
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Riots, rebellions and U.S. armed forces. Civilian supremacy over the military remains inviolate in our history and constitution. But what happens when a civilian Commander in Chief legally deploys the U.S. military or federalized National Guard on American soil?
This story is as old as our democracy. One could even argue that the use of militia to crush rebellion in America was a major contributing factor in the founding of the United States.
In this interview, we discuss the history and evolution of the civil-military relations in the United States and draw comparisons to and lessons from other countries.
🚩About My 177th Guest Scholar:
My guest is Dr. Lindsay P. Cohn, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs of the U.S. Naval War College. All views she expresses in this interview are her own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Naval War College or the U.S. Government.
Dr. Cohn is a scholar of civil-military relations and has been frequently invited to speak about this important subject not only in the United States, but also in Europe. She has testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, and the Courts of Justice and Public Safety Committees of the Virginia General Assembly, and submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She splits her time between academic and policy work. For example, from 2013 to 2014 she was an Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism.
Her forthcoming book is titled On Order, Authority, and Modern Civil-Military Relations - which we discuss in this interview.
She has received the Commander’s Award for Public Service from the Department of the Army, for her work with ROTC cadets preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, the Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, for her work on Building Partner Capacity programs, and the Meritorious Civilian Service Award from the Department of the Navy for her work at the Naval War College.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
177 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Bismarck (left) built an empire. But his Emperor (right) destroyed it. The German Empire's swift rise to world power status frightened Europe and threatened its balance of power. So Bismark convinced Germany's neighbors and other world powers that while Germany was prosperous and powerful, it was also peaceful. Wilhelm II, however, flexed his imperial muscles, frightened his neighbors and insulted world leaders.
The brief history of the German Empire holds valuable lessons for the United Sates (the incumbent superpower) and China (the rising world power).
In this interview, we discuss the following:
►The term Reich. And why this term is no longer used in Germany.
►The Year of Three Emperors
►The term 48ers (not to be confused with the 49ers)
►Bismarck: a giant statesman in world history
►Wilhelm II: the man who destroyed what Bismarck had meticulously built
►In the 19th century, did Germans call themselves German?
►Why Bismarck believed that to build a German nation-state, Germans needed blood and iron?
►How German wars led to the creation of the German Empire?
►Why was the German Empire founded in Paris, and not in Germany?
►How did Darwinism figure into the history of the German Empire?
►How did Wilhelm II make enemies for the German Empire?
►How did Wilhelm II interact with the media?
🚩About My 176th Guest:
My guest is Katja Hoyer, a German-British historian, journalist and writer. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her publications include the following books:
🚩Recommendations:
🎧S1E31: history of the Spanish Flu, John Barry, author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
🎧S5E12: history of Germany's deportation of Turks and the rise of Neo-Nazis in Germany, Dr. Michelle Lynn Kahn , author of Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration, and Turkish-German History
🎧S2E36: history of the China's rise and aggressive foreign policy, Dr. Susan Shirk, author of Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
🚩Image Attribution:
Flag of the German Empire, aka, Reichsflagge (the Realm Flag).
Image by User:B1mbo and User:Madden - Recoloured Image:Flag of the Germans (2-3).svg, Public Domain.
Wilhelm II (right) & Bismarck.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
176 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
80% of South Africa's people own only 4% of the land. These are Black South Africans. In contrast, 75% of the land is privately owned by white South Africans, who comprise about 7% of the population. But apartheid ended in 1994. So why hasn't land been more equitably distributed since then?
In this interview, we discuss the following:
►How colonial era Christianity ended the fluidity of societal and power relations among Blacks in South Africa.
►How colonial-imposed land boundaries changed South Africa's culture and allegiances.
►Do white South Africans experience higher crime than Black South Africans?
►How English South Africans supported Afrikaners - their former enemies - and lifted them up in society so that together they could maintain white supremacy.
