Best About Postwar Podcasts (2024)

1
Andrew Kahrl on Inequality, Theft, and Taxation in Modern America 51:01

21m ago51:01

51:01

Taxes. Is there anything Americans like to complain about more? This episode takes a deep dive into the U.S. tax system, paying particular attention to the property tax. Exploding a popular myth that purports Black Americans pay little to no taxes, historian Andrew Kahrl reveals how Black Americans have long paid more than their fair share of prope…

1
The Legacy of the First World War 31:15

18m ago31:15

31:15

In the late summer of 1914 a war began that was largely unexpected, unwanted and which lasted for four years, destroying the European civilisation that existed beforehand, along with large parts of the continent, the Middle East and Africa. It spawned two brutal regimes in the guise of Nazi Germany and the USSR, along with generations of physically…

1
Sanaullah Khan, "Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self" (Lexington Books, 2023) 54:26

4h ago54:26

54:26

Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self (Lexington Books, 2023) explores the interrelation between carceral conditions and substance use by considering the intersections between drug markets, sidewalks, households, and prisons in Baltimore. Sanaullah Khan argues that while housing, medicalization, and incarceration…

1
1989: The year of global transformation 28:21

2h ago28:21

28:21

In 1989 the Cold War came to an unanticipated and unexpectedly peaceful end, the wars that both sides imagined would happen between the USSR and the west did not occur and a new world order rapidly formed in American and European interests in the long 1990s, only collapsing between 2008 and 2016. This exploration of the late 1980s and 1990s is told…

1
Approaches to history Part One: Herodotus, the first historian 29:18

24m ago29:18

29:18

What are we doing when we write or think about history? What is it that historians do and when did they start doing it? We're taking a new direction on the podcast here and exploring the origins of historical thinking, a type of writing that the Greeks thought to be the inferior cousin to philosophy. Each Saturday we'll explore the practices and th…

1
Team Trump, astrologers versus pollsters & debating history 43:03

3h ago43:03

43:03

This week: Team Trump – who’s in, and who’s out? To understand Trumpworld you need to appreciate it’s a family affair, writes Freddy Gray in the magazine this week. For instance, it was 18-year-old Barron Trump who persuaded his father to do a series of long ‘bro-casts’ with online male influencers such as Joe Rogan. In 2016, Donald’s son-in-law Ja…

1
Subhashini Kaligotla, "Shiva's Waterfront Temples: Architects and Their Audiences in Medieval India" (Yale UP, 2022) 31:55

23h ago31:55

31:55

The vibrant red sandstone temples of India's Deccan Plateau, such as the Pattadakal temple cluster, have attracted visitors since the eighth century or earlier. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and the coronation place of the Chalukya dynasty, Pattadakal and its neighboring sites are of major historical importance. In Shiva's Waterfront Temples: Archit…

1
Episode 654: ACOUSTIC BLUES CLUB #612, OCTOBER 30, 2024 58:59

2d ago58:59

58:59

1
Episode 653: WEDNESDAY'S EVEN WORSE #678, OCTOBER 30, 2024 58:59

2h ago58:59

58:59

1
Paris, Cuba, and David from Any Direction with Lucy Benjamin 34:05

3d ago34:05

34:05

In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Lucy Benjamin. Dr Lucy Benjamin is a researcher in architectural theory and creative practice. Her work focuses on the intersection of environmental theory, architecture, and philosophy, especially the emergence of repair as a design principle and the conditions for human rights in the age of eco-crisis. They disc…

1
Cambridge in crisis, Trump’s wicked humour & the beauty of AI ceramics 52:33

6d ago52:33

52:33

This week: Decline and Fall – how our greatest universities are betraying students. Our greatest universities are betraying students, writes David Butterfield, who has just resigned from teaching Classics at Cambridge after 21 years. What went wrong? First, class lists of exam results became private, under alleged grounds of ‘data protection’, whic…

1
China, Japan and the legacy of the Nanjing Massacre 30:29

8d ago30:29

30:29

Between December 1937 and January 1938 on of the great crimes of Japan's war against China occurred at the Chinese capital of Nanjing. Determined to break Chiang Kai Shek's nationalist forces, the Japanese murdered tens of thousands of captured soldiers and proceeded to slaughter the civilian population. The Japanese army went of the rampage, killi…

1
Episode 652: ACOUSTIC BLUES CLUB #611, OCTOBER 23, 2024 59:00

7d ago59:00

59:00

1
Episode 651: WEDNESDAY'S EVEN WORSE #677, OCTOBER 23, 2024 59:00

7d ago59:00

59:00

1
AQA Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53 part 5 33:04

7d ago33:04

33:04

After February 1917 the Provisional Government had a weak grasp on power, a fact that was exploited by the Bolsheviks in order to seize power in October. This study podcast explores how the Bolsheviks were able to seize power from a position of relative weakness. I will be running a livestream Q&A for students on Wednesday November 20th. You can ac…

