History As It Happens

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The Cold War began about 80 years ago. It ended more than 35 years ago, leading to triumphalist attitudes in the West. Who started it? Who really "won"? Why are we still debating this? Because Cold War history continues to shape our world — and our minds. Our guests are historians Daniel Bessner and Vladislav Zubok.

Bessner teaches history at the University of Washington. He’s the co-host of American Prestige and the co-editor, with Michael Brenes, of Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency.

Vladislav Zubok is an eminent historian of international relations at the London School of Economics and the author of The World of the Cold War, 1945 to 1991.

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On Tuesday, Oct. 27, Israelis will vote in what some consider the most consequential election in the country's history.

It is the first election since Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas onslaught in southern Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu, 77, hopes to remain in power despite having been indicted for war crimes by the ICC. In this episode, Israeli political scientist and leading pollster Dahlia Scheindlin discusses the country's mood and which parties are best positioned to form a new government.

Further reading:

Explained: How can Israelis still vote for Netanyahu? by Dahlia Scheindlin (Haaretz)

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As inflation fuels a cost-of-living crisis, millions of Americans are getting a bitter taste of what past generations dealt with. From the mid-1960s into the Age of Reagan, high inflation (or stagflation) bedeviled economists, frustrated presidents, and shrank the horizons of middle-class Americans. And not just inflation! Policy-makers' responses also caused pain. In this episode, historian Nelson Lichtenstein delves into inflation's historical causes and pokes holes in the conventional wisdom that interest rate adjustments by an independent Federal Reserve are the wisest way to tame inflation.

Nelson Lichtenstein teaches labor and economic history at U.C. Santa Barbara. He's the author of Why Labor Unions Matter (2026).

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When John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, the United States would have its third accidental president.

The Southern unionist and Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee at first seemed to be an ally of Republicans in the monumental task of Reconstruction, for he agreed that the Southern states could not come back unless they ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. But Johnson's presidency quickly spiraled as he bitterly fought Congress over Reconstruction's control and sought to obstruct all efforts at achieving Black equality.

In this episode, historian Jim Oakes tells us what made Andrew Johnson arguably the worst president in U.S. history.

Further listening:

The Worst President? Meet James Buchanan w/ Jim Oakes

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If any Washington journalist can take us inside President Donald Trump's mind, it's Edward Luce. The Financial Times columnist and astute observer of American politics has frequently talked to Trump over the phone about the Iran war, the U.S. economy, and much else. Does the president have a plan, or is he winging it? Luce explains Trump's thinking as his second term collapses around him.

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On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful address at a New York City church. "Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence" was a searing indictment of a U.S. war on a poor country. King's expansive critique of militarism and violence explained how the war was "devastating the hopes of the poor at home" by draining resources from LBJ's Great Society programs. The cause of civil rights, argued King, was not separate from antiwar activism.

Where are such voices today? Our guest is historian Michael Kazin.

Michael Kazin is a distinguished historian of U.S. political and social movements at Georgetown University and the author of "What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party."

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The 9/11 families are still awaiting their day in court. In lawsuits, hundreds of victims’ relatives and injured survivors claim that Saudi government employees directly and knowingly assisted Osama bin Laden's hijackers and fueled al-Qaeda’s development by funding Islamic charities that exported a radical strain of Islam to places like Afghanistan.

What did the Saudi government know, if anything, about the plot? Why did Islamic charities export Wahhabism to the Muslim world? Who was Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi intelligence asset who befriended two of the hijackers?

Our guest is Peter Bergen, the author of All the Presidents’ Wars.

Bergen is a journalist, documentary producer, and vice president for global studies at New America, a D.C. think tank. He’s a national security analyst for CNN and professor of practice at Arizona State University.

Further listening:

Who Was Osama bin Laden? (podcast w/ Peter Bergen)

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Nicaragua has a dictator for life. President Daniel Ortega, 80, announced the country won’t hold elections anytime soon, underscoring his effort to extend his nearly 20-year rule and dashing the opposition's hopes that he might allow a modicum of democracy, according to the Associated Press. Few expected next year's election to be free and fair, but Ortega won't even uphold the pretense.

Who are Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, a leftist revolutionary movement founded in the early 1960s? Why is Ortega, who was first elected in 1984, still on the Central American political scene? Our guest is historian Jeffrey Gould.

Jeffrey Gould is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Indiana. He's an expert on Nicaragua as well as Central American social movements, ethnic conflicts, and political violence.

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Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains invisible more than 7 months into an existential war for the regime's survival. He's yet to be seen in public and was reportedly seriously wounded on the war's first day in an air strike that killed his father.

So, who is running Iran? Who is directing the war or making decisions at the negotiating table? Our guest is Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. He is an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and Middle East geopolitics.

Parsi discusses Iran's leadership, the state of negotiations with the Trump administration, and whether a return to major combat is possible.

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When Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House in 1933, the country was paralyzed by the Great Depression and fascist jackboots were trampling democracy in Europe. As the 1930s wore on, the president and the American people came to see fascism as not only a threat to societies on the other side of the Atlantic, but as a danger to the American way of life, too. But what to do about it?

How did FDR prepare the country for what he correctly foresaw as an inevitable war against the fascist powers? How did public opinion compel the president to leave neutrality behind?

Americans then tangled with the same questions we’re grappling with today, although under a dramatically different set of circumstances. When do problems in faraway places necessitate U.S. involvement? Does our democracy depend on the survival of other democracies?

Our guest is University of Virginia historian William Hitchcock, the author of "A Shadow Over the World: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Rise of Fascism, and the Making of America's World War II."

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