Earlylands in Conversation

Throughout the course of the over four-year full-scale war in Ukraine, one of the most respected Western media outlets covering the conflict has been the Financial Times. The core ofthe FT's coverage has been provided by its Kyiv-based correspondent Chris Miller. Chris has lived and worked in Ukraine since 2010, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Ukraine. The country is clearly in his blood, and his understanding of the Ukrainian people and their motivations is unparalleled among Western correspondents. He has probably spent more time with President Zelenskyy than any other journalist, and he continues to maintain a finger on the pulse of national-level Ukrainian politics while not losing sight of the realities of the war and its impacts on the Ukrainian people. Chris is the author of the 2023 book The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine, which won the 2024 Witold Pilecki Special Prize for Ukraine war reporting.

If you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and subscribe.

For this episode, we are joined by award-winning historian and author Tim Bouverie. Tim has recently received widespread acclaim for his book Allies at War, which some listeners may have spotted prominently positioned beside Prime Minister Netanyahu in the now widely circulated photograph of the Israeli leader speaking with President Trump on the night of the first military strikes on Iran.

The book does exactly what it promises: it delivers a sweeping narrative history of the alliance that defeated Hitler. While one might reasonably ask what new could still be written about the Second World War, Tim answers that question on nearly every page. Critics have overwhelmingly agreed. The book won the prestigious 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, while The Economist named it one of its Books of the Year for 2025, calling it “a masterful diplomatic history of the second world war… packed with fresh detail and gossipy anecdotes.”

While we spend plenty of time discussing the fascinating personalities and rivalries of Churchill, Stalin, and FDR, Tim also draws out broader lessons from history’s most successful political and military alliance — lessons that remain deeply relevant to today’s increasingly turbulent global order.

Books Mentioned on the Podcast

--All of Tim's non-fiction histories can be found at Penguin

--Perfect Pitch by Tim can be found here

--Jock Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955

--Lord Alan Francis Brooke, War Diaries, 1939-1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke

We’ve spent multiple episodes discussing the Ukrainian perspective on Russia’s brutal war. For this episode we shift our focus to a look at how the average Russian views not only the war, but more broadly life in Putin’s autocratic state. Our guest is the journalist Howard Amos, whose book Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruins of Empire, tries to understand life in modern Russia not by looking at the high politics and motivations of the Putin regime, but instead what life is like in the Pskov region of Russia, an economically struggling area that encompasses the country’s frontier with the Baltic states. The book has received wide acclaim, with Foreign Affairs stating that, “Amos sketches Pskov’s residents with deep interest and sympathy, yet without condescension or sentimentality.” And The Times of London notes that, “Few westerners venture into this tragic, frustrating world, separated from the hurly-burly of Moscow or St Petersburg by chasms of experience and expectation. Even fewer would be able to describe it as well as Amos.”

Books Mentioned in the Episode

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia's Haunted Hinterland by Tom Parfitt

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan Slaght

Black Earth City by Charlotte Hobson

Stork's Nest by Laura Lynne Williams

For this episode of the podcast we go back to Ukraine. Our guest today sets a new standard for what a highly intelligent, motivated, and deeply patriotic young person can do. Although only 25-years old, Maryna Hrytsenko has established herself as one of the leading advocates for Ukraine and its military in the global halls of power. She is a co-founder of the Snake Island Institute (SII), which in the matter of less than two years has become Ukraine’s leading security-focused think tank and also plays a hands-on role in linking Western defense manufacturers with Ukrainian military units and local Ukrainian defense technology companies. Equally at home in the halls of the US Congress or working alongside Ukraine’s men and women in uniform, Maryna is a force of nature in the very best sense of the phrase and we’re very lucky to have her on the podcast to tell her story.

As always, if you enjoy this conversation, please check out our full catalogue of episodes – we have just passed our one-year anniversary – and like and subscribe. Also, we’re now available on YouTube along with all the usual podcast platforms.

Publications Mentioned on the Podcast

-SII's analytic library-Oleksandr Ivantsov (profile in The Guardian - author of the Ukrainian language Flashback: Mariupol)

For this episode of the podcast we turn our attention back to Africa and roll back the clock to the 19th century. Our guest today is Professor Richard Reid of St. Cross College, Oxford.Richard is a specialist in 19th and 20th century African history and author of the 2025 book The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century. In the book, Richard makes the case for a new lens through which to view African history, notably arguing that the infamous “Scramble for Africa” and the follow-on period of colonialism can’t be understood without an in-depth appreciation of Africa’s own transformative nineteenth century, independent of Europe. The book has met high critical praise ranging from Foreign Affairs calling it an “an authoritative survey” to The Irish Times labelling it “clever, full of ideas and insights and stimulating, as well as provocative.”