1
The New Deal and post war anti communism 30:14

8d ago30:14

30:14

In the aftermath of the Second World War the New Deal came under a sustained assault by a newly resurgent Republican Party that used the threat of anti communism to shift politics towards the right. However, by the 1950s the New Deal was safe under a Republican Eisenhower presidency and the role of the state in the management of the economy continu…

1
René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023) 1:10:12

8d ago1:10:12

1:10:12

In cities across the world, a new urban condition is spreading rapidly: an ever-increasing push toward efficiency, sanitization, surveillance and the active eradication of any aberration, friction or alternative. From Dubai, Hong Kong and London to Amsterdam and Cairo, the smooth city, with its gated communities and theme-park zones, insidiously tr…

1
The Gulag Revolts 1953 30:29

9d ago30:29

30:29

In the early 1950s there was an unprecedented level of political organisation in the Gulag system amongst prisoners who were able to find out about the events of the outside world and deal brutally with camp informants. In this episode we explore Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps to understand this transition that led to uprisin…

1
Hitler, Speer and Nazi Germany's armaments crisis 1942 31:13

11d ago31:13

31:13

By early 1942 Nazi Germany was facing a moment of crisis when it came to the production of munitions and other equipment. The inherent chaos of the regime, Hitler's selection of favourites who knew how to tell him only what he wanted to hear, along with the soaring war production of the USA, UK and USSR led to the appointment of Albert Speer as Min…

1
Austerity Britain 1931-2024 53:26

12d ago53:26

53:26

Britain is about to experience another half decade of austerity as government budgets for social welfare are slashed. By the time the next general election is held the country will have experienced nineteen years of enforced cuts to the living standards of the poorest. This podcast explores interwar austerity and the long intellectual and ideologic…

1
Amanda Shoaf Vincent, "Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) 1:15:49

12d ago1:15:49

1:15:49

In the space of about two decades, five major parks were proposed, designed, and created in Paris. Some emerged from competitions between professional landscape architects, others were imagined by planners working for the city, all represented a shift in what Amanda Shoaf Vincent calls “post-modern” understandings of the role of parks and garden in…

1
Reeves's gambit, a debate on assisted dying & queer life in postwar Britain 52:07

13d ago52:07

52:07

This week: the Chancellor’s Budget dilemma. ‘As a former championship chess player, Rachel Reeves must know that the first few moves can be some of the most important of the game,’ writes Rupert Harrison – former chief of staff to George Osborne – for the cover of the magazine this week. But, he says, the truth is that she has played herself into a…

1
Chamberlain's Britain - 1937 25:27

15d ago25:27

25:27

Neville Chamberlain is chiefly remembered for his failed shuttle diplomacy with Hitler in 1938, but there is of course more to his time in office than just this. Chamberlain believed himself to be a social reformer, though the reality of life for the poor and those devastated by the Great Depression remained in many cases bleak. This podcast explor…

1
AQA Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53 part 4 25:30

18d ago25:30

25:30

By March 1917 a new system of dual power had established itself in the capital city Petrograd. The Provisional Government, a group comprised of the Tsar's former ministers who refused to disband, and the Petrograd Soviet, a meeting of delegates from the committees established in factories and army regiments, existed in an uneasy partnership with on…

1
Episode 650: ACOUSTIC BLUES CLUB #610, OCTOBER 16, 2024 59:00

17d ago59:00

59:00

1
Episode 649: WEDNESDAY'S EVEN WORSE #676, OCTOBER 16, 2024 58:59

17d ago58:59

58:59

1
The Russian Revolution: Beyond Petrograd and Moscow (Part 2) 25:43

15d ago25:43

25:43

What happened when news of the Russian Revolution reached the empire's rural areas? How did the largely non literate peasantry interact with this change? How did the Russian Orthodox Church carry the message of the revolution? What did the empire's non Russian and non Christian peoples make of it? This episode explores the chaotic and fragmented wa…

1
Welsh Nationalism: Cymru am byth 47:11

15d ago47:11

47:11

What does it mean to be Welsh? The writer Jan Morris said Wales was ‘a distinctly separate and often vehement idea’. But what is that idea? Do you need to understand Welsh to grasp it? How is Wales … different? And is it going to become even more unlike England? Ros Taylor talks to Swansea University professor Martin Johnes and Plaid Cymru Senedd m…

1
Woodrow Wilson, Mandates and the Paris Peace Conference 29:45

18d ago29:45

29:45

In the aftermath of the First World War, the delegates of the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference attempted to shape a post war world order. Woodrow Wilson, pioneer of the mandate system that saw former German and Ottoman imperial possessions administered through the new League of Nations, found that the British and French were hungry f…

1
My Palestine by Mohammad Tarbush 46:06

21d ago46:06

46:06

Mohammad Tarbush's extraordinary life story, from growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp and hitchhiking to Europe to becoming head of Deutsche Bank is captured in his memoirs, My Palestine. This week we explore his recollections as part of the wider context of the current war against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Help the podcast to continue b…

1
Labour’s China pivot, Yvette Cooper’s extremism crackdown & the ladies who punch 48:09

20d ago48:09

48:09

Successive governments have struggled with how to deal with China, balancing them as a geopolitical rival yet necessary trade partner. Recent moves from Labour have sent mixed signals, from the free speech act to the return of the Chagos Islands. Further decisions loom on the horizon. As Rachel Reeves seeks some economic wiggle room, can Labour res…

