Podcasts about first world war

I welcomed one of my hero authors, Michael Morpurgo, and his wife Clare, to Highclere Castle to talk about storytelling, history, the magic of reading, and the extraordinary charity they founded together — Farms for City Children.Michael shared how War Horse came to life and why understanding the First World War matters more than ever today. We recalled the unforgettable day Joey, the National Theatre's War Horse puppet, came to Highclere in 2014 — walking through the very library where Almina, my predecessor, had nursed soldiers back from the trenches a century before.Michael told the wonderful story behind Farms for City Children — how Clare, a childhood afternoon let loose near a Devon farm, courtesy of her father Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, sparked a lifetime's passion for the countryside, and how that passion became a charity that has given over 120,000 inner-city children a week of real farm life.We explored the importance of books and reading, handwriting, the friendship with Ted Hughes, the honest editorial partnership between Michael and Clare, and my own plans for a Highclere Literary Festival this October.We ended with Michael's dream summer evening guest: the radiant Audrey Hepburn.00:00 Welcome & Introduction02:10 War Horse & Joey Comes to Highclere06:30 History, World War I & Why It Still Matters13:15 The Origins of Farms for City Children21:45 A Real Farm — Not a Pretend Farm28:00 Highclere: Farm, History & the Fifth Earl33:20 The Power of Reading & the Literary Festival38:10 Writing by Hand, Ted Hughes & the iPad44:00 Editing, Marriage & Telling the Truth49:30 Dream Party Guest: Audrey HepburnTopics CoveredWar Horse & HighclereThe origins of War Horse and why Michael believes we must understand history to navigate the presentLady Carnarvon recalls the day Joey, the War Horse puppet from the National Theatre, came to Highclere in 2014 to mark the centenary of World War IHighclere Castle served as a real military hospital during World War I — Lady Carnarvon's predecessor, Almina, nursed soldiers back from the trenchesThe contrast with the fictional Downton Abbey and the very real human stories preserved in letters at HighclereHistory, War & ResponsibilityMichael reflects on why the First World War is so important — and how it directly caused the SecondThe role of individuals and political movements in triggering conflict, from Sarajevo to the rise of HitlerWhy Michael feels it is "timely" to revisit these lessons today, given the state of the worldSeeing War Horse in the theatre the night before recording — and what it still means to himFarms for City ChildrenClare's childhood inspiration: sent outside to explore as a young girl near a Devon farm, she fell in love with the countryside, animals, and the rhythm of rural lifeHer father, Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, instilled a love of the natural worldWhy Clare and Michael left teaching after realising they weren't reaching the children who needed them mostHow the charity started with one Victorian farmhouse in Devon and has since grown to multiple working farmsOver 120,000 children have now spent a week on a real farm — milking cows, feeding lambs, grooming horses, doing genuine workMeeting former "farm children" now aged 45 with families of their own, who say the experience never left themHighclere Today — A Living EstateFarming records at Highclere dating back to the 16th century; earliest written records from 749 ADLady Carnarvon's rare breed Cornish pigs, Belted Galloway cattle, 1,400 ewes, and 2,500 lambsThe Iron Age Fort and Bronze Age Tumuli on the estateWilliam of Wykeham (1324–1404) — bishop and founder of Winchester College and New College, Oxford — lived at Highclere; it was his palaceThe fifth Earl of Carnarvon, who discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun, was a voracious reader; his will, written at 21, listed his books as among his most prized possessionsThe Power of Reading & WritingWhy books matter: they let children ask questions, explore mortality, understand the world, and feel less aloneMichael's beach anecdote — watching his granddaughter's husband read to their one-year-old, with the baby turning the pages back — as a perfect image of how the love of books is passed onThe importance of parents reading aloud, good libraries, and physical booksLady Carnarvon's Highclere Literary Festival — launching this October, with:A children's trail through the gardens (including a wardrobe inspired by Narnia and an entrance to fairyland)The Curious Tent and Speaker's CornerWriting and reading competitions with cash prizesFree entry for under-16s who have read a book or written somethingLady Carnarvon's campaign for handwriting — the link between brain, hand, and penTed Hughes, Writing by Hand & TechnologyMichael's lifelong habit of writing by hand — and how arthritis in his finger has forced a reluctant move to an iPadNeighbour and friend Ted Hughes on why handwriting matters: it keeps the mind and the process in syncMichael's delight at discovering he can dictate to his iPad ("It prints it out magically")Editing, Marriage & HonestyClare as Michael's first editor — "quite unfairly truthful" — and why he always takes her notes even when he doesn't want toThe ongoing verdict: nothing he's written in the 65 books since War Horse has matched itLady Carnarvon's husband editing her first book and his well-meaning but devastating comment: "Don't worry if nobody reads it — you've still tried very hard"A Summer Evening QuestionIf you could take anyone to Lady Carnarvon's summer jazz evening, who would it be?Clare: Gregory PeckMichael: Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday)A discussion of Audrey Hepburn's extraordinary grace — and how grace itself is something both Michael and Lady Carnarvon seek in their work and livesMentioned in This EpisodeWar Horse — Michael Morpurgo (novel, stage production, Steven Spielberg film)Waiting for Anya — Michael MorpurgoThe History Boys — Alan BennettFarms for City Children — farmsforcitvchildren.orgHighclere Literary Festival — October 2025, Highclere CastleAllen Lane — founder of Penguin BooksAlmina, Countess of Carnarvon — WWI hospital at HighclereWilliam of Wykeham — founder of Winchester College and New College, OxfordThe fifth Earl of Carnarvon — discoverer of Tutankhamun's tombTed Hughes — poet, neighbour of the MorpurgosRoman Holiday (1953) — dir. William Wyler, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory PeckAbout Lady Carnarvon's PodcastLady Carnarvon records her podcast from Highclere Castle, home of the real family whose story inspired Downton Abbey. Episodes explore history, heritage, literature, and the people and ideas that have shaped Highclere and the wider world.You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/New episodes are published on the first day of every month. 

In the beginning of the 20th century, the kings in Copenhagen and Stockholm struggled to come to terms with their diminishing political influence. Sometimes they overestimated their powers, causing constitutional crises threatening their thrones. But the Scandinavians had bigger fish to fry. When the First World War set Europe ablaze, they watched from the sidelines, desperately trying to stay out of it.

Flying aces, flaming wreckage and deadly dogfights in the skies defined the First World War's brutal air war. From fragile reconnaissance planes to lethal fighter aircraft, aerial warfare evolved at astonishing speed. Today we hear the stories of legendary aces like the Red Baron, the tactics that transformed air combat, and the brutal reality faced by the young men who fought and died in the world's first aerial war.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com.Dan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By 1916, the Allied governments had promised Romania control of Transylvania and other territories if the Central Powers were defeated. Encouraged by the Brusilov Offensive, which had inflicted heavy losses on Austria-Hungary, Romanian leaders concluded that the moment was favourable for ...