►Why do Indians of South Africa call themselves Black?
►What happened after the end of apartheid to South Africa's economy and race relations?
►Why did some historians claim that South Africa's decade of 1970s was lost to history?
►Why did it take so long for apartheid to end?
►How did corruption become so pervasive in South Africa?
►Is South Africa a failed state?
Read History Behind News blog post on South Africa.
🚩About My 175th Guest:
Dr. Daniel Magaziner is a professor at Yale University and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of History at Yale. He is a historian of 20th century Africa, and the author of several books, including the following:
The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968 – 1977
The Art of Life in South Africa, and
Available Light: Omar Badsha and the Struggle to Change South Africa.
🚩Recommendations:
🎧S1E28: history of Ethiopia, Dr. Etana Dinka
🎧S3E28: history of Sudan, Dr. Christopher Tounsel
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Flag of South Africa in podcast thumbnail is by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pixabay.
Scholars in Your Inbox?
175 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Did you know that up to the Partition of India in 1947, Kashmiri Muslims lived in conditions that very much resembled serfdom? Exploitation of Kashmiri Muslims was particularly notable during the Dogra Dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1846 to 1947.
Since their partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought four wars: in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999. Based on research and information, three of these wars were specifically about the Kashmir region.
In this interview, I bring historical perspective to conflicts and crises about Kashmir by asking my guest scholar the following questions:
►Is Jammu and Kashmir different than Kashmir?
►Who are Kashmiris?
►Why did Persian missionaries visit Kashmir?
►What happened to Kashmir after the Mughal Empire?
►What does it mean that Kashmir was a princely state?
►Did the British introduce a more egalitarian system in Kashmir? If so, why?
►Why Kashmir was an autonomous region under British rule and until recently in the Republic of India?
►Why is Kashmir called the Indian Administered Kashmir?
►How did Kashmir become a part of India?
►What was the Kashmir massacre that happened in 1947?
►How are Kashmiris 'othered' in India?
►What is it about Kashmir that makes it different from all other Indian states?
►Is Kashmir an integral part of India?
►Would my guest scholar be able to freely talk about Kashmir's history in India?
🚩About My 174th Guest Scholar:
Dr. Hafsa Kanjwal is a historian of modern Kashmir, and the author of Colonizing Kashmir: State-building Under Indian Occupation, a book that we discuss in this interview. She is a professor of South Asian History in the Department of History at Lafayette College, where she teaches courses on the history of the modern world, South Asian history, and Islam in the Modern World.
Dr. Kanjwal also tells us something highly unexpected about her other book (see podcast image): A Fate Written On Matchboxes.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
174 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Did you know that all of the growth in federal spending as a percentage of the national income is due to the growth of "uncontrollables"?
In this interview, we discuss the following:
►What are "uncontrollables"? Why are they 'mandatory'?
►What are entitlements? How are they treated differently than discretionary budget spending?
►What was the Budget Resolution Process that was introduced in the 1970s?
►How did Pres. Cleveland, Roosevelt (FDR), Reagan and Clinton control government budget?
►Which president reduced our entitlement programs the most?
►What was FDR's biggest mistake, the consequences of which still impacts us?
►What are the 3 requirements for reducing the budget deficit?
►How would my guest advise a U.S. president in reducing our budget deficit?
🚩About My 42nd Guest Scholar:
Dr. John Cogan is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where his research focus is on the US budget and fiscal policy and federal entitlement programs. From 1994-2019, Dr. Cogan was a professor at Stanford University. He is a recipient of the Stanford-in-Government's Distinguished Service Award and the Stanford Review’s Best Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Dr. Cogan served under President Reagan as assistant secretary for policy in the US Department of Labor from 1981-83, and in the US Office of Management and Budget, as associate director from 1983-85 and as deputy director from 1988-89. He was a member of President George W. Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, the US Bipartisan Commission on Health Care, the Social Security Notch Commission, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance. He was also a member of the California State Commission on the 21st-Century Economy and the California Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission.
His books include the following:
