History As It Happens

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. The "No Kings" protests across America were aimed at President Donald Trump's mounting abuses of power, based on the idea that he's acting like an elected monarch 250 years after the framers of the Constitution established the separation of powers. In this episode, the eminent historian Joseph Ellis explains why America's founders forged a republic where there'd be no kings. Further reading/listening: Enemies Lists (podcast) Shall We Have A King? by William Leuchtenberg (American Heritage) The Great Contradiction by Joseph Ellis

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. After Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism became a surprise bestseller. Arendt, who died in 1975, became a sort of prophet for the liberal "Resistance" based on her insights into lying and politics and the origins of fascism. Today, as President Trump acts with increasing authoritarianism and corruption, Arendt is still frequently quoted, but she's not the star she once was on the American left. Why? Yale historian and law professor Samuel Moyn discusses the uses and abuses of Hannah Arendt, one of the twentieth century's towering philosophers. Further reading: You Have Misunderstood the Relevance of Hannah Arendt by Samuel Moyn, Prospect (2020) Men in Dark Times by Rebecca Panovka, Harper's (2021) Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt on Deception, Self-Deception, and the Psychology of Defactualization by Maria Popova, The Marginalian Big Racket Man by Martin Jay for Verso Books (2023)

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. The Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani is the favorite to be elected New York City's mayor next month. He is an inheritor of a largely forgotten municipal socialist tradition in America, one in which dozens of cities and towns were once governed by men dedicated to improving the lives of the working class, reforming government, and beating back public corruption. In this episode, the eminent labor historian Shelton Stromquist takes us back to a bygone era when cities faced dramatic problems and voters elected socialists to solve them. Further reading: Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism by Shelton Stromquist

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode. Americans' trust in the news media has plummeted to the lowest point since pollsters began tracking the data. Across the political spectrum, people have little confidence that the traditional powerhouses -- major newspapers along with TV and radio networks -- are giving it to them straight. In this episode, the accomplished newsman Greg Jarrett, who spent more than 50 years covering big stories in the U.S. and overseas, says news outlets' self-inflicted errors and a broken business model are largely to blame.

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Out of the destruction of war and disgrace of Nazism, a new (West) Germany emerged after 1945. It was democratic, prosperous, and peaceful. Another caesura occurred in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, East and West. This was 'the end of history.' But history came back with a vengeance. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri explains why Germans today fear rearmament and militarism may imperil their way of life. Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He hosts 'This is Democracy' podcast and writes the 'Democracy of Hope' Substack. Further reading: The Revenge of History in Europe by Jeremi Suri (Democracy of Hope)

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Major changes are afoot in the Middle East, but there are continuities with the past. One is Russian influence in Syria. Moscow remains involved in this country on the Mediterranean, although the civil war is over and a former jihadist is president in Damascus, a man who led the revolt that toppled Vladimir Putin's client. In this episode, analyst Hanna Notte explains the enduring nature of Russia-Syria ties and why other regional powers are trying to exploit Moscow's reduced presence in the country. Hanna Notte is an expert in Russian foreign policy, the Middle East, and arms control and nonproliferation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Recommended reading: Russia Isn't Done With Syria by Hanna Notte in Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (no paywall) Subscribe at https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening and to get bonus content. The story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is violent, full of sorrow, and littered with missed opportunities for lasting peace. The origins of the peace process might be traced to the late 1960s, when an American spy made his first clandestine contacts with the PLO. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Kai Bird says Robert Ames had a vision for Palestinian self-determination. Ronald Reagan saw an opportunity to realize it, even as invasion, war, and terrorism swallowed Lebanon in 1982-83. Lebanon was the country where Bob Ames would lose his life, the country he tried to save. Recommended reading: The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode. The massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, when U.S. troops butchered at least 150 Lakota men, women, and children, is rightfully remembered as a moral stain on American history. So why is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defending the soldiers who participated in it? Nineteen soldiers of the 7th Cavalry received the Medal of Honor after Wounded Knee. Hegseth says they will keep their medals after an expert panel, appointed under the Biden administration, reviewed their cases. Hegseth has not released the panel's report to the public. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor tells us what happened at Wounded Knee, and what's at stake as the Trump administration tries to rewrite history. Subcribe: https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/

Subscribe to skip ads, get bonus content, and access the entire podcast catalog of 500 episodes. Ideas cannot be killed, but movements come and go. Some 40 years after it emerged during the first Palestinian uprising, Hamas may be about to leave the scene, its crusade of violently resisting Israel having led to ruin in Gaza. In this episode, Nathan Brown, an expert on Hamas and Middle East politics, explores the movement's origins and its uncertain future, as well as what comes next for Palestinian nationalism. Subcribe: https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/ Recommended reading: The One-State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? by Nathan Brown (co-editor)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and access the entire podcast catalog of 500 episodes. The Trump administration is seeking regime change in Venezuela as top officials accuse that country's president, Nicolás Maduro, of helming an international drug cartel. President Trump boasts about blowing up the boats of alleged Venezuelan drug runners in the Caribbean, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly shaping an aggressive strategy to oust Maduro. This does not square with the administration's supposed isolationism, but the U.S. has never been isolationist when it comes to the Western Hemisphere. In this episode, historian Alexander Aviña traces the long, violent pattern of American interventionism in Latin America. Coincidentally, Theodore Roosevelt announced his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine after an international incident involving Venezuela in 1902. Support the podcast at https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/