In this episode I tell you three short horror stories from World War 1 and 2. In the first story, I tell you the horrific true tale of what appeared to be a real zombie attack during the First World War. In the second story, I tell you about the most haunted warship in history. And in story three, I tell you the tale of a liberated building in Germany after the fall of Berlin. According to legend, this building may hold a dark and evil secret in the basement. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theconspiratorspodcast YouTube: https://youtube.com/@theconspiratorspodcast?si=DHEQ41pVdslDzNjG Notes: https://wp.umpi.edu/utimes/2025/11/18/history-tidbits-the-attack-of-the-dead-men/ https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/the-attack-of-the-dead-men-was-a-horrifying-wwi-infantry-charge/ https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/osowiec-fortress-zombie/25990/ https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1990/march/haunted-u-boat https://roybainton.com/2018/02/28/ghost-boat-the-strange-story-of-ub65/ https://www.spookyisles.com/haunted-ub-65/ https://www.historicmysteries.com/myths-legends/celle-neues-rathaus-legend/16229/ Baxter, Keith. “German Occult Conspiracy (Celle Neues Rathaus),” October 24, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I examine the extraordinary diplomatic demands the United States has placed on Canada – demands that echo the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 and raise profound questions about American intentions.The Trump administration's trade demands on Canada are not mere negotiations. They include provisions that would restrict Canada's ability to make trade agreements with other countries, effectively preventing it from diversifying its economy beyond the United States. They target the Canadian automotive industry, Quebec's French language and cultural rights, critical minerals, and agricultural markets. Taken together, they amount to a demand for the end of Canadian sovereignty – the ceding of economic, foreign, and domestic policy to Washington.I draw a historical parallel with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914. The Habsburgs presented demands designed to be unacceptable – including the right to send their own police into Serbian territory to conduct investigations. The Serbs accepted most demands but rejected the diminution of their sovereignty. War followed, and with it, the cataclysm of the First World War.Is America seeking a rejection? Or is this simply the chaotic flailing of a desperate regime? I explore the incoherence of Trump's policy – the simultaneous attempts to lay economic siege to Iran, to pressure China, and to bully Canada. This is not strategy; it is the kind of random, improvisational aggression that emerges from a dysfunctional administration where access to the president determines policy, and where policy changes with the weather.The comparison to the Nazi regime's chaotic decision-making – the "working towards the Führer" model – is not about equating Trump with Hitler, but about understanding how autocratic systems generate incoherence. When the leader is inattentive, lazy, and surrounded by competing factions, policy becomes a function of who has access and what they think they heard.The result is the rapid erosion of American credibility and power. Canada will not accept these demands. And the damage to America's standing in the world – already immense – will take generations to repair.Topics covered:The Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia (1914)Trump's trade demands on CanadaRestrictions on Canadian sovereigntyThe Canadian automotive industryQuebec's French language and cultural rightsCritical minerals and the tech industryThe incoherence of American foreign policyThe "working towards the Führer" modelThe erosion of American credibilityIf you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 7 May 1915, the passenger liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 off the coast of County Cork. The enormous ship sank in just 18 minutes, killing over one thousands people.The sinking became one of the most controversial events of the First World War, provoking questions that remains the source of debate today. Why did the Lusitania sink so quickly? What caused the second explosion reported by survivors? How much ammunition and war material was the ship carrying? Did this cargo make the ship a legitimate military target or was the attack a crime against civilians?In this episode, I am joined by Shannon Forde, manager of the Lusitania Museum and Old Head Signal Tower in Kinsale. We discuss the history of the famous ocean liner, how it compared with the Titanic, the events of its final voyage and the experiences of those caught up in the disaster. We also examine the enduring controversies surrounding the sinking, from the Lusitania's cargo to the actions of the German submarine and the British authorities.Support the Irish History Podcast at patreon.com/irishpodcastThe Lusitania Museum & Old Head Signal Tower is open 10am – 5pm 7 days a week from March to October. https://www.oldheadofkinsale.comI will have more detail on the supporters tour mentioned in the episode later in the week!Sound by Kate DunleaMy Guest is Shannon Forde. Shannon is a native of Kinsale, County Cork. She completed a MA in Irish History in Maynooth University, and has worked in Charles Fort, Kinsale and as a Heritage Specialist with Cork County Council. She researched and authored a local history book on the War of Independence in Kinsale. Shannon has been the Manager of the Lusitania Museum & Old Head Signal Tower since 2022 – which is a non profit community project at the Old Head of Kinsale. In 2025 she authored a book detailing the story of this community project from restoring a derelict Napoleonic signal tower to plans for a dedicated Lusitania Museum onsite. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tank first appeared on the battlefields of the First World War as an experimental weapon designed to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Within a generation, it had become the defining weapon of modern land warfare, playing a central role in campaigns across Europe, North Africa and beyond. In this episode, I'm joined by Hamish de Bretton Gordon, former tank commander and author of Tank Command: How the Tank Changed the Face of Battle. We explore how the tank evolved from the lumbering machines of 1916 into the formidable armoured vehicles that dominated the Second World War, and how the lessons of those early decades shaped the development of the Chieftain and the tanks that followed. patreon.com/ww2podcast    

Colm Tóibín is widely acclaimed for the emotional restraint and quiet power of his prose. His writing explores exile, abandonment, loss and denial, the things that go unspoken and the feelings not acted upon. His novels include Nora Webster; Brooklyn, which was turned into a film starring Saoirse Ronan; and its sequel, Long Island, both telling the story of a young Irishwoman who emigrates to the United States in the years after the Second World War.  In June 2026 he comes to Intelligence Squared to discuss the themes of his new collection of short stories, The News From Dublin. In these poignant tales, a woman in Galway learns of her son's death in the First World War; an Irishman seeks anonymity in Barcelona; and an undocumented worker prepares to leave San Francisco after decades in America.  We were joined by Tóibín at Union Chapel in June 2026 where he discussed the themes of this new collection – exploring the ordinary lives of individuals navigating extraordinary moments in history – and refleted on the influences and experiences that have shaped his writing. ---If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For our final Bonus Episode before Season 10 begins in September, we look at a rare Roll of Honour for the Gravesend and Dartford area of Kent, and discuss the whole history of these Rolls of Honour and then look through this example seeing what it can tell us about the wider history of the Great War. Main Image: Extracts from the Gravesend and Dartford 'Peace Souvenir' 1919. (Old Front Line archives)Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941 (Cornell UP, 2025.) illuminates the lives and work of Polish Jewish collectors and museologists, who sought to preserve the treasures of the Jewish past while demonstrating Jewish belonging on Polish soil. As Jews comfortable in the Polish language and within Polish artistic and academic society, they saw themselves as intermediaries between less-integrated Jews and the Polish cultural elite. At the turn of the century, Jewish ethnographers and museum creators staked their claim to belonging to the civic nation though the display of Jewish folk art, fine art, and Judaica. After the First World War, the nearly three million Jews in the Second Polish Republic were suddenly challenged with finding a place for themselves in a state that increasingly defined itself as a creation of the ethnic Polish nation, to which Jews, by many accounts, did not belong. By tracing emergent documentation and display practices in partitioned Poland and in the interwar Second Polish Republic, Sarah Ellen Zarrow offers a better understanding of how integrated Jews identified with Polish culture and history and with non-Jewish Poles, and how they conceived of, negotiated, and argued their collective place within Poland. This is not a case of assimilation, nor of acculturation, but rather of displaying a parallel culture that was at once similar and yet distinctive. Displays of Belonging offers a nuanced understanding of the multiplicity of ways in which Jews in Poland saw their present and dreamed of their future. It places Jewish ethnographic practice and art collection within a Polish context, and sheds light on ways in which ideas about belonging and national identity were negotiated in the space of museums.  Paul Lerner is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. Book here Faculty page here Email & Social Media: plerner@usc.edu @plerner.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941 (Cornell UP, 2025.) illuminates the lives and work of Polish Jewish collectors and museologists, who sought to preserve the treasures of the Jewish past while demonstrating Jewish belonging on Polish soil. As Jews comfortable in the Polish language and within Polish artistic and academic society, they saw themselves as intermediaries between less-integrated Jews and the Polish cultural elite. At the turn of the century, Jewish ethnographers and museum creators staked their claim to belonging to the civic nation though the display of Jewish folk art, fine art, and Judaica. After the First World War, the nearly three million Jews in the Second Polish Republic were suddenly challenged with finding a place for themselves in a state that increasingly defined itself as a creation of the ethnic Polish nation, to which Jews, by many accounts, did not belong. By tracing emergent documentation and display practices in partitioned Poland and in the interwar Second Polish Republic, Sarah Ellen Zarrow offers a better understanding of how integrated Jews identified with Polish culture and history and with non-Jewish Poles, and how they conceived of, negotiated, and argued their collective place within Poland. This is not a case of assimilation, nor of acculturation, but rather of displaying a parallel culture that was at once similar and yet distinctive. Displays of Belonging offers a nuanced understanding of the multiplicity of ways in which Jews in Poland saw their present and dreamed of their future. It places Jewish ethnographic practice and art collection within a Polish context, and sheds light on ways in which ideas about belonging and national identity were negotiated in the space of museums.  Paul Lerner is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. Book here Faculty page here Email & Social Media: plerner@usc.edu @plerner.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941 (Cornell UP, 2025.) illuminates the lives and work of Polish Jewish collectors and museologists, who sought to preserve the treasures of the Jewish past while demonstrating Jewish belonging on Polish soil. As Jews comfortable in the Polish language and within Polish artistic and academic society, they saw themselves as intermediaries between less-integrated Jews and the Polish cultural elite. At the turn of the century, Jewish ethnographers and museum creators staked their claim to belonging to the civic nation though the display of Jewish folk art, fine art, and Judaica. After the First World War, the nearly three million Jews in the Second Polish Republic were suddenly challenged with finding a place for themselves in a state that increasingly defined itself as a creation of the ethnic Polish nation, to which Jews, by many accounts, did not belong. By tracing emergent documentation and display practices in partitioned Poland and in the interwar Second Polish Republic, Sarah Ellen Zarrow offers a better understanding of how integrated Jews identified with Polish culture and history and with non-Jewish Poles, and how they conceived of, negotiated, and argued their collective place within Poland. This is not a case of assimilation, nor of acculturation, but rather of displaying a parallel culture that was at once similar and yet distinctive. Displays of Belonging offers a nuanced understanding of the multiplicity of ways in which Jews in Poland saw their present and dreamed of their future. It places Jewish ethnographic practice and art collection within a Polish context, and sheds light on ways in which ideas about belonging and national identity were negotiated in the space of museums.  Paul Lerner is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. Book here Faculty page here Email & Social Media: plerner@usc.edu @plerner.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941 (Cornell UP, 2025.) illuminates the lives and work of Polish Jewish collectors and museologists, who sought to preserve the treasures of the Jewish past while demonstrating Jewish belonging on Polish soil. As Jews comfortable in the Polish language and within Polish artistic and academic society, they saw themselves as intermediaries between less-integrated Jews and the Polish cultural elite. At the turn of the century, Jewish ethnographers and museum creators staked their claim to belonging to the civic nation though the display of Jewish folk art, fine art, and Judaica. After the First World War, the nearly three million Jews in the Second Polish Republic were suddenly challenged with finding a place for themselves in a state that increasingly defined itself as a creation of the ethnic Polish nation, to which Jews, by many accounts, did not belong. By tracing emergent documentation and display practices in partitioned Poland and in the interwar Second Polish Republic, Sarah Ellen Zarrow offers a better understanding of how integrated Jews identified with Polish culture and history and with non-Jewish Poles, and how they conceived of, negotiated, and argued their collective place within Poland. This is not a case of assimilation, nor of acculturation, but rather of displaying a parallel culture that was at once similar and yet distinctive. Displays of Belonging offers a nuanced understanding of the multiplicity of ways in which Jews in Poland saw their present and dreamed of their future. It places Jewish ethnographic practice and art collection within a Polish context, and sheds light on ways in which ideas about belonging and national identity were negotiated in the space of museums.  Paul Lerner is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. Book here Faculty page here Email & Social Media: plerner@usc.edu @plerner.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Colm Tóibín is widely acclaimed for the emotional restraint and quiet power of his prose. His writing explores exile, abandonment, loss and denial, the things that go unspoken and the feelings not acted upon. His novels include Nora Webster; Brooklyn, which was turned into a film starring Saoirse Ronan; and its sequel, Long Island, both telling the story of a young Irishwoman who emigrates to the United States in the years after the Second World War.  In June 2026 he comes to Intelligence Squared to discuss the themes of his new collection of short stories, The News From Dublin. In these poignant tales, a woman in Galway learns of her son's death in the First World War; an Irishman seeks anonymity in Barcelona; and an undocumented worker prepares to leave San Francisco after decades in America.  We were joined by Tóibín at Union Chapel in June 2026 as he discussed the themes of this new collection – exploring the ordinary lives of individuals navigating extraordinary moments in history – and reflected on the influences and experiences that have shaped his writing. --- This is the first instalment of a two-part episode. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

