Cooper Talks

In this episode I look at the early steps to war, considering Hitler's aims and strategies, the key events and the background of the Great Depression and the failure of the League in Disarmament and over Abyssinia, taking us up to the unification of Austria with Germany.

A look at the concept of the revolt of the right, mainly focused on the UK but with reference to Trump in America and European movements. Considering how class dynamics have evolved, the role of the 'left-behind' voter and how the party's have responded. Great for Party topics and voting behaviour.

A look at the three key crises of the 1930s for the League of Nations, the failures, the reasons for them and the impact of the Great Depression, giving a final over view of the League of Nations as a whole.

In this episode, I look at the work of the League of Nations in the 1920s, considering the aims, structure and actions, evaluating its success and failures and what issues were apparent before the Great Depression.

A look at the Paris Peace conferences, focusing on Versailles and considering the context of the meetings, the attitudes of the Big 3, their aims, compromises and satisfaction with the Treaty, German reactions and the other treaties. Useful for anyone studying GCSE or just a general interest.

A contextual look at the historical development of the three core ideologies of Liberalism, Conservatism and Socialism.

With the confirmation of Kavanaugh yesterday, I thought it was time to look at the Hellerstedt case and how it built on the previous cases looked at in an earlier episode on abortion rights in the USA. Here I take a look at what was at issue in the case and how the ruling wasn't the liberal ruling many calm, but was significant nonetheless and how it relates to the political impact of the confirmations of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

In this episode, I took a look at the core ideology of liberalism and the first of the key thinkers, John Locke, looking at his theories, the context in which he was writing and how his ideas have gone on to influence the liberal movement as a whole.

The preamble to the US constitution says 'to form a more perfect union...and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity'. What does this mean and how does the US constitution achieve this? The constitution is America, but it also has flaws and contradictions. In this episode I hope to raise some issues for discussion and explain some of the questions people ask about the constitution.

This UK centered episode focuses on the idea of democracy and whether or not representative democracy is in trouble, how it is supposed to work and the issues arising due to populism, demonstrated in the Brexit and Trump results of 2016. It focuses on democratic theory, but also considers different types of democracy and the nature of democratic processes and their problems.