Explaining History

By Nick Shepley

The Explaining History Podcast, created and hosted by Nick Shepley, offers a comprehensive exploration of 20th-century history through weekly episodes. For over a decade, this podcast has been prov

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FAQs about Explaining History:

How many episodes does Explaining History have?

The podcast currently has 790 episodes available.

Explaining History episodes:

November 05, 2022 Churchill, Asquith and Lloyd George - 1916
By 1916 Winston Churchill's wartime reputation was in tatters after the disaster of the Dardanelles Campaign. His self belief was his most powerful asset, particularly as so many of his parliamentary colleagues mistrusted him. He was brought back into David Lloyd George's war cabinet, though even the new prime minster was wary of him. Lloyd George, who had used the conscription issue to remove Herbert Asquith, eventually led Britain to victory, but this was partially in spite of Churchill, not because of him.
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29min
October 28, 2022 Explaining History Study Extra: Social division and the origins of Italian fascism
This is the first Explaining History study extra recording for students. In this podcast we hear about the origins of Italian fascism and the experience of striking workers and returning soldiers after 1918. The desire for national unity and social order that had motivated many Italians to fight hardened into violent anti communism when they witnessed chaotic scenes of strikes and anti war protests on arrival home.
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17min
October 26, 2022 Sir Mark Sykes and the Eastern Question - 1915
In the second year of the Great War, the British began to consider the future of the Middle East once the Ottoman Empire had been defeated. The Ottomans were proving to be far more effective fighters than the British had anticipated, but the discovery of oil at Mosul had made the control of the Middle East a priority. Prime Minister David Lloyd George summoned Sir Mark Sykes, a British diplomat and explorer to demonstrate how British and French ambitions in the region could both be accomodated. This is the first of several podcasts on the division of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War.
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32min
October 14, 2022 Reflections on Neoliberalism in Britain
Neoliberalism in Britain has shaped the political, economic and social fabric of the nation in its entirety for almost half a century. As a cluster of ideological positions which evolved from the interwar years onwards, it existed as a fringe doctrine. Britain's current economic and political chaos suggests that the ideology has finally reached its point of collapse, just as the UK's new prime minister, Liz Truss has endorsed it in ever more radical and extreme ways. This podcast reflects upon Neoliberalism as a doctrine and its hold over both of Britain's two main political parties.
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37min
October 06, 2022 Revolutionary Violence in Madrid in 1936
After the first attempt at a national uprising by the fascist generals in Spain ended in failure, Madrid became a dangerous and violent city dominated by anarchist militias. Many had no trust for the Republican government and their ranks were bolstered by murderers and other violent prisoners let loose from the city's jails. In 1936 many of the Madrid police and civil guard had joined with the fascist insurrection and the last hold outs of the failed uprising within the city were brutally massacred after they fired repeatedly on civilians.
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25min
September 27, 2022 East German anti Semitism
The surviving Jews who became citizens of East Germany faced a precarious existence when the GDR was established. Not only was Stalin, the Soviet dictator, becoming ever more anti Semitic in the final years of his life, but the establishment of the state of Israel and its ties to the Western allies made Jews in Eastern Europe suspect in the eyes of the various communist regimes. In East Germany Jews presented a challenge to the established memory of the war and their supposed connection to the western powers began years of official persecution.
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26min
September 23, 2022 Britain's post war strategic questions
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the economic strains on Britain after six years of conflict were immense, but Britain's international commitments were if anything even greater than during the war. Imperial overstretch, the temporary re-conquest of other European colonies like French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, the occupation of Germany and the involvement in the Greek Civil War, and the new realities of the Cold War world meant that Britain needed to maintain a large standing army. Many military and civilian planners also blamed British disarmament between the wars for the rise of war mongering regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan. This podcast explores the impact of the international situation on Britain's peacetime national service
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26min
September 15, 2022 Tenth Anniversary Special - Myths of the Blitz
This is the tenth anniversary episode of the Explaining History Podcast, thankyou to everyone who has listened to my lo-fi ramblings over the years, I hope you've found it interesting.

This week, we explore the complex social relations at the heart of Britain's blitz experience and challenge the myth of a united and stoic people pulling together, the truth, as ever, is far more complex.

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26min
September 06, 2022 The Croat Spring 1971
Yugoslavia, a state created in 1919 and recreated from the ashes of war once again in 1945 was a federation of balkan nationalities held together after World War Two by the totalitarian Leninist Josep Tito. The fact that Yugoslavia under his leadership had liberated itself and was not dominated like the rest of Eastern Europe by the Red Army, meant that its Cold War years would be fundamentally different. Yugoslavia was affected by the wave of unrest that afflicted Eastern Europe in 1968, following the crushing of the Prague Spring. The result was the energising of nationalist movements, the most vocal of which was in Croatia, which was eventually crushed by Tito. However, from 1971 to the early 1990s, nationalism, far from being extinguished, became the force that would rip Yugoslavia apart.
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27min
August 14, 2022 Iraq and India - 1941
In 1941, Iraq was a nominally independent country, but still part of the British sphere of influence in the Middle East. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany saw the growing wave of Arab nationalism in Iraq as a powerful device to place pressure on Britain in the Middle East. As intelligence reports showed that some form of Axis intervention in Iraq was planned, the Commander in Chief of British forces in India, Claude Auchinlek, saw the subcontinent as being particularly vulnerable and argued with London that a task force be prepared from India and sent to Basra to seize control of the country's oil.
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26min

FAQs about Explaining History:

How many episodes does Explaining History have?

The podcast currently has 790 episodes available.

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