August 13th 2026 Yuriy describes the fact that Russians are erasing entire Ukrainian cities—first with mass artillery and then with heavy KAB bombs—reducing them to ash and rubble while calling it “liberation.” He describes Kharkiv being bombed daily, with deaths, ruined infrastructure, and familiar streets and parks scarred but still standing, unlike towns that now exist only as piles of debris visible on Google Maps. He calls the attackers a death cult and thanks people abroad whose support has helped Ukraine hold them back. Send Yuriy your letter of support fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com  Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT It is August 13. In my circle, there are more and more people who literally no longer have a hometown. It simply does not exist anymore. This is a Russian tactic to destroy entire cities and then plant their flags on the ruins. At first, they did it with artillery. Hundreds of guns, like in the First World War, pounded built-up areas, turning them to dust, along with their residents, their pets, their belongings, their dreams, and their hopes. Then, when artillery shells started running out, the Russians began dropping bombs on cities. Do you know what these bombs are called? The KAB 500, the KAB 1000, the KAB 3000. The number in the name is the weight of the bomb: 500 kilograms, one ton, three tons. Look on YouTube at what three tons of explosives looks like when it goes off, and imagine what happens to a city that is hit by bombs like that day after day. It is ruins upon ruins mixed with the bones of people and animals. It is ash that has burned for so long that it has become almost colorless. A lunar landscape looks more alive and more vivid than the landscapes of the cities the Russians have reached. And they call this "liberation." They are completely serious about it. Destroying an entire city, killing civilians, leaving not a single building intact, forcing thousands of people to flee and abandon everything they have, this is what the Russians call "liberation." I sincerely wish this kind of liberation on every one of their cities, every single one. My hometown, Kharkiv, is bombed every day. People die there every day. Buildings are destroyed. Infrastructure is being wrecked, and yet the city still exists. The streets where my grandfather and I used to walk when I was a child is full of bomb craters, but it is still there. The park where my daughter used to run around as a little girl took several bombs that burned its trees and killed squirrels and birds, but it is still exist. I can walk down that street. I can go to that park. And thousands of people can see their hometowns only on Google Maps because there is nothing left of them, only mountains of rubble and smell of explosives and death. And this has been going on for years. Just imagine, for years no one has been able to stop these maniacs, these followers of some strange death cult that does not even have a coherent ideology- just death for the sake of death. I am grateful to the people in other countries who still believe in us and continue to help us. Without you, we would not have been able to hold back this death cult. Without your support, it would have been impossible. Thank you  