Here is my 2022 interview with Dr. Cogan.
🚩Recommendations:
History of Public Debt, 🎧S3E32: do democracies demand more debt?
"In Defense of Public Debt", a book by Dr. Eichengreen.
In this interview, Dr. Barry Eichengreen takes us through the history of how monarchs, prime ministers and presidents used debt, why some used it wisely and how others grossly wasted their national resources with debt spending. This is a history of war as much as it is the history of absolute monarchs, parliamentary power and democracies.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
173 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Gang membership in El Salvador has a common theme, which is also a potential solution for reducing gang membership and gang violence there.
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest:
►How did El Salvador become the world's most violent country?
►Why is crime so high in El Salvador?
►What are deferred vengeance and retaliation?
►What kinds of crimes are committed in El Salvador? What's the extent of violence?
►Is MS-13 essentially an international gang?
►What is it like to interview gang members in El Salvador?
►What is the common theme among gang members in El Salvador?
►How are crime and politics related in El Salvador?
►Has Pres. Bukele really reduced crime?
►Was the Carter Administration involved in the 1979 coup d'etat?
►Was the U.S. involved in this Civil War?
►During the last two decades, has the U.S. been involved in El Salvador politics?
►If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “El Salvador”, what would it be?
🚩About My 173rd Guest Scholar:
Dr. Jose Miguel Cruz is a professor at the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida International University and also the Director of the Center for the Administration of Justice there. He is an expert in the areas of criminal violence, gangs, police, and public opinion in Central America. He has over one hundred publications on topics such as criminal violence, policing, street gangs, and criminal governance in Latin America. You can learn more about him here: https://ccj.fiu.edu/people/faculty/jose-miguel-cruz/.
🚩Recommendations:
🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-S4E12-EcuadorGangs: in this interview, Dr. Carmen Martinez Novo explains how gangs transformed Ecuador, once a peaceful country, into one of the America's most violent countries.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
173 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
🚩Image Attribution:
El Salvador flag by Pete Linforth from Pixabay. Visit his work below:
https://pixabay.com/users/thedigitalartist-202249/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4639709
What are tariffs really used for? For economic protection? For political gain? For enforcing foreign policy?
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest scholar:
►Why James Madison foresaw tariffs as an inevitable source of conflict?
►In U.S. history, did Americans ever complain that tariffs are really a tax on the people?
►What was the first instance in which tariffs were used as a foreign policy tool?
►What is the Tariff of Abominations?
►How did tariffs backfire on Southern politicians?
►How are tariffs and secession movements related?
►Were tariffs part of Civil War's history?
►What powers did Congress grants to FDR over tariffs?
►What part of U.S. history does Pres. Trump point to as justification for his tariff policy?
►What was Pres. Reagan's tariff policy?
►How is tariff policy with the USSR different than our tariff policy toward China?
🚩About My 172nd Guest Scholar:
Dr. Douglas Irwin is a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and also the Co-director of the Political Economy Project at Dartmouth. He is a Research Associate at the NBER - the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics , and served as the President of the Economic History Association (2023-24).
Dr. Irwin worked on trade policy issues while on the staff of Pres. Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers and later worked in the International Finance Division at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.
He is the author, co-author and or editor of many books, including the following - that we discuss in this interview:
1st. "Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy" - it's a book that The Economist and Foreign Affairs selected as one of their Best Books of the Year,
2nd. "Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s", and
3rd. "Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression".
You can learn more about Dr. Irwin here:
https://economics.dartmouth.edu/people/douglas-irwin
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dirwin/
🚩Recommendations:
🎧 https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E26-USDollar: history of the U.S. Dollar.
"The dollar is our currency, but your problem". 1971, U.S. Treasury Secretary to his European counterparts.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
172 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
How long was the longest conclave? Was St. Peter actually buried in the Vatican? Has the papacy always been in Rome?
