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PODCAST

Explaining History

How do we make sense of the modern world? We find the answers in the history of the 20th Century.For over a decade, The Explaining History Podcast has been the guide for curious minds. Host Nick Shepley and expert guests break down the world wars, the Cold War, and the rise and fall of ideologies into concise, 25-minute episodes.This isn"t a dry lecture. It"s a critical, narrative-driven conversation that connects the past to your present.Perfect for students, history buffs, and anyone who wants to

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All Episodes

28:09

Eisenhower and the downfall of Joseph McCarthy

Explaining History ·

2021/11/30

Eisenhower found McCarthy distasteful but had not desire to enter into a political fight with him. He thought that this would diminish the presidency and give lie to the idea that America was a harmonious post war society. He hoped that the public mood would change and when McCarthy was finally defeated the evidence suggests that attitudes were transitioning away from hysteria anyway. It was his decision to conduct televised hearings into suspected communist subversion in the army that eventually

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26:05

Britain's War at Sea 1939-45 Part One - Imperial...

Explaining History ·

2021/11/28

By 1939, the Royal Navy had lost a decade of growth, after budget cuts during the Great Depression and the closure of shipyards resulted in an older fleet than that of its enemies. The navy's role as the defender of the sea lanes that bound the empire together meant that it was for much of the war, Britain's primary line of defence against the Axis powers. The British were vulnerable as a net importer of food to U-Boat warfare and following the failure of the Battle of Britain and the decision by

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28:24

Richard Nixon and the beginning of the Watergate...

Explaining History ·

2021/11/21

When Richard Nixon won his second presidential term in 1972 defeating George McGovern in 1972, he was at the height of his popularity. The previous year he had captured the public mood when he addressed the nation's fears about the growing economic stagnation that America had begun to experience at the end ofthe 1960s. He had successfully negotiated with both Mao and Brezhnev earlier that year and offered many Americans the prospect of a withdrawal from Vietnam without humiliation. The break in at

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27:19

German Militarism and Social Cohesion in 1914

Explaining History ·

2021/11/10

Despite a decade of social conflict prior to the First World War between German trade unions and bosses, the declaration of war by Germany against Russia in the summer of 1914 led to a temporary but significant period of social unity in the Reich. The SPD, Germany's Social Democratic Party, showed its loyalty to the Kaiser's government by voting for his war credits to fund the army, and were recognised by the Chancellor Bethman Hollweg as a pliant and passive organisation that did not need to be

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27:19

Debt, decline and post Prague Spring Eastern Europe...

Explaining History ·

2021/10/30

When the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies drove their tanks into Prague in 1968, crushing the nascent pro democracy movement led by Alexander Dubcek, the last pretense of there being anything emancipatory about Soviet Communism disappeared. Instead, the USSR and its sattelite regimes were shorn of any ideological credibility and now faced sullen and uncooperative populations across the eastern bloc whose only interest in communism was whether it could economically deliver. The next two

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29:16

The Indian Army in the Middle East - 1940

Explaining History ·

2021/10/23

In the summer of 1940 the British faced supply shortages in the Middle East and were vastly outnumbered by Italian forces in Libya. Archibald Wavell, one of Churchill's least favourite generals, came under intense pressure from his Prime Minister for a swift and impressive victory. HIs opposite number Count Graziani quickly realised the Italian Army was poorly equipped for desert war, and despite its size would struggle to achieve a decisive victory. The Indian Fourth Division was deployed in this

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29:16

Hitler, the Luftwaffe and the 'England Problem' - 1940

Explaining History ·

2021/10/13

In the summer of 1940, German successes in Europe had been based on a very particular model of interaction between air and ground forces. The planned invasion of southern England and the seizure of London envisioned by Hitler presented the German airforce with entirely new problems. Some German commanders believed that the Luftwaffe alone could defeat the British, but it was Eric Raeder, the head of Hitler's navy, who wanted an amphibious invasion to showcase the power of the Kriegsmarine. Hitler

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28:28

Grain seizures and famine during the Great Leap Forward

Explaining History ·

2021/10/07

During the forced programme of industrialisation in the late 1950s in China, known as the Great Leap Forward, China's peasants came under intense pressure from the violent Maoist state to produce impossible grain quotas. Villages had already undergone the process of communalisation, where the basic structures of communal and even family life were torn apart and peasants were taken from the land in huge numbers to work on poorly planned vanity projects. In villages, kitchens and cooking utensils were

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28:24

Harold Wilson and MI6 - 1963-76

Explaining History ·

2021/09/27

Harold Wilson was the most successful Labour prime minister of the 20th Century, but was the subject of plots to remove him from power by the military, business and intelligence elites. No coup attempt against Wilson was ever launched in Britain, but his sudden resignation in 1976 followed years of speculation that he had been spied upon by the intelligence services. This podcast explores his often frictional relationship with Britain's intelligence services and the record of other Labour leaders,