This Day in Legal History: The Weimar ConstitutionOn August 11, 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the Weimar Constitution into force, creating the first parliamentary democracy in German history. It came into effect a few days later, ending the provisional government that had followed Germany's defeat in the First World War and the fall of the monarchy. On paper, it was a strikingly modern and liberal document—and its story is one of the most important cautionary tales in all of constitutional law.The Weimar Constitution rested on genuinely progressive foundations: popular sovereignty, a separation of powers, and an extensive bill of fundamental rights, including—remarkably for 1919—formal equality between men and women and the right to vote for both. It established a directly elected president, a parliament, the Reichstag, and a framework that looked, in many respects, like a model twentieth-century democracy. For a document drafted in the chaos of postwar Germany, it was an ambitious attempt to build a rights-respecting republic from the ground up.But the Weimar Constitution is remembered today largely for the flaw that helped destroy it: Article 48, which gave the president sweeping power to rule by emergency decree, suspending civil liberties when he deemed public order to be threatened. That emergency clause was invoked more and more frequently as the republic's politics fractured—and in 1933 it became the legal mechanism through which the Nazi regime dismantled democracy from the inside, using the constitution's own emergency powers to suspend rights and seize dictatorial control. Which brings us back to today's opening quote: the Weimar experience is the definitive real-world example of Justice Jackson's warning that an emergency power, once available, “lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need.” The significance of August 11, 1919 is that it stands as an enduring lesson that a constitution's protections are only as durable as the limits it places on emergency power—that a democracy can be subverted not in spite of its own laws, but through them.Luigi Mangione is due back in court for a pretrial hearing ahead of his murder trial, set to begin September 8, in the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. Mangione, who is 28, has pleaded not guilty to murder, weapons, and forgery charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, and he has separately pleaded not guilty to federal stalking charges. At today's hearing before Justice Gregory Carro, the parties are expected to take up jury selection and the thorny question of public access to what is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched trials in years. Let's talk about the real legal challenges here, because this case is unusual on several fronts. First, Mangione faces parallel state and federal prosecutions arising from the same killing—something the Constitution permits under the “dual sovereignty” doctrine, even though it can feel like being tried twice. Second, the defense has signaled it may argue that Mangione lost control of his actions due to an extreme mental-health breakdown, and notably has not conceded that he was even the shooter, despite prosecutors citing surveillance video, DNA, ballistics, and a notebook. And third—the elephant in the courtroom—is that this case became a cultural flashpoint, with a wave of public anger at the health-insurance industry curdling, in some corners, into sympathy for the accused. That makes jury selection genuinely difficult: finding impartial jurors amid saturation coverage and strong public feeling is exactly the kind of problem that tests the machinery of a fair trial. The significance is that beyond the headlines, this is a serious test of whether the system can give a fair, dispassionate trial to a defendant the public has turned into a symbol—which is precisely when the guarantees of criminal procedure matter most. Luigi Mangione due in court ahead of insurance CEO murder trial | ReutersUPI · 6abcPresident Trump has said that whether to revive the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is now up to his newly confirmed attorney general, Todd Blanche—a statement that lands like the punchline to a story we've been telling for weeks. Recall the sequence: Blanche rescinded the fund on the eve of his confirmation to win over Republican holdouts, but Trump then acknowledged that he himself never signed the rescission order, which left the door open. Now, with Blanche confirmed as attorney general by that razor-thin 50-49 vote, Trump is saying the future of the fund rests with Blanche. And that is exactly the scenario that critics warned about. Think back to what senators extracted as the price of confirmation: a promise to kill a fund that would have used taxpayer money to pay people, including January 6 defendants, who claimed to be victims of the prior Justice Department. But a promise made by the executive branch can be unmade by the executive branch, and here the president is openly signaling that his former personal lawyer, now running the Justice Department, could bring it back. The significance goes to the very heart of the concern that dogged Blanche's nomination: the independence of the attorney general. When the president publicly frames the revival of a controversial payout fund as a decision for “his” attorney general to make, it underscores the worry that the Justice Department's most consequential choices may run through the lens of the president's personal and political interests. The confirmation fight is over, but the question it raised is very much alive. Trump says future weaponization fund is up to Blanche | ReutersForbes · AxiosA federal appeals court has cleared thousands of lawsuits to proceed against the major social-media companies over claims they deliberately designed their platforms to addict young users. The San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit rejected the bid by Meta, Google's YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat to escape roughly 2,400 lawsuits consolidated in federal court, brought by states, municipalities, school districts, and individuals. The legal fight here is all about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—the 1996 law that shields online platforms from liability for content their users post. The companies argued that Section 230 also immunizes them from claims that they failed to warn about, or engineered, the addictive nature of their platforms. The court said no, and the distinction it drew is the crucial one: Section 230 protects a platform from being sued over what its users say, but it does not necessarily protect the platform's own product-design choices—the infinite scroll, the algorithmic feeds, the notification schedules engineered to maximize engagement. Claims aimed at that design, the court reasoned, are different from claims aimed at user content. If you've been listening, you know this is the federal counterpart to everything we've tracked at the state level—the New Mexico judgment, the Tennessee trial, the multistate penalty fight. The significance is that the industry's most powerful legal shield, Section 230, is being narrowed: plaintiffs are increasingly framing their cases around addictive design rather than harmful content, and courts are increasingly letting those cases through. That reframing may prove to be the key that unlocks the courthouse door for the whole wave of social-media harm litigation. US appeals court allows thousands of lawsuits against social media companies to proceed | ReutersNBC News · Al JazeeraAnd finally, in my column for Bloomberg Tax this week, I dig into a question hiding underneath the AI gold rush: who's actually paying for it? My starting point is a striking data point—Microsoft's current federal tax expense fell year over year from about $14.1 billion to just $2.5 billion, even as its revenue surged. And a big part of that drop comes from accelerated deductions in last year's massive 2025 tax law, which restored 100% bonus depreciation—letting companies write off the full cost of huge investments, like AI data centers, in the very first year.My core argument is that the tax law is financing the AI infrastructure boom, but it isn't creating it—and that distinction matters enormously before anyone declares the policy a success. The political narrative writes itself: capital spending soared after the tax cut, therefore the tax cut worked. But I think correlation is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there. Microsoft and its rivals aren't pouring tens of billions into AI infrastructure because Congress rediscovered depreciation. They're doing it because falling behind in AI could threaten their core businesses—it's become about as close to a strategic necessity as it gets. And here's the tell: Microsoft announced its roughly $80 billion AI data-center plan in a blog post in January 2025, a full six months before the tax law was even signed. The trajectory was public, budgeted, and well underway before the depreciation rules changed.So my point to Congress is: prove it. Before congratulating yourselves, you owe the public evidence that these tax benefits actually changed corporate behavior rather than just rewarding investments companies were already racing to make. And I want to push back on the idea that this is “just” a timing benefit and therefore basically free. Timing isn't free—letting a company keep its cash now in exchange for tax revenue later is like giving it an interest-free loan, and every dollar of accelerated depreciation is a dollar the Treasury can't use for something else this year. That's a real opportunity cost, felt in deficits or forgone public investment. My recommendation is concrete: Congress should require the Treasury and the Joint Committee on Taxation to regularly estimate how much of this investment is genuinely induced by the tax break, how much was simply pulled forward, and how much would have happened anyway. Because the public is quietly helping finance the AI revolution—and if Congress intends to make taxpayers silent investors in it, it should at least have the honesty to say so, and to show the math. Tax Law Is Funding the AI Infrastructure Boom, Not Creating It | Bloomberg Tax This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

“There is a big chasm between defeat and surrender. Surrender is inherently a political decision.” — James M. Scott Exactly eighty-one years ago, on August 9, 1945, the United States dropped its second nuclear device on Nagasaki. Three days earlier, on August 6, the Enola Gay dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. Little Boy and Fat Man. Our nuclear Rubicon had been crossed. Three days in August that changed the world. These historic 72 hours are the subject of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War, by James M. Scott, America's foremost chronicler of the Pacific War. This new book, Scott reveals, grew out of Black Snow, his history of the firebombing of Tokyo. But whereas Black Snow was a military study, he explains, Empire of Ashes focuses on Truman, Hirohito and the politics of nuclear warfare. By August 1945, Scott argues, Japan was already defeated. So surrender was a political decision — one that required a weak, figurehead emperor to summon the power to save his country from an even darker apocalypse. Should America regret these August days? Harry Truman certainly didn't, Scott notes. In fact, in 1958 Truman even held a press conference in Independence, Missouri, to fire back at Hiroshima's city council when it suggested that he should. Nor does Scott render much of a moral verdict of his own. “Nobody needs to hear James Scott in Charleston, South Carolina tell you what it is you should think,” he explains, suggesting that we can all make up our minds by reading Empire of Ashes. So two bombs, somewhere between 150,000 and 246,000 civilian deaths, and no crime? That, oddly enough, might be the biggest tragedy of those three days in August 1945 that changed the world forever. Five Takeaways •       Defeat Is Not Surrender. Scott's organizing insight: as destructive as it was, the atomic bomb was inherently a political weapon, aimed at the chasm between a nation defeated and a nation willing to say so. Surrender is a political act — and Japan's politics ran through Hirohito, ostensibly the center of political, cultural, and spiritual life, in practice a figurehead bypassed by militarists who had consolidated power through the 1920s and '30s under the standing threat of assassination. His first peace soundings had to be conducted incognito, for fear of his own army; not until June 1945 does he rise to the occasion. Truman, by contrast, emerges as strong and morally serious — a First World War artillery officer who inherited the Okinawa bloodbath, approved the invasion of Japan, chose what he saw as the lesser evil, and then stopped all further atomic use the moment surrender came.•       The Firebombing Precedent. Would FDR have made the same call? “Absolutely. No doubt about it.” The moral threshold had already been crossed on March 9, 1945, when Curtis LeMay abandoned precision bombing and burned Tokyo — 105,000 men, women, and children in a single night, the most destructive conventional raid in history. The Pentagon braced for public outrage, monitoring editorials, radio, and the floors of Congress. None came; Time wrote that “properly kindled, Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves.” LeMay took the green light and burned 64 cities — 170 square miles — before the first atomic bomb ever fell. War Secretary Henry Stimson confessed his amazement to his diary; FDR, with every opportunity to rein it in, said nothing. When Elliott Roosevelt later claimed his father would never have dropped the bomb, Stimson publicly corrected him.•       The Second Bomb Mattered More. Scott's most counterintuitive argument: Nagasaki, not Hiroshima, ended the war. Atomic energy was the AI of its day — over a hundred academic papers in 1939 alone, new physics programs at Berkeley and Chicago, dreams of atom-powered ships — and Japan, which had its own failed program, knew exactly how ruinously expensive a bomb was to build. So after Hiroshima, the militarists reasoned the Americans could not possibly have another, and held to the plan of bleeding the invasion on the beaches for better terms. A second city destroyed seventy-five hours later shattered the illusion: if they can drop one every three days, they may have twenty — or two hundred. As for simply telling Tokyo? There were no channels beyond dropped leaflets and slow relays through neutral capitals. You could not, as Andrew noted, email in those days.•       In the Room Where It Happened. Scott's method — borrowed, he says, from Hamilton — is to put readers in the room: the White House, the Imperial Palace, and above all the streets. He has interviewed survivors in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki across multiple books, and the physics of the firestorm connects all three: heat that melts concrete, fuses coins into lumps, welds roof tiles to kitchenware. Only five photographs were taken in Hiroshima on the day of the blast — stunned people, sitting. Organized rescue took thirty hours to arrive. In Nagasaki, the thirsty and burned waded into the river to die, so many that their bodies formed a dam. Radiation sickness began within thirty minutes. These are beautiful, functioning cities today, Scott notes — which is exactly why the accounts matter.•       No Regrets, No Verdict. Truman defended the decision to his grave — and then some: when Hiroshima's city council passed a resolution in 1958 urging him toward remorse, he wrote back that Japan had started the war, then held a press conference at his museum in Independence to distribute the reply. The Oppenheimer film's chilly Oval Office scene is overdramatized, Scott thinks, but true to the core: the buck — and the moral weight — stopped with the commander-in-chief, not the scientists. Scott himself, pointedly, renders no verdict: “Nobody needs to hear James Scott in Charleston, South Carolina tell you what it is you should think.” Both sides laid out, 95 percent of the documents public, the reader left to grapple — which is perhaps why Black Snow sold well in Japan, and why Empire of Ashes will be published there next August 6. About the Guest James M. Scott is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, New York Times bestselling author, and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, widely regarded as America's leading historian of the Pacific War. His books include Target Tokyo (Pulitzer finalist), Black Snow, Rampage, The War Below, and, with Jack Carr, Targeted: Beirut. A scholar-in-residence at The Citadel who leads battlefield tours across the Pacific, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War (W. W. Norton) is out now. References: •       Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War by James M. Scott (W. W. Norton). The Charleston Post and Courier: “An amazing accomplishment.”•       Black Snow by James M. Scott — the firebombing of Tokyo, and the book whose cut Hiroshima chapters beca...