Subscribe now to listen to this entire episode and get more bonus content - without ads! Moldova's parliamentary elections drew international attention because of Russian meddling aimed at subverting the outcome. The incumbent pro-EU party prevailed anyway, winning an absolute majority. This keeps Moldova on track to join the European Union, although Moscow remains miffed by countries in its historical "sphere of influence" moving toward the West. We check in with Veronica Anghel, an expert on EU integration at the European University Institute. She joins us from Brussels. Subscribe: https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and access the entire podcast catalog of 500 episodes. Sudan's civil war, genocide, and famine continue to go mostly unnoticed in the United States. This is even though millions of people are being brutalized, murdered, raped, or displaced in a conflict where there are no good sides, and where democracy is not on the line. In this episode, Tufts University scholar Alex de Waal, one of the world's foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, explains why peace and justice are distant possibilities in Sudan's third civil war since its 1956 independence. Further reading: Lineages of Genocide in Sudan by Alex de Waal (Journal of Genocide Research)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and access the entire podcast catalog of 500 episodes. *** Where does the question of Israel's right to exist come from? At the moment of Israel's independence in 1948, its Arab neighbors rejected its statehood. Today, Israel's defenders say the Jewish state must be allowed to defend itself from Hamas to ensure its survival. In this episode, political scientist Ian Lustick says the question is a category error. Rather than focusing on the state, people may ask whether they have "a duty to respect and defer to the decisions Israeli governments make" under the Zionist regime that has existed since '48. Support the podcast at https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/ Further reading: The Question of Israel's Right to Exist is a Red Herring by Ian Lustick (Foreign Policy)

Subscribe to listen to this entire episode. Free expression as a First Amendment right and cultural value is under assault in America. Yes, there's a hurricane of partisan hypocrisy concerning who can say what and when. But the battles over this cherished right are as old as the republic. The uproar over Jimmy Kimmel is merely the latest chapter. The veteran First Amendment litigator Bob Corn-Revere, now the chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), is here to clear up the confusion. Subscribe at historyasithappens.supercast.com Further reading: Everyone's a Free Speech Hypocrite by FIRE's Greg Lukianoff (New York Times) FIRE's College Free Speech Rankings

Want to skip ads? Subscribe now.  A U.N. commission reported that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, provoking denials and denunciations from Israel’s government and its U.S. supporters. What explains the endless wrangling over a term coined by Raphael Lemkin to define the crime of national destruction, even as Israeli officials openly express their intent to make Gaza uninhabitable? In this episode, scholars Dirk Moses and Sonia Boulos argue that the search for answers must begin in 1948. Further reading: Education After Gaza After Education After Auschwitz by Dirk Moses (Berlin Review) The “G Word,” Liberal Israeli Elites, and the Prospect of Decolonization by Sonia Boulos (Journal of Genocide Research)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get subscriber-only bonus episodes, and access the entire podcast catalog. If the ties that bind the republic are disintegrating, imperiling the survival of American democracy, there may be something to learn from the collapse of a European polity 100 years ago. The Weimar Republic was eviscerated by hyper-polarization, national traumas, and economic shocks, leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Is this the right place to look? In this episode, David Abraham, an expert in European history and political economy, tells us where this trendy analogy is effective and where it falls short. Further reading: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic by David Abraham

Enjoy this free bonus episode! Subscribe now to skip ads, get access to the entire podcast catalog, and listen to future subscriber-only bonus episodes. A month after the world's eyes were fixed on the Alaska summit, the Russia-Ukraine War is no closer to concluding. U.S. diplomacy has come up empty. Moscow is escalating air attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Russian drones have violated NATO airspace. Is a collapse possible along the front lines? What are Putin's aims three and a half years after launching his war of aggression? Historian Mark Galeotti of Mayak Intelligence answers these questions and more.

Subscribe now to skip ads, receive access to the entire podcast catalog, and listen to subscriber-only bonus episodes! A group of Palestinians whose families were uprooted from their ancestral homelands in 1948 has filed a legal petition with the British government. The petition is seeking an apology and reparations for British support of Zionist immigration, starting with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Palestinian petitioners say Britain unlawfully acted as an occupying power, giving itself the authority to rule the territory without a legal basis; and Palestinians were subject to a widespread pattern of murder, torture, and persecution under British rule. In this episode, international legal expert Victor Kattan delves into whether today's catastrophic war in Gaza has its origins in imperial decisions made more than 100 years ago. Further reading: Britain Owes Palestine (website) Gaza is a direct result of Balfour (Middle East Eye) Subscribe to the podcast: historyasithappens.com    

Support History As It Happens! Enjoy ad-free listening and exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing today at https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/ Listen to this 4-minute episode for news about new episodes starting Tuesday, Sept. 16, and the value of becoming a History As It Happens supporter.

This is the final episode in a 5-part series marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in August 1945. When the Second World War began, few expected the United States would emerge six years later as an unrivaled military and economic power at the head of a new world order built upon the graves of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Eighty years on, U.S. hegemony and the key global institutions for peace and free commerce are under severe pressure. In this episode, historian David M. Kennedy explores the origins of America's global age. Recommended reading: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War by David M. Kennedy