The John Batchelor Show

Gaius and Germanicus settle over wine to analyze the aftermath of World War II, citing Averell Harriman's 1945 fear that Soviet victory represented a barbarian invasion opening Europe to Asian influence and threatening Westerncivilization's foundations. Germanicus suggests a modern inversion has occurred whereby Europe now experiences reverse colonization by former imperial subjects from Africa and Asia who seek cultural and demographic dominance rather than assimilation into existing European societies. They examine American exceptionalism, noting that while the United States officially denies being an empire, its history of continental expansion, indigenous displacement, and ethnic cleansing mirrors classical imperial behavior under different rhetorical guises. The speakers conclude that contemporary elites remain comfortably insulated from the consequences of these demographic and political shifts in gated communities and exclusive enclaves, while common citizens bear the daily burden of fractured social cohesion and competing identities.1942. CHURCHILL, HARRIMAN, STALIN, MOLOTOV IN MOSCOW.

Gaius and Germanicus turn their debate to American migration patterns, with Gaius arguing that modern elites exploit immigrants as property for cheap labor and political votes, echoing historical patterns of indentured servitude that built colonial economies. Germanicus draws comparisons to Rome, noting that the empire successfully assimilated diverse races through genuine upward mobility and citizenship pathways that created loyalty across ethnic lines. However, he warns that the Western Empire eventually collapsed when Germanic tribes entered not as individuals seeking assimilation but as unassimilated national groups maintaining separate identities and allegiances. Germanicus cautions that current policies encouraging migrants to remain culturally separate rather than integrating into the host society dangerously resemble the dynamics that fractured Rome. The pair concludes that immigration has been a neuralgic obsession throughout American history, with elites consistently exploiting immigrant labor while simultaneously fearing political insurrection from unassimilated populations.1863 DRAFT RIOTS NYC

Gaius and Germanicus gather in freezing Londinium during the winter of 92 AD to discuss Paul Thomas Chamberlain's Scorched Earth, which reinterprets World War II not as a purely ideological conflict but as a racial struggle for colonial supremacy among white Christian nations. Gaius observes that academic journals in the early twentieth century explicitly validated these racial hierarchies, lending intellectual legitimacy to imperial competition. Germanicus contrasts this modern framework with the Roman Empire, which lacked rigid color barriers and successfully integrated diverse peoples across its vast territories. He argues that modern racism stems not from Roman Catholic or imperial traditions but from Calvinist predestination theology that divided humanity into elect and damned. The pair further explores how Western powers historically viewed Russia as mongrelized and inferior due to its Asianinfluences, revealing the deep racial anxieties underlying European geopolitics and the competition for global dominance.1550 MARK ANTONY SENDS SOLDIERS TO BRING CICERO TO THE SENATE.

Joe Pappalardo traces the post-service lives of Company F leaders: Scott builds railroads in Mexico while Brooksbecomes a South Texas judge battling alcoholism, establishing the stoic, disciplined template defining the modern Texas Ranger identity and legacy.1904 TEXAS RANGERS

Joe Pappalardo recounts Sergeant J.A. Brooks facing legal peril in Fort Smith after a shootout defending an Indianagent results in murder charges, tried before Hanging Judge Parker and imprisoned near outlaw Belle Starr before receiving a presidential pardon from Cleveland.1885 WACO TEXAS RANGERS

Joe Pappalardo profiles Captain Will Scott, a stoic tactician who utilized undercover operations and deliberate force, contextualizing the Rangers as agents of political change during 1886-87 enforcing barbed wire boundaries against open-range traditions amidst economic shifts and severe weather.DALLAS 1920

Joe Pappalardo details the 1887 shootout between Texas Ranger Company F and the Connor clan in Sabine County'sdense pine forests, where skilled backwoodsmen fighting an ambiguous legal battle represented an existential threat requiring Rangers to impose modern governance.1900 CAPTAIN BILL MACDONALD, TEXAS RANGER

Jessica Pierce and Mark Bekoff discuss whether dogs will see themselves as apex predators or ecosystem participants, noting pack behavior may mirror wolves if hunting large prey while dogs retain their distinct genetic history, concluding that this experiment teaches humans to view dogs as individuals.1900 ENGLISH SPRINGERS, HUNTING

Jessica Pierce and Mark Bekoff explain that without humans, dogs will likely adopt communal parenting strategies and reduced reproductive cycles to maximize survival, noting dogs already possess latent social skills for conflict resolution with lifespans stabilizing around eight years like wild wolves.1861 DUNDRUM HOUSE. LORD HAWARDEN AND SPRINGER

Jessica Pierce and Mark Bekoff focus on physical evolution, predicting short-snouted dogs will disappear while longer snouts prevail for better breathing, smaller dogs may survive better due to lower caloric demands, and coat colors will adapt toward reddish camouflage hues.1658 FOUR SPRINGERS HUNTING