How do you find the hidden story of the First World War landscape? In this special bonus episode of The Old Front Line, we explore the fascinating world of WW1 trench maps and discover how they can transform your understanding of the Western Front and beyond.We begin by looking at the Blue Series IGN maps that first inspired a deeper exploration of the battlefields, before uncovering the remarkable trench maps created during the Great War. What were trench maps? How were they produced? Who used them, and why are they still such an invaluable resource for battlefield historians today?The episode also tells the story of Lieutenant Colonel Evan Maclean Jack CMG DSO, one of the key figures behind the development of British trench mapping, and examines his lasting influence on military cartography.Finally, we put theory into practice by studying three original trench maps from very different theatres of war: Richebourg on the Lys battlefield, Neuville Vitasse south of Arras, and the Salonika Front around Lake Doiran. Together they reveal how maps recorded trenches, strongpoints, roads, artillery positions and the ever-changing front line.Main Image: Trench Maps of Arras, Richebourg and Salonika. The portrait is Lt Col Evan Maclean Jack CMG DSO, 'Maps' at GHQ (IWM archive)Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

On the surface, bibliotherapy might sound like another personal wellness trend, but it definitely isn't. In fact, it's an approved form of mental health treatment in Canada. And it's been around for at least a century. In this podcast, researchers Sara Haslam and Edmund King discuss the First World War roots of this practice in the UK. Author Cody Delistraty considers its role in moving him forward in the grieving process. And psychiatrist Martina Scholtens explains why she created an evidence-based reading list online, tailored to a range of mental health diagnoses. *This episode originally aired on June 2, 2025.

fWotD Episode 3381: Henry Macandrew Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Friday, 7 August 2026, is Henry Macandrew.Major-General Sir Henry John Milnes Macandrew, (7 August 1866 – 16 July 1919) was a British Indian Army officer who fought in the Boer War and First World War, rising to command cavalry divisions on the Western Front and in the Sinai and Palestine campaign.Predominantly serving in the cavalry and also as an intelligence officer, Macandrew fought through the Tirah campaign in India in 1897 and 1898, and then served as a staff officer during the Boer War, participating in several battles and receiving the Distinguished Service Order. Macandrew was given command of the 5th Bengal Cavalry in 1914, and upon the outbreak of the First World War travelled to France as general staff officer grade 1 of the 1st Indian Cavalry Division. Soon afterwards he was promoted to become brigadier-general general staff for the Indian Cavalry Corps, with which he participated in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.Macandrew assumed command of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division in 1916, leading it during the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Cambrai with limited success. In 1918 he was given command of the newly created 5th Cavalry Division for service in the Sinai and Palestine campaign. He commanded the division throughout the campaign, including at the Capture of Damascus and the Battle of Aleppo. In the spearhead of the advance, his division travelled 600 miles (970 kilometres) in thirty-eight days. Knighted in 1919, Macandrew stayed with the 5th Cavalry Division at Aleppo. He died of wounds he received in an accidental explosion of petrol fumes there later in the year.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:35 UTC on Friday, 7 August 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Henry Macandrew on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Amy.

Day 1,622.Today, Kyiv reels from the deadliest attack this year after failing to intercept any Russian missiles overnight, as North Korea continues to support Russia's war, providing 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers. Meanwhile, Ukraine carries out air strikes on another Wildberries warehouse and several industrial sites, including an oil refinery. Then, we keep an eye on Kyiv and Washington's warming relationship in recent weeks and discuss whether Ukraine could decide Italy's next election. Finally, examine the lives of war widows as Russian losses mount, and Francis speaks to the World Health Organization's representative in Ukraine about providing medical care in a war zone.Contributors: Adelie Pojzman-Pontay (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @Adeliepjz on X.Alex Nichol (Telegraph Journalist).Francis Dearnley (Host on Ukraine: The Latest). @FrancisDearnley on X.With thanks to Dr Jarno Habicht of the World Health Organization (WHO).Senior Producer: Lilian FawcettVideo Producer: Sophie O'SullivanSocial Producer: Tom SteedStudio Director: Meghan SearleExecutive Editor: Francis DearnleyCreated by David KnowlesNOW IN FULL VIDEO WITH MAPS & BATTLEFIELD FOOTAGE:Every episode is now available on our YouTube channel shortly after the release of the audio version. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineTheLatest CONTENT REFERENCED:Russian soldier opens fire on his own platoon (Antonia Langford for The Telegraph)https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/04/russian-soldier-opens-fire-on-his-own-platoon/Syria tells US it is willing to drastically drop Russian oil imports (Reuters)https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/syria-tells-us-it-is-willing-drastically-drop-russian-oil-imports-sources-say-2026-08-04/Russia Approves State-Funded IVF for Widows as Birth Rates Hit Historic Low (Kyiv Post)https://www.kyivpost.com/post/80941Facing a demographic catastrophe, Ukraine is paying for troops to freeze their sperm (BBC)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxd9549y4xoUkraine's war widows: 'None of us was prepared to pay such a high price for our country' (Le Monde)https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/02/17/ukraine-s-war-widows-none-of-us-was-prepared-to-pay-such-a-high-price-for-our-country_6535062_4.htmlBritish Widows of the First World War, The Forgotten Legion, Andrea Hetheringtonhttps://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/British-Widows-of-the-First-World-War-Hardback/p/14718How Putin Turned Japan Into a Den of Spies (New York Times)https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/world/asia/russia-spies-japan-war-drones-electronics.htmlMI6, DGSE, Ukraine... L'Express reveals an unprecedented ranking of Europe's best spies (L'Express)https://shorturl.at/6t6hWFrench spy TV series, The Bureau: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4063800/If you're interested in sponsoring Dom's upcoming defence event, email our colleagues at events@telegraph.co.ukEMAIL US:Contact the team on ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk. We continue to read every message, and seek to respond to as many as possible.HIGHLIGHTS:Russian soldier opens fire on his own platoonMoscow rains missiles on Kyiv in heaviest attack this year Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our naval fiction series, we step beyond the age of Nelson and into the turbulent world of the late nineteenth century—a period when sail gave way to steam, wooden warships became ironclads, and naval technology advanced at a pace that left entire generations struggling to keep up. It was an age of empire, innovation and uncertainty, offering one of the richest backdrops imaginable for maritime storytelling.My guest is Antoine Vanner, creator of the acclaimed Dawlish Chronicles, a thirteen-volume series following naval officer Nicholas Dawlish through a rapidly changing world of iron warships, diplomatic crises, espionage and imperial rivalry. We discuss why the Victorian navy remains such fertile ground for fiction, how real historical events—from China and Constantinople to Korea, Sudan and Paraguay—shape his stories, and why the decades before the First World War were among the most dramatic in maritime history.Drawing on a lifetime spent working across Africa, the Middle East and beyond, Antoine explains how personal experience informs his writing, helping him capture not just the mechanics of naval warfare, but the realities of leadership, danger, politics and human resilience. Along the way, we explore Victorian geopolitics, technological revolution, moral ambiguity, literary influences ranging from Dickens and Thackeray to Trollope and Gissing, and the enduring appeal of naval fiction itself.This is a fascinating conversation about history, storytelling and an era poised between the world of sail and the modern age—a world where the future was arriving at full speed and nobody quite knew where it would lead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The British Army in the Second World War is often judged through the lens of manpower shortages and a sense of being overstretched. Critics point to a force spread across too many theatres and suggest that this inevitably limited its effectiveness. But is that a fair assessment of an army that expanded from a few hundred thousand men into a global fighting force of over eight million, operating across Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Far East? In this episode, I am joined by Brian Walter to explore his argument that the British and Commonwealth armies emerged from the legacy of the First World War as a reduced force, entered the Second World War underprepared, but went on to adapt, expand, and ultimately play a decisive role in defeating Germany, Italy, and Japan across multiple theatres of war. Brian is the author of The Thin Khaki Line: An Operational History of the British and Commonwealth Armies during World War II.

