Explaining History

At the end of the Second World War Europe was devastated, starving and in chaos. Millions of refugees and displaced persons were dependent on the United Nations to feed and shelter them. Some of the newly restored governments saw it as an ideal opportunity to expel unwanted ethnic minorities and in parts of the continent, fighting between communist and non communist forces continued.

This podcast focuses on looking at US domestic and foreign history in the 20th Century in a thematic way. If you are sitting a US history exam in the summer and need to find a way of answering essay questions by following long term themes within US history, this podcast is essential listening.

What are the big themes within Russian history that we can adapt and apply to exam questions? In this podcast I'm going to talk about just one major theme, the relationship between Russia, modernisation and the west from 1815-1928. If you are doing Russian history in your exams this is essential listening.

If you are sitting your exams in May, here is the first of a series of podcasts that look at different topic areas in a thematic way. Here we look at German history from unification in 1871 and the notion of 'Sonderweg' or a special path through history.

A general overview of the development of the trade union movement from the 1830s to the eve of the First World War. What factors led to the radicalisation of the movement and how did the two main parties, Liberal and Tory adapt to the 'threat' of mass democracy and the working class vote?

How did the fall of France, the invasion of the Soviet Union and Pearl Harbour have bearing on the fate of Vietnam? This podcast explores not only the actions of the great powers towards Vietnam during the Second World War, but also the actions of the Vietnamese themselves and their resistance to both French and Japanese occupation.

One of the more overlooked aspects of the history of Soviet Communism is the last years of Trotsky's life at Coyoacan in Mexico. This podcast explores the man and his feuds within his own movement, the plot to assassinate him and his relationships with his patron and eventual enemy Diego Rivera.

Japan enjoyed spectacular military successes from December 1941 to February 1942, but from May to November that year was dealt a series of defeats that would ultimately spell doom for the Japanese war effort in the Pacific. Why was the Japanese advance halted in the South Pacific so quickly?

The Five Year Plans involved and immense bureaucratic effort to industrialise Russia on a massive scale. Beyond the massive cost to the Russian people and the coercion of much of the population, there was also an immense degree of participation and consent in the grand historical undertaking to build socialism. This podcast explores the efforts of the Stakhanovites and other participants in the plans.

General MacArthur is perhaps the most iconic and well known of all Roosevelt's senior commanders during the war. He was also a highly eccentric and stubborn leader who had as many military setbacks as he did successes. MacArthur was enormously popular with the US public and made the most of the good publicity he got.

Why did so many western intellectuals decide to offer their support to the Soviet Union in the 1930s? Writers like George Bernard Shaw, Freda Kirchwey and left intellectuals like Sidney and Beatrice Webb all gave Stalinism a veneer of legitimacy whilst hoping their own countries would stay steadfastly non communist.

It's a new school/college/uni year and even the best of us have got a bit rusty over the summer, so this extended audio coaching that I recorded for one of my programmes is designed to help you to achieve excellence in writing, arguing and thinking about history. This comes weeks ahead of the launch of the new Explaining History study guides, targeted to help you achieve excellence.

The year of 1940 was a strange mix of catastrophy and triumph for Britain and her ability to hold out against the seemingly unstoppable success of Hitler's war machine had profound implications for the rest of the war. This ebook covers the first German campaigns in the west, the fall of Norway and Denmark, the capture of Holland and Belgium and the collapse of France. The biggest military disaster to befall the British Army in Europe left 300,000 men trapped at the port of Dunkirk, and it was British resilliance, organisation and determination that saved the majority of the British Expeditionary Force from anihillation on the beaches. Operation Dynamo and two other key evacuations gave Britain enough men from which to rebuild the British Army. Throughout it all the controversial figure of Winston Churchill, flawed, brilliant, inspirational and exasperating to his generals, united a country who's confidence had buckled, and led them on with inspirational words: "We Shall Never Surrender."

The British Empire was economically and politically weakened by 1918, but it grew in size at the Paris Peace Conference. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the growth in power of Japan was a constant cause of concern, but little was done to protect Britain's South East Asian Colonies effectively.

By the late 19th Century Russia was a rapid increase in acts of terrorism against the state, the assassination of government ministers, bombings of state buildings and attempts (eventually successful) on the lives of the Tsars. The terrorists were well educated members of Russia's middle classes, waging their own war against the state on behalf of Russia's peasants. Why? This Explaining History podcast attempts to address this question.