We Go Way Back

In this episode, Tom speaks with Jörn Leonhard, a professor in modern European history at the University of Freiburg about Germany's complicated relationship with its war memory.

Focused around Volkstrauertag, a Sunday in November dedicated to remembering soldiers killed in war and other victims of various tragedies, Tom and Professor Leonhard see how Germans confront their history of war and try to draw comparisons to Britain.

Professor Leonhard has written extensively on Germany's war history and particularly on the First World War. His book 'Pandora’s Box: A History of the First World War Kindle Edition' is a highly acclaimed account of a war that continues to impact German society today. It can be bought here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07BT7V7GR/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

In episode 1 of this new series, Kit speaks with Douglas Watt, historian and author of 'The Price of Scotland: Darien, Union and the Wealth of Nations'.

The Darien Scheme was a gamble, a long journey from the western coast of Scotland to the central American peninsula in the search of great riches. Its failure arguably led to Scotland forming a union with England under the monarchy and the beginnings of the UK we see today.

However, as Scottish independence becomes an ever more likely reality, its time we examine this failed colonial project and see how it relates to events between England and Scotland in 2020.

25% of UK pubs have closed since 2001. However, you wouldn't have noticed this by the enthusiasm people had for their re-opening in July 2020. If we love them so much, why have they been on the decline in Britain?

In this episode, Kit interviews a London pub owner, a pub Historian and the Chief Executive of the Campaign for Real Ale, an independent voluntary consumer organisation which seeks to protect traditional British pubs.

In an interesting episode that explores the reasons why the pub has struggled in recent years, Kit speaks with Paul Graham, pub owner London. Dr. Patrick Chaplain, a historian of pubs and the Chairman of the pub history society. Lastly, the episode concludes with a conversation with Tom Steyner, the Chief Executive of the Campaign for Real Ale.

In a three-way interview, Tom speaks with Liberian journalist Alpha Daffae Senkpeni and global health researcher Katherina Thomas about the most recent global health scare - the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia between 2013 & 2016.

As Europe and North America tries to recover from its staggering COVID-19 death toll, this conversation investigates the way West African healthcare developed in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis and explores why high-income countries did not learn from this epidemic.

Alpha has been reporting on the ground from Monrovia, Liberia's capital city since the Ebola outbreak began in 2013. He now reports for Liberian news organisation, 'Local Voices Liberia'.

Katherina was a freelance journalist in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak and has since returned to cover the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a visiting researcher at MIT and Harvard University where she explores the intersection of global health and narratives.

This week, Alex and Chris Rojek talk about the culture of celebrities, where they came from and what this pandemic is doing to them.

From Marcus Rashford scoring political goals in Westminster to celebrities singing John Lennon at us from their Hollywood homes, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought these people into our lives in peculiar ways.

Chris Rojek is a Professor of Sociology at City, University of London. He has written extensively on celebrities and authored 14 solo books. He regards himself to be a General Sociologist, but his particular expertise is in the Study of Celebrity.

Football's back!

In the week that follows the return of the Premier League and Championship in English football, Kit interviews football writer and journalist, John Nicholson, to discuss the history of these leagues and how the game must learn to change.

John is an outspoken critic of the modern game, and is the author of "Can We Have Our Football Back? - How the Premier League is ruining football and what we can do about it..."

Link - https://www.johnnicholsonwriter.co.uk/products/can-we-have-our-football-back?variant=30317386530883

In the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, Tom interviews American Historian and expert on the 1918 Spanish Flu, Kennth C. Davis, to see how the last pandemic impacted women's suffrage - the biggest social movement at that time.

Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the 25th May the world has watched a global anti-racist protest develop under the name of #BlackLivesMatter. In this episode, Kenneth and Tom explore whether it is the isolated context and economic consequences of our current pandemic that encouraged a reaction. Using 1918 as a starting point, what can we say about pandemics and their ability to encourage social change.

Kenneth C Davis is best known for his book 'Don't Know Much About History', which spent 35 consecutive weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and sold nearly 1.5 million copies. In 2018 he wrote, 'More Deadly Than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War'. He is a great person to speak with on this topic.

This week, Alex interviews Dr. Sverker Sörlin, a Swedish historian and academic, about Sweden's decision to avoid a lockdown and their alarmingly high death rate.

Compared to its Scandinavian neighbours that have imposed lockdowns and seen far lower rates, Sweden is an outlier. Recently, the country's celebrity scientific advisor Anders Tegnell has said the decision to only ban gatherings of over 50 may have been a mistake. In this episode, Alex wants to know what it is about Sweden that made them do it differently.

Dr.Sverker is an academic of "Idé och lärdomshistoria", translated from Swedish as History of Science and Ideas. He frequently appears in Swedish media and is an extremely knowledgable interviewee to talk about Sweden's coronavirus policy.

Kit speaks with Andrew Seaton about the roots of the British National Health Service in a bid to explain our relationship with it today. Andrew is a historian of Modern Britain and Europe and is currently writing a Ph.D. at NYU on the NHS.

Claps for carers. Rainbow signs in windows. #SaveOurNHS. These are today's symbols that mark Britain's very deep and complicated relationship with its health service. Employing over 1.5 million people, the NHS is the world's 5th largest employer. Its importance to British identity is paramount and there has been no better time to discuss its origins.

In this episode, Tom talks with writer and founder of the Grief Network, Rachel Wilson. The episode explores how grieving has changed over time in Britain and the way the next generation of digitally savvy and emotionally literate people wish to grieve.

The day after Rachel turned 26 her mother died. When she looked for a network of people her age who she could communicate with she found nothing. So what did she do? She created a community by and for bereaved young people and called it the Grief Network.

We really recommend you follow it - https://www.instagram.com/griefnetwork/