In this episode of the Old Front Line Podcast, we answer another fascinating collection of listener questions that explore the people, places and practical realities of the First World War.We begin by asking why visitors can walk, play and live on some historic battlefields, such as the D-Day beaches, while places like Newfoundland Memorial Park on the Somme remain carefully preserved. What makes a battlefield "sacred", and who decides how these landscapes should be remembered?We then untangle the mystery of First World War barbed wire. Discover how troops navigated their own defensive obstacles for raids, wiring parties, patrols and major offensives, and how carefully concealed gaps and communication routes balanced defence with the need to attack.Next, we delve into the history of the King Edward's Horse, examining its formation in 1914, its links to men from across the British Empire, and why some recruits with no Dominion connections—including one listener's ancestor—found themselves serving in this unusual cavalry regiment.Finally, we travel to the closing days of the war to explore what happened after the Armistice. From the emotional scenes of 11 November 1918 to the long process of demobilisation, the return of prisoners of war, encounters between former enemies in No Man's Land, and the immense task of clearing and rebuilding the shattered battlefields of France and Belgium, we trace how Europe emerged from four years of conflict.Main Image: German barbed wire entanglements, known as 'knife rests' photographed in the Beaumont Hamel area, November 1916. (IWM Q1530). Image by Ernest Brookes.Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

Amanda Mason is a senior curator of contemporary conflict at the Imperial War Museums, where she previously worked on the museum's acclaimed Secret War gallery. Chris speaks with her about Spies, Lies and Deception, the IWM's major exhibition on espionage and military deception now showing at IWM North in Manchester until August 31. Drawing on more than sixty original objects, documents, and artifacts — from Operation Mincemeat's pocket litter and Noor Inayat Khan's letters from occupied France to the Portland Spy Ring's suburban cover and the Trent Park eavesdropping operation — the exhibition traces deception from the trenches of the First World War through Cold War suburbia to Bellingcat's open-source unmasking of the Salisbury poisoners and today's deepfake threats, asking not just how deception works but what it costs the people who practice it. Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the world of intelligence, global issues, and current affairs. Explore the IWM's Spies, Lies and Deception exhibition: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/spies-lies-and-deception-iwm-north Watch this episode on YouTube to see exclusive footage from the Exhibition: https://youtu.be/WTLxI5s4qgA Take our audience survey: https://forms.gle/eFx59XntNtiKzNQa8 Support Secrets and Spies Become a “Friend of the Podcast” on Patreon for £3/$4: https://www.patreon.com/SecretsAndSpies Buy merchandise from our shop: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/60934996 Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/secretsandspies Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDVB23lrHr3KFeXq4VU36dg For more information about the podcast, check out our website: https://secretsandspiespodcast.com Connect with us on social media Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandspies.bsky.social X/Twitter: https://x.com/SecretsAndSpies Instagram: https://instagram.com/secretsandspies Facebook: https://facebook.com/secretsandspies Spoutible: https://spoutible.com/SecretsAndSpies Follow Chris and Matt on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscarrfilm.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mattfulton.net Secrets and Spies is produced by Films & Podcasts LTD: https://filmsandpodcasts.co.uk/ Music by Andrew R. Bird Illustration by Katherine Tromans Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Can a conscientious objector be a hero? Branded is widely regarded as one of the finest episodes of Dad's Army, combining comedy with a thoughtful exploration of courage, duty, and prejudice. When Captain Mainwaring discovers that the gentle Private Godfrey was a conscientious objector during the First World War, the platoon quickly brands him a coward. But the truth is far more complicated. In this episode, Angus, Jessica and Chris discuss how accurately Branded portrays conscientious objection, what it reveals about attitudes to the First World War, and why this remarkable episode remains one of Dad's Army's most powerful, while never losing the humour that makes it such a classic.   References Perry, J. and Croft, D. (1969) Branded. Dad's Army. Series 3, Episode 11. Directed by Harold Snoad. BBC1, 20 November. Curtis, R. and Elton, B. (1983–1989) Blackadder. Television series. BBC. McKibbin, R. (1998) Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Philpott, W. (2009) Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century. London: Little, Brown. Hammett, J. (2022) Creating the People's War: Civil Defence Communities in Second World War Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

fWotD Episode 3374: William Hardham Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Friday, 31 July 2026, is William Hardham.William James Hardham, VC (31 July 1876 – 13 April 1928) was a New Zealand soldier who was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that could be awarded at the time to military personnel of the British Empire.Born in Wellington, Hardham was a blacksmith and part-time soldier in the local militia when he volunteered to serve with the New Zealand Military Forces in the Second Boer War. Posted to the 4th Contingent in 1900, he was on a patrol in the South African Transvaal when it was ambushed. He rode his horse to the rescue of a wounded soldier while under heavy fire and for this he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Discharged from the New Zealand Military Forces in 1901, he rejoined for another period of service in the Second Boer War but was only briefly in South Africa before being sent to England for the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.Returning to civilian life, he became increasingly involved in rugby administration with the Wellington Rugby Football Union; he had played representative rugby for Wellington in his youth. He also continued to serve in the militia. When the First World War began, he volunteered for service abroad with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) and was posted to the Wellington Mounted Rifles (WMR) as a captain. Wounded during the Gallipoli Campaign, he was repatriated to New Zealand. On recovery he was made commandant of Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer Springs but desired a return to the NZEF and a posting overseas. He rejoined the WMR, then in Palestine, in late 1917 but his health was poor and affected the remainder of his service in the military. Having reached the rank of major by the end of the war in 1918, he was discharged from the NZEF. Returning to civilian life, he worked for a newspaper and later the Public Works Department as well as being involved in veterans' affairs. He died in 1928 at the age of 51.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:49 UTC on Friday, 31 July 2026.For the full current version of the article, see William Hardham on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Brian.

Recorded at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum, Paris School of Economics.Tariffs move trade around, but so does economic power. When one economy dominates, other countries fall into step with it. They trade with the dominant economy, and also with each other. Alberto Martin (Barcelona School of Economics, CEPR) is one of a team that has tracked the influence of hegemons, large dominant economies, on trade from the start of the 19th century. In  our latest VoxTalk he tells Tim Phillips about how they used treaties (not necessarily about trade) as a proxy for alignment, and built a database of 77,000 of them signed between 1800 and 2020 to test their theory.Hegemons sign a disproportionate share of these international agreements. After treaty-signing, trade links become stronger. But treaty-signing has fallen sharply over the past 15 years, as much as it did during the two world wars. If we are heading towards a multipolar world, might what will the absence of a global hegemony do to trade?The research behind this episode:Broner, Fernando, Alberto Martin, Josefin Meyer, and Christoph Trebesch. 2025. "Hegemonic Globalization." CEPR Discussion Paper 20339 (gated).To cite this episode:Phillips, Tim, and Alberto Martin. 2025. "How superpowers shape trade." VoxTalks Economics (podcast).About the guestAlberto Martin is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Research in International Economics (CREI), an Adjunct Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Research Professor at the Barcelona School of Economics, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, where he directs the International Macroeconomics and Finance programme. His research spans macroeconomics, finance, and international economics, including asset bubbles, credit cycles, sovereign debt, and the political economy of trade.Research cited in this episodeGlobal Treaty Database. The dataset at the heart of the paper, assembled by the authors from the United Nations Treaty Collection, the League of Nations archive, and country-specific historical sources. It records roughly 77,000 international agreements signed between 1800 and 2020, most of them bilateral, sorted into economic and non-economic categories such as trade, taxation, migration, borders, and military cooperation.Hegemonic stability. The idea, introduced by Charles Kindleberger in 1973, that an open and stable world economy needs a single dominant power to underwrite it. This paper builds a formal model of the mechanism Kindleberger described, and asks what happens to openness when dominance is contested.Alignment and UN voting. The most common existing proxy for how closely two countries are aligned is whether they vote together at the United Nations. The authors' treaty measure correlates with UN voting in some periods and less in others, partly because many UN votes turn on narrow questions; treaties cover more policy areas and reach back 200 years, which UN voting cannot.The recent decline in treaty-signing. Since 1800 treaty-signing has trended upward, interrupted by three sharp falls: the First World War, the Second World War, and a decline over the last 15 years that is proportionally comparable to the first two. The authors checked large-country sources directly to rule out a reporting lag, and the fall appears real.More VoxTalks Economics episodesThe safety paradox. Isabelle Méjean on how, when countries impose trade restriction to protect themselves, it also makes conflict more likely. Related reading on VoxEU.orgWhy globalisation needs a leader: Hegemons, alignment, and trade, the authors' own VoxEU column setting out the theory of hegemonic globalisation and what a shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world might mean for trade.From bilateralism to a system: Europe's early trade treaties and lessons for EU trade policy in a contested world, a VoxEU column by Laura Panza and Maria Ptashkina drawing on nearly 900 commercial treaties from 1815 to 1919 to argue for expanding networks of agreements even without universal multilateralism.