In this interview, we discuss the following:
►secret excavations in the Vatican
►an ancient Roman cemetery under St. Peter's Basilica
►How did Rome remain the center of Christianity? The answer is not that simple!
►In early Christianity, was the See of Rome superior to other Patriarchies?
►How did the Great Schism happen?
►What was Charlemagne's role in the split between the Western Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church?
►How did language barrier contribute to the divide between East and West?
►What was the Reformed Papacy?
►What was the Byzantine Papacy?
►What was the Avignon Papacy?
►Why did kings and emperors kidnap popes?
►What was the Donation of Constantine - the forgery with huge geopolitical ramifications?
🚩About My 171st Guest Scholar:
Dr. Roger Collins is a professor at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively, including the following books:
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
171 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Where do our presidents get their powers? Are those powers enumerated in the Constitution? Or are those powers bestowed by Congress? For our Founders, was the presidency essentially an instrument of legislative agenda? Or did they believe that the president possesses some sovereign right distinct and separate from Congress?
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest:
►Is it possible to compare a modern president, e.g., Pres. Trump, with one of our Founding presidents, e.g., Pres. Washington? Would this be like comparing apples to oranges?
►What was George Washingtons' presidency like?
►Is studying America's founding period important for history's sake, or does it provide some legal structure for our current constitutional framework?
►If the past truly is a foreign country, i.e., so different than our present, then what values can we derive from studying it?
►What is originalism?
►What is pluralism?
►What are a president's process powers?
►What are president's enumerated powers?
►What are the clear exceptions to the president's Article II powers?
►Do statutes increase presidential power? Can they take away presidential power?
►What is a unitary executive?
►What agency and institutional hurdles do presidents face?
►Why is terminating federal employees such an important and controversial issue?
►Do statutes empower presidents or constrain them?
🚩About My 170th Guest Scholar:
My guest is Prof. Julian Davis Mortenson of Michigan Law, University of Michigan. He is a legal historian, constitutional litigator, and award-winning teacher who specializes in the constitutional and political history of early America. His constitutional law casebook, Constitutional Law: An Integrated Approach, has already been widely adopted in its first three years of publication; and it is now going into a second edition. Prof. Mortensen is currently working on The Founders' President, a fascinating project that we discuss in this interview.
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
170 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
Politically speaking, is America a Christian nation? Is there any country that you would define as a “Christian Nation”?
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest scholar:
►Did Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison believe that America is a Christian nation?
►Is Canada a Christian nation?
►Is Britain a Christian nation?
►What is America's 'Civil Religion'?
►What does the term 'secular' mean? It's not as simple as you think!
►Has America experienced a secular surge?
►We have the Religious Right in our politics. So, why don't have a Secular Left?
►Is it true that until about the 1970s, religion was not a partisan issue?
►Is religion in America a zero-sum game?
►Is it possible to be secular and religious at the same time?
►What does it mean that the decline of Christianity in America has stopped?
🚩About My 169th Guest Scholar:
My guest is Dr. David Campbell, a professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame and the Director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative. His research focus is on civic and political engagement with particular attention to religion and young people.
Dr. Campbell is the author or co-author of many books, including the following:
🚩Adel Aali
host & producer
☑️Where to find my program:
Home:https://historybehindnews.com
Spotify:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Spotify
Apple:🎧https://bit.ly/HbN-Podcast-Apple
YouTube:▶️https://bit.ly/HbN-YT-Sub
Adel on Facebook and X.com
Support:
Click here and join our other supporters in thenews peeler community. Thank you.
🎵 attribution, links and license for thetheme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scholars in Your Inbox?
169 scholars and counting! So don't miss HbN guest scholars’ weekly takes on the history behind our news.
From the publisher's feed

43,810 Listeners

30,695 Listeners

718 Listeners

6,174 Listeners

8,307 Listeners

10,262 Listeners

3,985 Listeners

366 Listeners

15,577 Listeners

15,893 Listeners

348 Listeners

358 Listeners

8,457 Listeners

474 Listeners

140 Listeners