Explaining History

Donald Trump has signalled a great strategic alignment away from the principles of Pax Americana, the post war unofficial imperium that America has operated since 1945 towards something that resembles the concert of great powers before the First World War. One of the powers thrown into diplomatic and strategic crisis as a result of this is Britain.

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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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Between 1876 and 1920 the Ottoman Empire experienced its final crises, and despite delivering several shock defeats to allied powers during the First World War it was overcome by 1918 and subject to humiliating terms in 1920 - the consequences of which have reverberated across the 20th Century. This is the first of several podcasts on this huge historical transition that is still playing out across the Middle East and beyond.

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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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This episode is part of our study series AQA - Revolution and Dictatorship - Russia 1917-53. In this episode we look at Stalin's Terror.

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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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America is withdrawing strategically and diplomatically from Europe and leaving Ukraine to its fate. The history of Atlanticism from 1941 to the present day has been a complex relationship often relying on figures like Roosevelt and Churchill whose interests aligned and on America seeing its strategic interests aligning with Europe. This podcast explores the negotiations between Churchill and Roosevelt during the Arcadia Conference and the current decline of relations (including the fabled British 'special relationship') with America.

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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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This episode is the forth in our isms and ologies series on Anarchism and gives an explanation of anarchist thought on managerialism and state bureaucracy

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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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What is soft power? It was a term conceptualised by Joseph Nye at the end of the Cold War to encapsulate America's moral and cultural appeal to the world. The current decline in the use of soft power by Trump administration was first accelerated by the neocons under George W. Bush, who accepted explicitly that the War on Terror would mean the abandonment of the pretence of moral leadership and this was encapsulated by torture at Abu Ghraib prison, rendition flights and Guantanamo Bay. This podcast explores the meaning and importance to America's empire of soft power and what the world will look like without 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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What is globalisation? In its current incarnation, it is the now collapsing system of quasi free markets established by the US and its allies after the Second World War that ensured a degree of stability in trade for wealthy countries and the plunder of poorer ones emerging from control by European empires. This podcast explores the functioning of this high point of globalisation and the crises within 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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It's been less than two weeks since Donald Trump returned to the White House. What can we make of the flurry of edicts and presidential decrees signed, the actions of Elon Musk and how do we look beyond the noise to explore what Trumpist strategy in 2025 is? Hopefully this episode can shed a bit of light.

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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This episode is part of our study series AQA - Revolution and Dictatorship - Russia 1917-53. In this episode we look at the first part of Stalin's foreign policy, relating to China and Germany.

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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 1936 after the election of a Popular Front Government and a social revolution that spread across Spain, the general's counter revolution began with the help of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The delivery of Franco's army from Morocco to southern Spain by German and Italian aircraft resulted in a bloody campaign of terror across the country.

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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Website: explaininghistory.org

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