▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive Content Become a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory ▸ Join the Community & Continue…