Books Mentioned in the Podcast

The African Revolution: A History of the Long Nineteenth Century, Richard Reid

How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa, Olúfémi Táíwò

Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa, Michelle Moyd

Empire of Sentiment, Joanna Lewis

Today's episode is out of cycle, but as the issues under discussion are the very essence of timely, we wanted to bring them to you as soon as possible. Our conversation is with Bloomberg Global Defense Editor Gerry Doyle. Gerry is at the forefront of coverage of the wars in Iran and Ukraine and much else around the world when it comes to defense and security. We go deep on key trends and lessons learned from Iran and also on how the war in Ukraine is changing the global defense industry in locations as varied as Estonia and South Korea. Gerry is also the author of Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century.

I’m doubly pleased to welcome Gerry to the podcast as we are both proud University of Kansas Jayhawks havinggraduated in the same class long ago – “rock chalk” as they say in Lawrence, Kansas.

Books Mentioned in the Podcast

Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century, Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.

The world of air travel is unquestionably a modern marvel, yet it is also highly complex and brutally competitive. And now, in this period of skyrocketing fuel prices and global hubs shut down because of the spiralling conflict in the Gulf, the sheer difficulty of running a global airline is in sharp focus. Our guest today is well placed to give us insight into this fascinating world. Allan Kilavuka stepped down early this year as Group CEO of Kenya Airways. His six-year tenure leading the airline through the tumult of Covid along with a major restructuring effort provides him unparalleled exposure to the challenges of running a national carrier in a time of global flux.

Of course, if you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and subscribe.

Books Mentioned In the Podcast

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb

High Road Leader by John C. Maxwell

"If you want to understand October 7th, if you want to understand what's happening in current politics in much of the Middle East, certainly in Iran, then the only place to start is the 1970s.” - The Guardian's Jason Burke

Since our last episode, a new conflict has begun in Iran with ramifications not only for the broader Middle East but forthe entire world. We are very fortunate that today’s interview, which we recorded just hours before the first bombs fell on Tehran, is with a guest who is deeply expert on the roots of the conflict. Guardian journalist Jason Burke has reported from Middle East conflict zones for over 30 years and he isalso the author of the hugely successful 2025 book The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s.

The book provides an unprecedented account of a period which definitively shaped today’s world and probes the complex relationship between violence, terrorism, and revolution. The book was short-listed for the 2025 Ballie Gifford prize for non-fiction, with the prize committee calling the book “a sweeping, scrupulously reported historical narrative with the pace and suspense of a thriller.” TheRevolutionists also featured on the best of 2025 lists for the Financial Times, The Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and BBC History.

If you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and subscribe.

For this episode we turn our attention back to the ever-evolving topic of European security. Rather than focusing on developments in Ukraine, we instead take a detailed look at the troubling state of the British Army, traditionally one of Europe’s most capable fighting forces and also one that is likely to play a leading role in any European stabilization force in Ukraine.

Our guest today is Brigadier Ben Barry, a retired British Army officer who published last year The Rise and Fall of the British Army, 1975–2025. Noted military history Allan Mallinson in reviewing the book called it “an impressively detailed chronicle by an analyst well up to the task. Read it and weep.”

Following a 35-year career in the British Army, Ben since 2010 has been a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and is the author of a number of highly praised books looking at British Army operations in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Ben is also a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King's College London.   

Of course, if you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and subscribe.

Books Mentioned In the Podcast

Ben Barry, The Rise and Fall of the British Army, 1975–2025

Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Triumph

Peter Elstop, Warriors for the Working Day

Barney Campbell, Rain

Harry Parker, Anatomy of a Soldier

Thousands of people are descending on Cape Town this week for the annual Mining Indaba, one of the industry’s largest annual global gatherings. I doubt any of them would arguewith the assertion that politics, whether it be geopolitics or national level issues, is one of the driving forces impacting the industry. And, while playing host to the Indaba, South Africa is also one country where politics and mining have been deeply intertwined for nearly a century and a half.

We are joined today by Simon Freemantle, who is one of the most respected commentators on South Africa’s political economy. In his role as Standard Bank’s Senior Political Economist, Simon’s weekly newsletters are a must read among the investor and political analyst community. Simon has been ranked by Financial Mail as South Africa’s toppolitical analyst for ten consecutive years and he is a frequent speaker at institutions like Oxford and NYU Stern and he is a regular presence in South African and international media.  

Of course, if you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and subscribe.

Books mentioned in the episode -

-The full catalog of Jonny Steinberg

-Jeff Wicks, The Shadow State: Why Babita Deokaran Had to Die