In the post war decades huge strides were made across the world to address the worst aspects of social deprivation using the coordinated power of the state. Often the resulted showed working class communities that those deciding their fate were indifferent as to the actual results. In Tony Judt's penultimate book Ill Fares The Land, he explores the crises of social provision and the fragmentation of the old and the new left of the 1960s on the issues of collectivism and individualism.

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This week, two seemingly separate events tell a single, troubling story about Britain's place in the modern world. First, a massive, 100,000-strong far-right rally, supported by American funding, took to the streets of London. Now, Keir Starmer's government is preparing to roll out the red carpet for an unprecedented second state visit for Donald Trump.

These are not separate events. They are two acts in the same play.

In this episode, Nick Shepley argues that Britain is preparing to advertise its own weakness and vassalage on the world stage. We explore the deep connections between the rise of the externally-funded far-right and the impending arrival of a US President who has built his career on identifying and exploiting the weakest mark.

In this analysis, we discuss:

• The Unprecedented Visit: Why is a British government offering an honour to Donald Trump that no American President in history has ever received before?
• Trump's Worldview: Understanding Trump's motives not through the lens of traditional diplomacy, but through the brutal logic of a mob-associated property developer looking for the easiest shakedown.
• The Post-Brexit Reality: How Britain, adrift from its traditional European partners, has become the perfect soft target for American economic and political domination.
• The Historical Parallel: We look at how great powers in decline often find themselves in these positions of weakness, forced to perform loyalty to a new global hegemon. This isn't a "Special Relationship"; it's a client relationship.
• A Grim Prediction: Why this visit is set up to be a public humiliation, and why the British government may have no choice but to accept it.

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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.

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If you’re new to Explaining History, this short trailer is the perfect introduction to the show.

For over a decade, we've been helping listeners understand the 20th Century. Host Nick Shepley and expert guests break down the critical events, ideologies, and conflicts that shaped our modern world. This isn't a dry lecture; it's an engaging, critical conversation that connects the past to the present in concise, 25-minute episodes.

Like what you hear? Hit 'Subscribe' or 'Follow' in your podcast app now so you never miss an episode.

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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.

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In this episode, we explore the creation of the Central African Federation (1953–1963), Britain’s attempt to bind together Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland into one semi-autonomous bloc. The federation was sold as a bold experiment in multiracial partnership and economic modernization, but in reality it served white settler interests while tightening imperial control.

Drawing on Martin Thomas’s Fight or Flight, we examine why London pursued this policy at a time when decolonization pressures were mounting, how African nationalist movements responded, and why the project ultimately collapsed within a decade. The federation’s rise and fall offers a powerful lens into Britain’s postwar dilemmas: the desire to maintain global influence, the fear of strategic retreat, and the contradictions of empire in an age of independence.

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In the late 1940s and early 1950s some of the most extreme anti communist laws were passed at state level, including the death penalty for membership of any seditious organisation and the compulsory registration of subversive parties. None of this legislation was ever actually enacted and much of it was declared unconstitutional by federal judges and counteracted by federal legislation, but it gives us a valuable snapshot of the climate of hysteria and dread in America at the time.

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During the Second World War Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took to the throne of Iran, placed into power by the British and the Soviets to depose his Nazi backing father. The Shah was able to break from the constitutional limitations upon him in 1953 after the British and Americans overthrew Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. A decade later, the Shah began to radically transform Iran socially and economically, but in doing so built up powerful revolutionary tensions.

For more on Iran, you can read my latest series of essay here

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.

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A seismic shift in US global strategy appears to be confirmed. In this explosive episode, we dissect the leaked draft of the Pentagon's latest National Defense Strategy, which signals a historic reversal of decades of American foreign policy.

We delve into the news that the US is formally de-prioritizing the "deterrence of China" in favor of a new focus on the homeland and the Western Hemisphere. What makes this shift so remarkable is its author: Elbridge Colby, the renowned strategist and author of "The Strategy of Denial," a book literally dedicated to containing Beijing. Has access to real intelligence revealed the futility of the mission?

Was the much-hyped "pivot to Asia" always just rhetorical cover for a gradual withdrawal? Is this new doctrine not just an Asian exit, but a full-scale retrenchment from America's role as the global hegemon?

Are we witnessing the end of the American Century? Is this a pragmatic acceptance of multipolarity and structural decline, or a dangerous vacuum that other powers will rush to fill?

If you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:

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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.

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In this episode of Explaining History, we explore Mikhail Gorbachev’s bold diplomatic strategy during the mid-1980s. Between 1985 and 1988, Gorbachev sought to end the crippling arms race with the United States and ease the immense economic burden of Cold War militarisation on the Soviet Union.

We examine the key moments of his diplomacy: the Geneva and Reykjavik summits, his pursuit of arms reduction agreements with President Reagan, and the wider goal of redirecting Soviet resources away from military expenditure and towards much-needed economic reform.

By reassessing both superpowers’ assumptions about security, Gorbachev challenged decades of Cold War orthodoxy. But his reforms also carried risks, provoking resistance from hardliners at home and raising questions about the future of the Soviet empire.

Join us as we unpack how Gorbachev’s efforts to reduce the arms spending burden helped reshape the Cold War, and how his diplomacy set in motion forces that he could neither fully control nor contain.

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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.

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In 1940, when France fell to the Nazi invasion its colonies became Vichy satellites and in Asia, Vietnam rapidly fell under Japanese control. The French colonial elites saw their power gradually stripped away from them but it was the Vietnamese people that suffered terribly from Japanese rule with over a million dying in a famine created by the occupiers. The American OSS shipped arms to the Vietminh, the national liberation movement, but by 1945 they were far more concerned about the returning French colonisers than the Japanese.

If you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:

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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.

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Tony Benn was one of the most important political figures in the second half of the 20th Century in Britain. His journey from the centreground of Labour politics to the left and his understanding of the various traditions and ideas within the Labour movement is the topic of today's podcast. In this episode we look at the collection of Benn's postumous speeches and writings - The Most Dangerous Man in Britain - and his essay Marxism and the Labour Party.

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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.

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