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During the Great Depression, the American West faced severe economic hardship, with the Dust Bowl and plummeting commodity prices leaving farms and ranches struggling. The New Deal, spearheaded by FDR, implemented programs like the CCC, WPA, and PWA to create jobs and restore economic stability.
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Is the era of Western global dominance coming to an end? This episode explores the profound decline of Western, and particularly American, “hard” and “soft” power on the world stage.We begin by contrasting two pivotal moments in history: Lord Palmerston’s 19th-century Britain, which could blockade a nation over the dubious claims of a single subject, and the modern United States, a superpower unable to prevent a small city-state like Singapore from punishing one of its citizens. This shift illus
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From Restraint to Ruin – The Birth of the Bombing WarAt the dawn of World War II in 1939, a fragile consensus existed among the warring powers. Spurred by an appeal from President Roosevelt, leaders like Neville Chamberlain and even Hitler gave public undertakings to abstain from the horror of aerial attacks on civilians. There was a genuine, if naïve, belief that the looming conflict could be “humanised,” and that the bomber would be restricted to purely military targets.But how did this initia
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Explaining History Podcast: 2025 in Review – The Year the Tech War Was LostAs 2025 draws to a close, we reflect on a pivotal year that historians may one day see as the moment the world changed forever. This episode delves into the most significant geopolitical shift of our time: the American retreat from its tech and trade war with China, and the quiet acknowledgment that the battle has been lost.Join us as we analyze the key indicators of this tipping point, from tech oligarch Peter Thiel losi
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This week, two seemingly separate events tell a single, troubling story about Britain’s place in the modern world. First, a massive, 100,000-strong far-right rally, supported by American funding, took to the streets of London. Now, Keir Starmer’s government is preparing to roll out the red carpet for an unprecedented second state visit for Donald Trump.These are not separate events. They are two acts in the same play.In this episode, Nick Shepley argues that Britain is preparing to advertise its
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In the late 1940s and early 1950s some of the most extreme anti communist laws were passed at state level, including the death penalty for membership of any seditious organisation and the compulsory registration of subversive parties. None of this legislation was ever actually enacted and much of it was declared unconstitutional by federal judges and counteracted by federal legislation, but it gives us a valuable snapshot of the climate of hysteria and dread in America at the time. Newsflash: Yo
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A seismic shift in US global strategy appears to be confirmed. In this explosive episode, we dissect the leaked draft of the Pentagon’s latest National Defense Strategy, which signals a historic reversal of decades of American foreign policy.We delve into the news that the US is formally de-prioritizing the “deterrence of China” in favor of a new focus on the homeland and the Western Hemisphere. What makes this shift so remarkable is its author: Elbridge Colby, the renowned strategist and author
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In this episode of Explaining History, we explore Mikhail Gorbachev’s bold diplomatic strategy during the mid-1980s. Between 1985 and 1988, Gorbachev sought to end the crippling arms race with the United States and ease the immense economic burden of Cold War militarisation on the Soviet Union.We examine the key moments of his diplomacy: the Geneva and Reykjavik summits, his pursuit of arms reduction agreements with President Reagan, and the wider goal of redirecting Soviet resources away from m
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In 1940, when France fell to the Nazi invasion its colonies became Vichy satellites and in Asia, Vietnam rapidly fell under Japanese control. The French colonial elites saw their power gradually stripped away from them but it was the Vietnamese people that suffered terribly from Japanese rule with over a million dying in a famine created by the occupiers. The American OSS shipped arms to the Vietminh, the national liberation movement, but by 1945 they were far more concerned about the returning