Jessica Pierce and Mark Bekoff discuss a thought experiment regarding dogs in a post-human world, suggesting dogs will not physically revert to wolves but will adopt wolf-like social structures and pack behaviors depending on available prey, viewing themselves as fluid ecosystem participants.1828 ENGLISH SPRINGERS

Guest: Dan Flores. Aristocratic "safari" hunters massacred wildlife for sport, while early conservation efforts by figures like Roosevelt often focused on preserving game populations specifically for future hunting.1911 ALASKA

Guest: Dan Flores. Flores critiques 19th-century explorers, noting how Lewis and Clark needlessly slaughtered grizzlies and how Audubon, though later regretful, killed birds to capture their likenesses.1873 VULTURE BISON

Guest: Dan Flores. As capitalism commodified wildlife like beavers, naturalists like Thoreau lamented the loss, while Linnaeus's system helped classify species even as market forces decimated them.1859 JJ AUDOBON. WILD TURKEY

Guest: Dan Flores. European colonizers, shocked by America's abundance, introduced a "herding culture" mindset that demonized predators and enforced a philosophy of human exceptionalism regarding animal souls.1838 COMMORANTS. AUDOBON

Guest: Dan Flores. For 10,000 years, indigenous hunter-gatherers maintained ecological balance through low populations and spiritual kinship with animals, viewing species like Coyote and Raven as deities.1908 ZOO

Guest: Dan Flores. Flores details the Clovis culture's rapid expansion and efficient hunting, arguing human predation and genomic meltdown drove the "American extinction" of large mammals like mammoths.1908

Guest: Dan Flores. Flores introduces his book Wild New World, discussing North America's deep evolutionary history, the arrival of carnivorous humans, and the resulting interactions with ancient fauna.1860 GRIZZLY BE HUNTER

Guest: Danielle Clode. They discuss rising risks from climate change, dangers at the urban-bushland interface, and differences between U.S. fire suppression and Australian preventative burning policies.1885 SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Guest: Danielle Clode. Clode details protecting homes from ember attacks, the critical "stay or go" decision during fire bans, and last-resort survival tactics involving woolen blankets in vehicles.1952 QUEENSLAND

Guest: Danielle Clode. The conversation explores eucalyptus regeneration, the complexity of arson, specific vegetation flammability, and the origins of Australia's volunteer fire brigades in insurance companies.1930 AUSTRALIA

Guest: Danielle Clode. Clode discusses Captain Cook's early observations, the contrast between indigenous "fire stick farming" and settler clearing, and the history of massive wildfires like Black Thursday.1907 ADELAIDE.SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Guest: Jeremy Zakis. Zakis describes how his dog Dallas watches birds from air-conditioned safety, tolerating magpies but acting like a "lawman" toward unwelcome, vandalistic cockatoos drinking water.

Guest: Jeremy Zakis. Zakis details the English cricket team's scandals, specifically how Harry Brook and teammates lied about a nightclub fight following their humiliating Ashes defeat.1885 CRICKET NSW

Guest: Jeremy Zakis. Zakis reports on Australia's oppressive, humid heatwave reaching 122°F, which traps residents indoors and keeps a stubbornly stationary tropical depression from becoming a cyclone.

Guest: Jeremy Zakis. Zakis reports on Australia's oppressive, humid heatwave reaching 122°F, which traps residents indoors and keeps a stubbornly stationary tropical depression from becoming a cyclone.1873

Sean McMeekin explains how the Allies abandoned anti-communist forces like Mihailovic in Yugoslavia and Chiang Kai-shek in China, while Stalin armed Mao Zedong with Japanese weapons, concluding that massive US Lend-Leaseaid enabled communism's expansion into Europe and Asia.1945

Sean McMeekin describes how the Soviets utilized Lend-Lease to acquire industrial secrets and nuclear materials, often facilitated by Harry Hopkins whom McMeekin views as a devoted Soviet agent of influence, while Stalin delayed Operation Bagration to let Western Allies absorb German strength.1945 RED ARMY

Sean McMeekin argues FDR announced unconditional surrender at Casablanca to appease Stalin, highlighting the Allied cover-up of the Katyn Massacre where Stalin used his own crime to break relations with the Polish government-in-exile and consolidate control.2943 TEHRAN

Sean McMeekin describes how Stalin exploited Lend-Lease beyond military necessity, using the program to acquire industrial equipment, raw materials, and nuclear-related supplies while manipulating Western generosity to strengthen Soviet postwar capabilities and strategic position.1941 ROSTOV

Sean McMeekin challenges the myth of Stalin's nervous breakdown during the 1941 German invasion, arguing both sides were mobilizing for war and that becoming a victim created a public relations miracle facilitating Western aid while Stalin withheld intelligence about Japan from the US.1939 WINTER WAR

