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Churchill’s Spaniards: The Spanish Republicans Who Fought for Britain in WWII — with Sean F. Scullion In this episode, I speak with historian Sean F. Scullion, author of Churchill’s Spaniards, about a remarkable and little-known story: the Spanish Republicans who escaped the fall of the Second Republic, endured internment under Vichy France, and later volunteered to fight in the British Army against fascism from 1940 to 1945. Drawing on multi-lingual archival work and over 110 family interviews,
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What was life really like for the poor and powerless in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars? In this episode of the Explaining History podcast, we’re joined by Katharine Quarmby, author of the powerful new historical novel, The Low Road.Set in 1813, The Low Road is a story of hardship, struggle, and love found in the most brutal corners of English life. Based on a true story unearthed from her hometown in Norfolk, Catherine’s novel follows an orphaned girl, Hannah, as she navigates the cruel institu
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In this episode of Explaining History, Nick is joined by acclaimed author Anne Weber to discuss her new book Sanderling (Indigo Press, 2025) — a deeply personal and philosophical exploration of family, identity, and the shadow of Germany’s past.Through the story of her great-grandfather Florens Christian Rang — a theologian, lawyer, and close friend of figures such as Walter Benjamin and Martin Buber — Weber examines four generations of her family to ask profound questions:What does it mean to
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In 1945, weeks before the Western Allies arrived in Hitler’s capital the Red Army controlled the city and began to quietly impose a new generation of German communists. Amid the ruins and devastation, ordinary Berliners, aware of their country’s crimes, began to rebuild. This episode draws on Berlin by Sinclair McKay.Go Deeper: Visit our website at www.explaininghistory.org for articles and detailed explorations of the topics discussed.▸ Join the Conversation: Our community of history enthusiast
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Something is happening in Britain, and it’s not going to go down well with the established parties, the media, or the far right Reform Party that the country’s elite class are placing their hopes in. There are the seeds of a new left emerging around the Green Party and a new and so far unformed movement ‘Your Party’ pioneered by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. An independent socialist movement led from outside of the Labour Party (the catch and kill party for British radicalism), is emerging wi
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In this episode of Explaining History, we explore how the 1970s became a turning point for Black Britain. Drawing on Eddie Chambers’ Roots and Culture, we examine how a new generation of Black British people embraced the politics of Pan-Africanism and Rastafari, forging cultural and political identities rooted in pride, resistance, and global solidarity.At the heart of this story is the transformative moment of Alex Haley’s Roots. Broadcast on British television and widely read, Roots offered Bl
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The extent to which western soft power and legal and moral authority has been shredded by Gaza is lost upon British, American and European populations for the most part, but across the global south a new movement appears to be coalescing around South Africa and Columbia. In Europe, Ireland and Spain have joined with them and sixteen other global south countries to form the Hague Group, dedicated to upholding international law as it relates to Gaza. This, until quite recently, was inconceivable a
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Nazism sought to bypass legal norms where it couldn’t just sweep them aside. The German Weimar constitution took time to dismantle and new institutions, practices and laws needed to be created in order to subvert it. A similar process is underway in America at the moment and Trump’s recent allocation of over $200 billion to ICE is a huge step towards cementing a police state that is answerable directly to him. Today we explore the comparisons between Trumpism and Nazism where they are most evide
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This episode explores part of the story of St John Philby, father to Kim and eventually advisor to King Ibn Saud. Philby was one of the few administrators that the British government and its colonial government in India could find who understood Arabia and Mesopotamia. In 1915 as British fortunes against the Ottoman Empire took a turn for the worst, Philby was sent to Basra to reorganise the city’s finances after the retreat of the Turks. He would eventually help to organise the financial admini
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The project to permanently shrink the British state and to inflict mass hardship on the most vulnerable which was commenced after 2010 has cost untold numbers of lives. The last calculations put the dead at around 338,000 people but it is likely now to be far higher and Britain has exchanged one austerity government for another. Now the Labour Party continues the brutal economic assault on the poor, the unwell and the disabled that the previous Conservative administrations had commenced. Today I