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At the end of the Second World War, the USA was the wealthiest society in history and experienced an economic boom that was to last for nearly three decades. This boom had a profound transformational effect on American society and was the dawning of the USA that dominated the world in the second half of the 20th Century. 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
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During the chaos of the First World War a generation of British and American correspondents in Russia astutely predicted the failure of the Provisional Government and came to see the Bolsheviks as a viable alternative. Some, like Arthur Ransome and John Reed went further and became passionate advocates for the new regime led by Vladimir Lenin. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you
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Throughout the 20th Century Romania has endured the twin catastrophes of fascism and communism. During the Second World War Romania was deeply involved in the holocaust and the development of an aggressive nationalism that remained undiminished throughout the communist era was chiefly to blame. 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.▸ Suppo
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Margaret Thatcher was a politician convinced that a return to ‘family values’ after two decades of seeming moral decline in the 60s and 70s was part of the key to restoring British fortunes. Throughout the 1980s, however, this manifested itself in a prolonged attack on gay rights, during a time when the existence of the HIV virus and AIDS was associated in the press with the LGBT community. During the 1980s however, Conservative policies led to a politicisation of the gay community and the quest
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In February 1943, after one of the longest coldest winters of the war, the news that the German 6th Army had been lost at Stalingrad shocked the nation. In response Joseph Goebbels, the public face of the regime made the most important speech of his career announcing a new time of struggle and total war. 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 sha
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During the First World War the racist terrorist organisation the Ku Klux Klan reformed and by 1924 boasted four million members. However five years later it was once more a political irrelevance. 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 ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Communit
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In August 1961 East German and Soviet forces created a wall around West Berlin, preventing East Germans from fleeing to the west. The failures of Soviet Communism and the attractions of a prosperous west had led a fifth of the population to migrate. This podcast explores the crisis and how the wall led to a gradual stabilisation in the Cold War in Europe. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the pres
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In the early 1970s John Lennon embarked on a brief and rather inglorious career as a political activist while based in America. His activism was an indication of the wider radicalisation of the decade and can help us to examine the prevalence of the counter culture in 1970s America. 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
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In 1966 after four years of existing at the margins of the Chinese Communist Party following the disasters of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong returned. He claimed that revisionist and right deviationist elements within the party were derailing the revolution and only the millions of Red Guards and the Chinese workers and peasants could put China back on track to socialism. The result was the catastrophic cultural revolution. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through cri
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Erich Fromm, one of the most overlooked intellectual figures of the 20th Century wrote insightful critiques of consumerist capitalism and explanations of the appeal of Nazism. His work also explored the dilemmas of being human in an increasingly alienating world. 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 Cont