Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchMariya Grinberg, "Trade in War: Economic Cooperation Across Enemy Lines" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Episode 1479
Trade between belligerents during wartime should not occur. After all, exchanged goods might help enemies secure the upper hand on the battlefield. Y…
1 year, 2 months ago
Barry Strauss, "Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire" (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Episode 1477
Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire (Simon & Schuster, 2025) by Barry Strauss recounts the history and eve…
1 year, 2 months ago
Paul Thomas Chamberlin, "Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II" (Basic Books, 2025)
Episode 1476
In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the t…
1 year, 2 months ago
Thomas Christian Bächle and Jascha Bareis eds., "The Realities of Autonomous Weapons (Bristol UP, 2025)
Episode 1478
Autonomous weapons exist in a strange territory between Pentagon procurement contracts and Hollywood blockbusters, between actual military systems an…
1 year, 2 months ago
Reid B. C. Pauly, "The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Episode 776
Strong states are surprisingly bad at coercion. History shows they prevail only a third of the time. Dr. Pauly argues that coercion often fails becau…
1 year, 2 months ago
Mark Braude, "The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Empire to Exile" (Penguin Press, 2018)
Episode 68
I must’ve been a kid when I first heard the palindrome “Able I was ere I saw Elba”. Napoleon didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. “Elba” meant even l…
1 year, 2 months ago
W. Henry Sledge, "The Old Breed... The Complete Story Revealed" (Knox Press, 2025)
Episode 291
Because events like D-Day and the Battle of Okinawa took place an entire lifetime ago, it is rare to find any new accounts and memories from veterans…
1 year, 2 months ago
Garrett M. Graff, "When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Episode 1470
June 6, 1944—known to us all as D-Day—is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military triumphs. The surprise sunrise landing of more than…
1 year, 2 months ago
Michael Jabara Carley, "Stalin's Great Game: War and Neutrality, 1939-1941" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Episode 1471
The period from September 1939 to early 1942 was crucial for Soviet foreign policy and coincided with the early stages of the Second World War, inclu…
1 year, 2 months ago
Michael Geheran, "Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler" (Cornell UP, 2020)
Episode 147
What claims could Jewish veterans make on the Nazi state by virtue of their having fought for Germany? How often did Germans treat Jewish veterans di…
1 year, 2 months ago