1
The LA radical press 1964-70 26:49

22d ago26:49

26:49

An entire radical history of Los Angeles in the 1960s that rarely gets mentioned can be found in Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's brilliant book Set The Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties. This episode explores in brief the emergence of an independent radical press in the city in the guise of the LA Free Press or 'Freep', and explores reactions of the Fre…

1
Episode 647: ACOUSTIC BLUES CLUB #609, OCTOBER 09, 2024 58:59

24d ago58:59

58:59

1
Episode 646: WEDNESDAY'S EVEN WORSE #675, OCTOBER 09, 2024 58:59

24d ago58:59

58:59

1
Western Intellectuals and Stalinism Part One 37:25

24d ago37:25

37:25

Subscribe for weekly updates In the 1930s a generation of intellectuals were attracted to the Soviet Union, though most were never members of any communist party and balked at the idea of revolution occurring in their own country. We begin to explore this convoluted and contradictory mindset through examining David Caute's seminal work The Fellow T…

1
AQA Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53 part 3 24:45

24d ago24:45

24:45

This episode is for all students of A Level Russian history, and it follows the AQA syllabus. In this episode we will explore the events of the February Revolution and the Tsar's catastrophic mishandling of the protests that began in Petrograd. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each week If you enjoy the Explaining History podcast a…

1
Episode 648: DRIVETIME VOL 7 #10 1:06:14

25d ago1:06:14

1:06:14

1
The Russian Revolution: Beyond Petrograd and Moscow 27:55

25d ago27:55

27:55

How did people outside Petrograd hear about the events of February 1917? News spread quickly to cities like Kazan and Nizhni Novgorod due to the telegraph and train but more slowly in the towns and villages. The revolution was not experienced by all Russians, at all times in the same way. Instead the fragmented nature of Russia, its geography and s…

1
The Decline and Fall of the Conservative Party 1:17:04

28d ago1:17:04

1:17:04

The Conservative Party is one of British history's great survivors, it morphs and mutates when it needs to into new incarnations that help to preserve it and its mission to protect the interests of Britain's elites, institutions against the threat of change from below. This was always true until now. The party that many British people see as the na…

1
Anat Geva, "The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s-1960s" (Texas A&M UP, 2023) 53:52

26d ago53:52

53:52

Today I talked to Anat Geva about The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s-1960s (Texas A&M UP, 2023). There is no one mandate on how to build the exterior of a synagogue - something that I don't think I ever thought about, yet it was something that Professor Anat Geva focused on. Famous architects of different backgrounds built the sy…

1
Israel's revenge, farewell Fraser & the demise of invitations 37:02

27d ago37:02

37:02

This week: Israel’s revenge and Iran’s humiliation. As the anniversary of the October 7th attacks by Hamas approaches, the crisis in the Middle East has only widened. Israel has sent troops into southern Lebanon and there have been attempted missile strikes from the Houthi rebels in Yemen and from Iran. Is there any way the situation can de-escalat…

1
The rise and fall of the New Deal Era Part Two 28:03

30d ago28:03

28:03

In today's episode of the The Explaining History podcast we revisit Gary Gerstle's Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Era. Here we explore the New Deal Era that preceded it and examine the philosophical underpinnings of the historic project of rebalancing American capitalism through state intervention. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history…

1
America's War on Prostitution 1870-1930 36:28

30d ago36:28

36:28

Why did American reformers and missionaries seek to eliminate prostitution worldwide at the end of the 19th Century and the start of the 20th? In this wide ranging conversation with Dr Eva Payne Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi about her new book, Empire of Purity. We explore how ideas around empire, race, eugenics an…

1
Episode 645: ACOUSTIC BLUES CLUB #608, OCTOBER 02, 2024 59:54

1M ago59:54

59:54

1
Episode 644: WEDNESDAY'S EVEN WORSE #674, OCTOBER 02, 2024 58:59

1M ago58:59

58:59

1
Brianna Nofil, "The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration" (Princeton UP, 2024) 39:39

28d ago39:39

39:39

Today, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains an average of 37,000 migrants each night. To do so, they rely on, and pay for, the use of hundreds of local jails. But this is nothing new: the federal government has been detaining migrants in city and county jails for more than 100 years. In The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mas…

1
AQA Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53 (part 2) 24:43

1M ago24:43

24:43

This episode is for all students of A Level Russian history, and it follows the AQA syllabus. In this episode we will explore the revolutionary ideas that shaped the events of 1917 and their long history in Russia. You can access the full study notes bundle here Subscribe for weekly updates Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each wee…

1
Andrew McKevitt on Gun Capitalism 48:50

29d ago48:50

48:50

450 million. According to our best estimates, that’s how many guns there are in the United States. To put that in perspective: if you gave a firearm to every single person in the nation—including babies and young children—you’d still have at least 100 million guns left over. Why did we amass such a large stockpile of guns? How did the US become an …

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