After the March on Rome, Mussolini found himself in charge as Prime Minister, but the Fascists were still a minority party. But now that any viable opposition had demonstrated that they were unwilling to resist him in any meaningful way, he began the work of breaking apart Liberal Italy and bending the political system to his will. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Just when it looked like Fascism in Italy was going to be a non-starter, they decide to change the rules. Instead of being a strictly political party the Fascists begin to double-down on political violence and sign-on as muscle for business owners threatened by populist activity. With the official stance of the government being to wait the crisis out, Mussolini makes the most of his opportunity to destabilize democracy and march to power. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

The Socialists are riding a high, the Liberals are getting worried, and the Fascists are trying to find their niche in today's episode. Join me as I get into the strife within Italy after the unsatisfying conclusion to WWI. Long story short, the establishment didn't have the answers and it became a race to see which populist would win over the nation. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

On today's episode we'll be covering Italy's experience in WWI and the political aftermath of the war years. Italy's military history in the twentieth century gets treated as kind of a joke, but there were very real consequences to all the disasters, which helped set the stage for Fascism to take root. The experience also caused an upsurge in populist politics in general, something the Italian elites were not prepared for or capable of accommodating. 

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

On today's episode I get started on the miniseries covering Italy up to the Great Depression. The bulk of the first part of this show will be establishing context for each nation, and how they came to make the critical decisions that led to so much fighting later. There are a lot of reasons to cover why democracy in Italy failed and Fascism was able to take root here before anywhere else. Today I'll be providing a basic sketch of Italy, and where so many seeds of later misfortune were planted. 

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

This week's episode is a little change of pace from the last two, as before I get going into the histories of individual countries, I need to provide an intro into Fascism. This political ideology is absolutely vital to the period, and is a primary reason why the world turned to war and violence in the 1930s. Despite that importance though, Fascism remains a nebulous system of ideas, and its practitioners never bothered codifying a coherent platform. So now I get to spend an entire episode defining it for them. 

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Today's episode is the second part to the Paris Peace Conference. In this part the terms of the peace deals are finalized, which alienate Entente allies like Italy and Japan, while infamously aggrieving the Germans to the point where they immediately begin dreaming of tearing this new status quo apart. The old order predating WWI is truly gone with this peace, and the new one will have a difficult birth as the victors test the old proverb of "better a bad peace than a good war." 

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Today's episode will be the first part of two covering the Paris Peace Conference. Best known for producing the Treaty of Versailles, the Conference was actually responsible for a whole collection of treaties to bring peace to the world. Long story short, it didn't work and we'll be going over the difficulties suffered during the negotiations.  

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Today's episode will be the first part of two covering the Paris Peace Conference. Best known for producing the Treaty of Versailles, the Conference was actually responsible for a whole collection of treaties to bring peace to the world. Long story short, it didn't work and we'll be going over the difficulties suffered during the negotiations.  

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Hello and welcome to Peace in Their Time! This is the introductory description to the introductory episode of the podcast. The episode will be laying out the mission statement for the show and a general description of what topics you can expect me to cover. 

Episode/Miniseries Index:

Season 1: Table-setting and the wasted opportunities of the 1920s

1 - Intro

2-3 - Versailles

4 - Overview of Fascism

5-11 - Italy in the 20s and the rise of Fascism

12-14 - 1920s France and its failure to find security

15-21 - 1920s UK, imperial overstretch and economic depression at home

22-30 - Weimar Germany

31-36 - Hitler and the early Nazis (up to the end of the 20s)

37-43 - Central Europe in the 1920s

44-51 - The Colonial Empires (45-47 1920s India)

52-61 - Rise of the Japanese Empire and Japan in the 20s

62-77 - China from the 1910 Revolution to the end of the Northern Expedition

78-110 - Formation of the Soviet Union and its history up to mid-1928

111-115 - 1920s diplomacy, the struggle for a lasting peace settlement

116-121 - 1920s US

122 - End of Season 1

Season 2: The Great Depression and the collapse of the world order

123-133 - Great Depression around the world

134-143 - Rise of the Nazis

144-149 - Japan 1930-37

150-158 - China 1928-37

159-168 - 1st Five-Year Plan in the USSR

169-181 - The 1st New Deal

182-192 - Italy and Ethiopia

193-211 - German rearmament, militarization and early aggression

212-220 - French response to early Nazi aggression