Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Hunger and the Russian Revolution - 1917
The overwhelming pressures that the First World War placed on Russia resulted in chaos to the empire's food economy. Russia had plentiful food suppli…
7 years, 9 months ago
Saving the Jews of Budapest
When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944 and began mass deportations to Auschwitz, two unlikely saviours, a diplomat from Franco's Spain and a busines…
7 years, 9 months ago
Gandhi, Nehru and wartime crisis - 1940
When the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf unilaterally there was considerable anger. This was replaced by concern an…
7 years, 9 months ago
Nixon, returning POWs and the legacy of Vietnam
At the start of his second term in office Nixon saw an opportunity in the return of American POWs in Vietnam to present a positive and patriotic narr…
7 years, 9 months ago
British working class identity, tv and affluence 1954 -1964
The dramatic increase in standards of living for British working class people from the mid 1950s onwards was accompanied by anxieties that an entire …
7 years, 9 months ago
Creating the SS Death's Head Division
Comprised mainly of teenagers in the late 1930s, the Death's Head Division guarded the camps and brutalised prisoners, but many believed they had bee…
7 years, 9 months ago
Defending Afghanistan 1937-1940
For a century Afghanistan had been a theatre for the 'great game' of espionage between the British and Russian empires, but on the eve of the Second …
7 years, 9 months ago
Roosevelt, Stalin and the Creation of the Grand Alliance
When Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941, the changing strategic picture presented Britain and America with opportunities and hazards. A deal with S…
7 years, 9 months ago
Truman's anti communist policy 1945-47
The mid term elections in 1946 were a disaster for the Democratic Party, which faced fraudulent accusations of communist sympathies from their Republ…
7 years, 10 months ago
Japan's Strategic Failures 1940-41
By the winter of 1941 the Japanese public, military planners and government were in broad agreement about the necessity of war against America, Brita…
7 years, 10 months ago