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27:14

De-Maoification 1976-1989

Explaining History ·

2021/09/18

When Mao Zedong, China's 'great helmsman' died in 1976, the China that emerged after destructive reign began to be de-Maoified economically but also culturally. By the early 1980s a cutlure of Mao criticism was prevalent in the arts, television and cinema, along with critiques of the Mao era communist party. This podcast examines the processes of De-Maoification and how China changed throughout the 1980s, and the significance of this in the 21st Century. Become a member at

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27:01

The End by Ian Kershaw - Germany 1944-45

Explaining History ·

2021/09/08

By 1944 it was clear that there was no future for the Third Reich, but unlike other regimes that have faced overwhelming odds, Germany fought on to the end. Historian Ian Kershaw wrote a groundbreaking book in 2011, The End, which explained why the Third Reich chose the path of Gotterdammerung (downfall). This is the first of several podcasts where we explore Kershaw's thesis. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more

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26:29

Protest Music and Social Conflict in America (Part...

Explaining History ·

2021/08/29

By the late 1960s there were huge opportunities for Richard Nixon to capitalise on the growing discontent across America towards the counter culture. Millions of Americans looked on with disdain at a generation of anti war protesters and young men and women who actively rejected the lifestyles of their parents generation. Nixon, and every Republican president and presidential candidate since has tried to tap into the social conservatism of small town and rural America. In the late 1960s Woodstock,

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26:48

Deng Xiaoping and Neoliberalism with Chinese...

Explaining History ·

2021/08/22

Following the disastrous chaos and violence of the cultural revolution, Deng Xiaoping, one of Maoist China's inveterate survivors and a hate figure for Mao himself, began a series of changes of global significance in 1978. Deng's four modernisations (agriculture, industry, education, science and defence), and the policy of opening up China to foreign investment were the product of two fears. Firstly, that a disorderly, anarchic China would eventually see the collapse of party rule, and secondly,

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27:01

Espionage and the American Communist Party 1945-47

Explaining History ·

2021/08/14

The Republican Party and the right of the American liberal establishment colluded in the immediate post war years to wage war against the American left. The Republicans saw it an opportunity to undermine the New Deal years and their liberal collaborators view of the illiberalism of the Soviet Union justiified any and all political crack downs on those they viewed as Soviet agitators in the USA. The chief target for accusations of subversion was the Communist Party of the USA, but actual Soviet

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28:11

Pravda and the Stalin's Terror - 1937

Explaining History ·

2021/08/06

By 1937 the Soviet newspaper Pravda (its editorial board pictured above), was a key part of the mechanisms of denunciation and terror. It presented lurid tales of corruption and embezzlement that most Soviet citizens knew happened in the party constantly, weaponising their anger against those accused in the show trials. The purpose was to build a mass popular base for Stalin's attacks against the party itself. This podcast explores how the paper operated as part of the wider culture of denunciation

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29:05

Protest music and the social conflict in America...

Explaining History ·

2021/07/27

This is the first of a multi part exploration of protest music in America during the late 1960s, beginning with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Ohio, written to mourn the killing of four students by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio, in May 1970. By the late 1960s, the pressure of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement had led to a progressive radicalisation of the new left and also a reactionary backlash from America's lower middle classes, who flocked to Nixon in 1968 and

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26:58

The experience of military mobilisation in Germany...

Explaining History ·

2021/07/21

Fear and solidarity defined both Austro Hungarian and Germany societies in August 1914. The pace of mobilisation meant that over three million soldiers in Germany alone were in uniform in just twelve days. Soldiers said emotional farewells to loved ones and took last minute photographs with sweethearts, and both German and Austro Hungarian economies were plunged into crisis by the disruption of war, with families losing most of their income from the loss of a breadwinner. This podcast looks at the

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43:44

Getting Churchill wrong and the problem of fake...

Explaining History ·

2021/07/07

History as entertainment has shaped, for many, the understanding of the past. Mythologisation of key moments of the past crafts powerful and often misleading national stories that provide simple and often comforting notions about the past. In his new book Fake History, Otto English takes many of these fantasies to task, and today we explore one of the most enduring myths of all, the fantasy figure that is Winston Churchill. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/explaininghistory. Hosted on

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27:11

1937 - The Year of the Great Terror (Part One)

Explaining History ·

2021/07/02

Throughout the 1930s the forces that led to a year of terror in 1937 had been gradually developing, from the trials of bourgeois specialists in the1920s to the murder of Sergei Kirov. The regime initially looked to the population at large to show their anger and rage at figures such as Iuri Piatikov, who as a former ally of Trotsky, was cast as a saboteur and wrecker. Others were characterised as corrupt embezzlers as well as foreign agents. In a time of constant setbacks in industry and society,

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28:12

The Motherland Calls - the Soviet Union's Second...

Explaining History ·

2021/06/12

In present day Volgograd, one of the largest Second World War memorials in the world stands. The city, once known as Stalingrad, is home the gigantic concrete and steel sculpture, The Motherland Calls, which was built in 1967, eleven years after Stalin himself had been denonced and disgraced by his successor. The immense losses that the USSR suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany and its allies will shape Russian memory for centuries to come and this podcast explores the creation of the memorials

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