Podcast Episodes

Mao and the invention of China's landlords

In order to rule China, Mao knew he needed to dominate the peasantry. In order to do this he divided Chinese peasant villages, creating new social classes in an otherwise socially conservative world …

Published on 6 years ago

Nationalisation in Britain after 1945

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the new Labour government nationalised Britain's utilities, rail but most importantly its vast coal industry, creating more state employees of a na…

Published on 6 years, 1 month ago

Family Life in Stalinist Russia 1928-41

During the 1930s, the pressures on families in the USSR was immense. Men, women and children faced extreme economic hardship and political uncertainty, which in some cases had the effect of making fa…

Published on 6 years, 1 month ago

Britain's Class System in the 1930s

During the 1930s, social class in Great Britain was experiencing a gradual transition away from the dominance that the landed aristocracy had enjoyed during the 19th Century. Instead, a new bourgeois…

Published on 6 years, 1 month ago

Nazi Propaganda and Radio Broadcasting

Even before 1933, the Nazis were aware that radio offered then unprecedented opportunities to shape public thought. However, the use of radio did not quite have the power to create the type of existe…

Published on 6 years, 1 month ago

US anti communism and the Republican Party 1945-50 (Part One)

This is the first of a series of podcasts on the development of anti communism in the 1940s in the USA and the role that the Republican Party played. By 1945 a fear of communism and also the suspicio…

Published on 6 years, 2 months ago

The Roots of German and Italian Fascism

This podcast is a continuation of a series on the origins of fascism and it examines the development of fascist ideas in interwar Italy and Germany.

Explaining History helps you understand the 20th C…

Published on 6 years, 2 months ago

German Bombing Raids on London and Paris 1917-18

Strategic bombing of the enemy's home front began in earnest in the second half of the First World War, with London facing a near collapse of its air defences in early 1918. This podcast focuses on t…

Published on 6 years, 2 months ago

Comintern agents between the wars

During the 1920s and 1930s, communist parties across Europe and beyond fell under the control, often voluntarily, of Comintern, the Soviet body dedicated to foreign subversion. This podcast explores …

Published on 6 years, 2 months ago

Renunciation in Stalin's Russia

During the Stalin era, those accused of counter revolutionary crimes and their family members were desperate to be relieved of the stigma of being a class enemy and the punishments that accompanied i…

Published on 6 years, 2 months ago