Think the First World War was just the Western Front and incompetent Eastern armies? Think again!In this explosive episode of History Rage, First World War historian, Trustee of the Great War Group, and Ring of Fire co-author Nicolai Eberholst tears down the persistent myths surrounding the Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies. Nicolai breaks down why dismissing these powers as "bad armies" or useless corpses is wrong, proving how vital they were to the conflict.What You'll Discover:The Russian Army: Beyond the "steamroller" and Tannenberg myths—how Russia inflicted devastating casualties and bound German forces until 1918.The Austro-Hungarian Empire: Why fighting a 1.3-front war with an 8-million-man army was essential for Central Power survival.Post-War Myths: How interwar bias, post-imperial storytelling, and Western-centric history buried the real story of the Eastern Front.Don't miss Nicolai speaking live at the Great War Group Conference from 9th – 11th October at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds! Grab your conference tickets here: https://greatwargroup.com/product-category/conference/Recommended EpisodesEpisode 210: The Great War is a Global War (with Nicolai Eberholst & Alex Churchill)Episode 154: The Indian Army Contribution (with Adam Prime)Books & Referral DetailsBuy Ring of Fire: A New Global History of the Outbreak of the First World War at the History Rage Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10120/9781035903412Guest InformationGuest: Nicolai EberholstSocial Media: @pikegrey1418Great War Group: https://greatwargroup.comFollow, Contact & Support History RageWebsite: https://www.historyrage.comX (Twitter): https://x.com/HistoryRagePatreon: Support us for £5/month for ad-free episodes, early releases, live streams, and the exclusive mug: https://www.patreon.com/historyrage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Historian and author Lord Conrad Black joins Secrets of Statecraft _to discuss the third volume of his monumental _Political and Strategic History of the World, covering the turbulent years from the reign of Louis XIV to the outbreak of the First World War. The conversation explores the rise and fall of great empires, the enduring influence of statesmen such as Napoleon, Lincoln, Washington, Bismarck, and Teddy Roosevelt, and the forces that shaped the modern international order. Black offers provocative reassessments of the American Revolution, the British Empire, the French Revolution, and the Congress of Vienna, while examining whether history is driven by great individuals or larger historical currents. Roberts and Black also discuss what the successes and failures of the past can teach us about today's geopolitical challenges—and whether humanity's long march has truly been one of progress.

The seducer. "I have just met D'Annunzio. Can this be the man the great Duse loved? He is small, he is bald, and his teeth are in three different colours."The warrior poet in a plane over Vienna. "Today I drop words; next time I will drop bombs" Lucy Hughes-Hallett returned to the show to talk about The Pike, her prize-winning biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938): poet, novelist, war hero, serial seducer and proto-fascist. Italy's most celebrated writer since Dante (his own assessment, though not only his), D'Annunzio spent decades scandalising Europe with his writing and his love life before helping to drag Italy into the First World War. Hating the 'mutilated victory' that followed, he took over the town of Fiume and ruled as a mini dictator defying both the Allies and his own government. Mussolini watched and learned.Along the way: an ode to a torpedo, a chest of drawers stuffed with ladies' gloves, a Beethoven concert followed by a mock battle fought with real grenades, half a battleship installed as a garden ornament and the seduction secrets of a man once described as a bulldozer with a scented handkerchief under the pillow.

In this episode of the Old Front Line Podcast, we explore one of the most successful British attacks of the Battle of the Somme: the Dawn Attack of 14 July 1916. Launched before first light, the assault captured key objectives including Bazentin-le-Petit, Bazentin-le-Grand and Longueval, bringing British troops to the edge of High Wood and changing the course of the campaign.We examine the battle in detail, explaining the careful planning, the surprise achieved by attacking at dawn, and why this operation succeeded where so many earlier assaults had struggled. Along the way, we tell the stories of two men who experienced the fighting from very different perspectives, one an ordinary soldier, the other an officer, bringing a personal dimension to one of the Somme's defining actions.The episode concludes with a virtual battlefield walk, travelling west to east across the ground of the attack. From the British front lines through the captured villages and on towards High Wood, we explore what survives today and reveal how the landscape still tells the story of this remarkable day in July 1916.Main Image: The 20th Deccan Horse, Indian Army, in the Carnoy Valley shortly before their unsuccessful attack at High Wood during the Somme offensive, 14 July 1916. (IWM Q823). Image by John Warwick Brooke.Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local communities operated, and ensure that propaganda was culturally authentic. It's the subject of The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit (Hurst, 2026), a new book from Eamonn Gearon which he calls the first in-depth investigation into what this intelligence agency did. Eamonn is a global historian, specialising in the Middle East and North Africa and the history of intelligence, whose books also include The Arab Revolt. His doctoral research uncovered previously unknown Arabic documents which shed new light on British intelligence work in the region. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Arab Bureau. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local communities operated, and ensure that propaganda was culturally authentic. It's the subject of The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit (Hurst, 2026), a new book from Eamonn Gearon which he calls the first in-depth investigation into what this intelligence agency did. Eamonn is a global historian, specialising in the Middle East and North Africa and the history of intelligence, whose books also include The Arab Revolt. His doctoral research uncovered previously unknown Arabic documents which shed new light on British intelligence work in the region. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Arab Bureau. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War. But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local communities operated, and ensure that propaganda was culturally authentic. It's the subject of The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit (Hurst, 2026), a new book from Eamonn Gearon which he calls the first in-depth investigation into what this intelligence agency did. Eamonn is a global historian, specialising in the Middle East and North Africa and the history of intelligence, whose books also include The Arab Revolt. His doctoral research uncovered previously unknown Arabic documents which shed new light on British intelligence work in the region. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Arab Bureau. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