Sean McMeekin discusses Molotov's 1940 Berlin visit, noting Stalin's brazen demands for influence in Bulgaria and Turkey caused talks to collapse, prompting Hitler to plan Operation Barbarossa, while Roosevelt began lifting moral embargoes anticipating a German-Soviet clash.1931 STALIN AND BERIA

Sean McMeekin details how Stalin replaced Litvinov with Molotov to signal realignment with Hitler, leading to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, arguing Stalin was an opportunist seeking territorial expansion in Poland, Romania, and the Baltics while Western powers failed to intervene.1900 THE RUSSIA BEAR, "RECKLESS DEFIANCE" OF THE ENGLISH TOMMIES

Sean McMeekin introduces Stalin as a bandit and intellectual who adopted Lenin's theory of revolutionary defeatism, explaining how Stalin built Soviet industry by exploiting Western technology and capital during the Depression, often funding this through looted artwork and espionage.1881 GANGING THE STUDENT REVOLUTIONARIES

Peter Stansky attributes the pessimism in 1984 to Orwell's belief that leaders prioritize power over revolutionary goals, though he remained optimistic about the English people, noting the novel's enduring relevance regarding modern technology, political disinformation, and its historical use as a Cold War cultural document.1899 LITTLE RUSSIA

Peter Stansky attributes the pessimism in 1984 to Orwell's belief that leaders prioritize power over revolutionary goals, though he remained optimistic about the English people, noting the novel's enduring relevance regarding modern technology and political disinformation.1951

Peter Stansky discusses Orwell's wartime work for the BBC and The Lion and the Unicorn advocating Englishsocialism, arguing that Animal Farm was not anti-socialist but a critique of revolutionary leaders corrupted by absolute power who inevitably betray their ideals.1951

Peter Stansky explains that George Orwell's time as a colonial police officer in Burma fueled his growing anti-imperialism and decision to become a writer, while fighting in the Spanish Civil War solidified his identity as a democratic socialist and staunch anti-communist after witnessing Soviet betrayals.

Geoffrey Roberts concludes that Stalin admired American industrialism and constitutional structure while editing Soviet history, defining him as a fanatical Bolshevik intellectual driven by Marxist dogma.1896 TSAR NICHOLAS

Geoffrey Roberts details Stalin's admiration for historian Robert Vipper and Ivan the Terrible, whom Stalinrehabilitated as a state-builder to justify his own ruthless governance and terror.1945

Geoffrey Roberts notes Stalin studied Bismarck as a modernizer but learned power politics from Lenin, not Machiavelli, viewing Tsars as strong state builders despite their capitalism.1942

Geoffrey Roberts discusses the library's 1988 rediscovery, its 1956 dispersal following Khrushchev's de-Stalinization, and analysis of Stalin's marginalia revealing his deep emotional engagement with texts he studied.1942

Geoffrey Roberts explains how after his wife's suicide, Stalin moves to a new dacha where his library becomes central, retaining books by executed rivals like Bukharin despite their fate.1928

Geoffrey Roberts describes Stalin organizing his library, prioritizing Lenin and Trotsky, while Bolsheviks seize control of publishing to reshape human consciousness through controlled reading and ideological indoctrination.1917 MOSCIW

Geoffrey Roberts recounts Stalin meeting his idol Lenin, committing to Bolshevism, and spending exile reading extensively, establishing himself as a Marxist theoretician and dedicated intellectual within the revolutionary movement.1917 VILNIUS

Geoffrey Roberts introduces Stalin's library at his dacha and discusses the dictator's youth, education, radicalization, and voracious reading habits in Georgia and the seminary that shaped his intellectual formation.1920

Everitt and Ashworth review primary sources shaping Nero's legacy, distinguishing gossip-laden Suetonius from hostile but reliable Tacitus, while noting Petronius of the Satyricon and Pliny the Elder's anecdotal encyclopedia.NERO

Everitt and Ashworth detail Nero's fall through the Pisonian conspiracy forcing Seneca's theatrical suicide, followed by revolt in Gaul and Nero's own suicide by throat, destroying his precious singing voice in 68 AD.

Everitt and Ashworth debunk the myth that Nero started the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, explaining he organized relief efforts and built the Golden House as a public palace, while questioning accounts of Christian persecution.

Everitt and Ashworth examine Queen Boudica's revolt in Britain, triggered by Roman financial extortion including Seneca's called-in loans, which nearly caused Nero to abandon the province before imperial prestige prevailed.1550 ROME

Everitt and Ashworth cover Nero's first five years under Seneca and Burrus, noting how Agrippina's death liberated his artistic pursuits while paranoia drove the elimination of rivals including his wife Octavia and stoic aristocrats.