-
Hi everyone, I will be away for about ten days so I won’t be recording a podcast until I am back, but I will add a few things to the blog. Speak to you all soon. Nick
-
After the swift capitulation of Denmark and Norway, it was assumed by the Wehrmacht that the low countries would be easy to defeat. Whilst Belgium and the Netherlands stood no chance of victory in the long run, the Dutch Army showed surprising resiliance against the German invaders and fought tenaciously. It was this resistance that partly explains the decision to bomb the civilians of Rotterdam. The Dutch Government had already decided to surrender, realising that there was little prospect of anything other than mass civilian casualties if the fighting persisted and this has raised questions about the decision to bomb…
-
Hitler, a cautious dictator for the first couple of years of his rule, had become reckless by 1941, and had gambled everything on a swift victory in the USSR. If Stalin’s regime could be crushed and thirty million Russians starved to death as a result, then there would be enough living space for Aryan German settlers and the resources to defeat any enemy in the west. The defeat of the USSR would have to be swift and decisive, an outcome that was only possible in the racial imaginings of Hitler and his inner circle. The first three to four months…
-
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 offer an explanation of African corruption; it is to explore the implications of British grift. On Friday, the Good Law Society, a U.K. based not for profit organisation won a pivotal case against the government. It established that Health Secretary Matt Hancock had acted unlawfully when…
-
How we’ve accidentally taught a generation of UK students that black struggles in the USA are over
-
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 discussed American strategic goals, the differences in strategic outlook with the British, the importance of degrading Germany’s military infrastructure and Roosevelt’s vision of a war fought from the air. Watch and remember to subscribe to the Explaining History YouTube Channel.
-
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. Donald Trump recognised the political potential of this when he became the centre of the ‘birther’ movement, which alleged that Barack Obama was not born in the USA and was ineligible to be president. Conspiracy theories in American politics have deep roots, however and one of…
-
Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing journalist Mic Wright, whose newsletter Conquest of the Useless critiques the British media landscape. We explored the accumulation of media power by a tiny coterie of oligarchs and the broken state of British politics.
-
Hi everyone, as I might have mentioned on the podcast, I’ve now got the time and the long covid recovery to start blogging again. Here’s a rundown of everything I’ve podcasted this week: Poverty, Caste and recruitment to the Indian Army during the Second World War: https://play.acast.com/s/explaininghistory/poverty-casteandrecruitmenttotheindianarmyduringworldwartwo France, Britain and the Road to Suez 1952-56: https://play.acast.com/s/explaininghistory/france-britainandtheroadtosuez1952-56 The ethnic cleansing of German civilians in Eastern Europe after 1945: https://play.acast.com/s/explaininghistory/theethniccleansingofgermanciviliansineasterneurope-1945 Anti Communism in Europe 1917-21: https://play.acast.com/s/explaininghistory/anticommunismineurope1917-21
Explaining History Podcast
Category: Articles
Articles
/ Articles