What happens when an entire nation runs out of food? This is one of our favourite episodes from our sister podcast, Reichs and Republics: The German History Podcast, and we'd like to share it with you. In this episode Katja and Chris explore the brutal reality of the 'Turnip Winter' of 1916/17, when the German civilian population was forced to endure extreme hunger, freezing temperatures and a collapsing food system. Food shortages weakened Germany not only physically, but also shattered morale, playing a decisive role in the country's eventual defeat in the First World War. They explore how the British blockade, disastrous harvests and government mismanagement forced people to survive on animal fodder such as turnips and crows! If you enjoyed this episode as much as we did then take a look at the other episodes on the Reichs & Republics Channel! https://www.youtube.com/@ReichsandRepublicsPod Join Our Community: ⁠https://not-so-quiet.com/⁠ Use our code: Dugout and get one month free as a Captain. Support via Paypal:⁠ https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq-paypal⁠ Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! E-Mail: ⁠nsq@battleguide.co.uk⁠ Battle Guide YouTube Channel:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT⁠ Our WW2 Podcast:⁠ https://battleguide.co.uk/bsow⁠ If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter:⁠ ⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter⁠ Twitter: @historian1914 @DanHillHistory @BattleguideVT Credits: - Host: Dr. Spencer Jones & Dan Hill & Katja Hoyer & Dr. Christopher Dillon - Production: Linus Klaßen - Editing: Hunter Christensen & Linus Klaßen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Registration will close this month for The Tender Harvest, a harvest yoga, meditation, and culinary retreat at world-class Ballymaloe House in County Cork, Ireland. Join this Sept 20-26, 2026, for a time of deep nourishment, learning, and inspiration. Just 2 rooms still available!A dog's retching yanks me from sleep. I've been floating between worlds all night, and suddenly I'm across the room before a thought can take shape. The dense atmosphere of a dream lingers as I kneel to wipe the floor, then thins as my mind reaches for it. I was in a foreign place, though the landscape felt familiar. I was with friends, though they were not themselves. There was a house. The house was a river. Its rooms were water.With a sigh, the dog returns to bed. The house settles back into stillness. I move mutely to my meditation cushion. Incense lit, tea steeping, for a time, I watch tendrils of smoke and steam mingle in the dawning air.Practice teaches us to notice what's here. Gradually, our attention steadies and we begin to perceive what is real—the interplay of spirit and matter, psyche and body—through the tuning fork of our awareness. We grow quieter, more supple, more receptive—less beholden to neurosis and fixed assumptions. What we lose in certainty, we gain in texture and attunement.As humans, especially now, our well-being depends on how honestly we inhabit the faculties of our aliveness. What do we know to be true, and by what inner or outer measure? How much doubt do we allow in the margins of confirmation? What may appear real, yet on closer examination, carries the subtle signature of an illusion? And, inversely: where have we developed trust in modes of knowing that defy rational explanation?In classical yoga philosophy, pramana offers a basic epistemic map. It names three valid sources of knowledge: direct perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana), and trusted testimony (sabda). I know the river is cold because I have placed my hand in it. I know the river is cold because it flows from glacial melt. I know the river is cold because someone I trust has told me so.Of these, direct perception carries the weight of fact. Yet fact alone does not confer context. The elephant's tail may still seem a pestle to a blind man, as the Buddhist parable goes. Here, the animal's trumpet or a friend's account can augment our own perception. Thus, these three sources of knowledge uphold one another.But in Paris last month, standing beneath Hilma af Klint's paintings at the Grand Palais, I sensed how this era of dissolving certainties is inviting us to loosen and refine our frameworks for human intelligence. Knowing is not the intellect's final stamp of approval. It is a function of our embodied, psychic, and spiritual capacities—and it keeps calling us to widen what we recognize as real.Born in 1862, af Klint painted vast, abstract diagrams of a reality folded within this one: swirls of color, spirals, botanical forms, and galaxies. Her pioneering abstract works, begun as early as 1906, were long kept hidden and revealed only, at her direction, decades after her death. Working with a circle of women known as The Five, she participated in séances where language and image moved through them. One presence, whom she called Ananda, instructed her to create a series of paintings “for the temple.” These “pictures for the future” were meant for the future, for an audience who could see beyond the pastoral and parlor depictions of her time.Standing before af Klint's paintings a century later, I considered what it takes to be faithful to what arrives through intuition—to stake our knowing on image, or symbol, or an inner insistence just beyond explanation.Carl Jung described intuition as that which “mediates perceptions in an unconscious way… and has the character of being given.” Distinguishing it from the more rational functions of thinking, sensing, and feeling, Jung characterized intuition as irrational, bypassing conscious logic to immediately grasp hidden patterns, meanings, and future possibilities.In the years surrounding the First World War, Jung recorded dreams, visions, and dialogues with figures arising from his psyche. He came to understand that aspects of the psyche “produce themselves and have their own life.” The Red Book was later compiled as a document of these encounters and his willingness to be reshaped by them during an epoch of social collapse. His family kept the manuscript hidden for decades, wary of how the public would judge Jung for its contents.Certain ways of knowing do not sit neatly within pramana. They are not quite direct perception, not quite inference, not quite testimony, unless we expand the aperture of perception to include dreams, images, symbols, and phrases that arrive unbidden. These belong to another register, one involving a relationship with what we do not fully understand. A mingling with mystery. A participation.An increasing number of my therapy clients report consulting AI about the emotional content of their lives. I feel ambivalent. On one hand, it seems to help people articulate their inner life with greater clarity and identify practical therapeutic tools. On the other hand, if deferred to prematurely, AI's logic can displace the authority of these clients' own process, pulling them away from their attunement to the questions themselves.As artificial intelligence becomes an ever more seamless extension of cognition, my concern is what happens to the musculature of our knowing. Will we still value entering the river to feel for ourselves? Or standing beneath a painting whose frequency has waited a century to be transmitted? Or cultivating the integration of direct experience, the rigor of inference, and the discernment of who and what we trust?The meaningful questions of our lives ask something of us in return. Some questions are not meant to be resolved or even unveiled too directly. Some things must be distilled in time—granted permission, respect, faithful return, and a tolerance for not yet knowing.Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart'ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.+ Join next month's yoga & meditation class on Thursday, August 20. Only on Substack - a thank you to paid subscribers.+ Find me at YogaSource in Santa Fe every Wednesday morning, 9-10:15 am MT / 11 am-12:15 pm ET for Dynamic Practice. This class is fully analog—live and in person. Register through the studio here.+ I'll be returning to world-class Ballymaloe House in County Cork, Ireland, Sept 20-26, 2026, with Erin Doerwald. This retreat will feature yoga, meditation, farm-to-table meals, and curated outings—plus rest, nurturance, and imagination. Just a few spots left. Check out all the details here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shawnparell.substack.com/subscribe

In this Questions and Answers episode we head beneath the battlefields to explore the hidden world of First World War dugouts and bunkers, asking whether the Ypres Salient saw more extensive underground construction than the Somme, and how geology shaped the way British, German, Australian and other armies built and occupied these remarkable underground shelters.We also examine one of the most fascinating aspects of post-war battlefield recovery by looking at the concentration of casualties from High Wood into Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, and ask how the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission decided where recovered soldiers would ultimately be buried. Why were men from the same battalion sometimes reburied in different cemeteries years apart?From there we consider the impact of mist and fog on the Western Front. Did poor visibility and weather bring fighting to a halt, or was it an opportunity for trench raids, wiring parties, patrols and surprise attacks?Finally, we look at one of the 'what ifs' of the First World War. Following Russia's armistice in late 1917, how much artillery and equipment did Germany transfer west alongside its infantry? Could the Kaiserschlacht have happened without the collapse of the Eastern Front, and how might the war have unfolded if Russia had remained in the conflict?Main Image: Battle of Albert, 1916. The steps leading down to a huge German underground shelter at Bernafay Wood, near Montauban, captured by the 9th Division. The picture gives a good idea of the size and depth of many German dugouts on the Somme. (IWM Q4307). Image by John Warwick Brooke.Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

For early San Franciscans, seafood was an important source of nutrition and a feature of social life, inspiring culinary developments that remain components in California cuisine more than a century later. Consumers interested in flavorful alternatives to meat and associated health benefits could follow recipes for nearly fifty types of marine life from state waters, such as salmon, flounder, and oysters. Others are no longer available, out-of-vogue, or simply forgotten. Further, overfishing and environmental damage decimated many local seafood stocks, providing a cautionary tale with global significance. In San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table (Bloomsbury, 2026), Dr. Paul Stangl traces the development of San Francisco's fisheries, seafood markets, cookery, and dining culture from the Gold Rush to the 1920s. Migrants from around the world imported fishing techniques and cuisines, then slowly adapted as they came to understand local resources and each other. Newcomers found the tastiest fish through trial and error and assimilated the “best” into a new cuisine. Different ethnic and occupational groups collaborated, fought, and learned from one another as they irreversibly altered the natural world around them. By the end of the First World War, San Francisco's seafood cuisine scarcely resembled that of the 1850s, due to cultural adaptation, technological advancements, and changes to the natural environment. It was no longer derivative of New England and France, but included influences from the Southern states, Asia, and South America.San Francisco Seafood chronicles the city's transformation from a fish-barren town-where restaurants served canned, pickled, and dried fish from the East Coast-to a seafood-rich metropolis that harvested seafood from Mexico to Alaska. He emphasizes how the impacts on nature and local labor serve as a necessary cautionary tale for today's global seafood trade. This is a thorough and insightful history of a once emerging, and now essential, cuisine for food and history buffs alike. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

July 17th 2026 Yuriy recalls meeting a Kurdish sheikh in Iraq about 10 years earlier, a lifelong warrior who had fought ISIS, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's army, and rival Kurdish clans, and who said he “shot people because he couldn't shoot an ideology.” When pressed on how such different enemies shared one ideology, the sheikh explained that the common thread was tyranny—systems that turn people into obedient pawns—while slogans like Arab socialism or an Islamic state were merely appealing “wrapping paper.” Yuriy says he often thinks of this conversation because it helps explain Ukraine's fight today: Ukrainians are shooting Russians drawn to “senseless, bloody tyranny,” since the only alternative is submission and the spread of that brutality westward; resisting tyranny is the thin line protecting ordinary democratic life. Send Yuriy your letter of support fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com  Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)      It is July 17. About 10 years ago in Iraq, I met a Kurdish sheikh- the head of a large, warlike clan scattered across the northern mountains. The sheikh, who was already in his 70s at the time, looked like a character from an adventure novel or a supporting figure in Lawrence of Arabia: a neatly trimmed white beard, a small turban, loose Middle Eastern robes fluttering in the wind. Even his weapon resembled Lawrence's- a British rifle dating back to the First World War. The sheikh had spent his entire life at war. He had grown up in war. His children had grown up in war. He had outlived two of his sons, both killed by his enemies. His grandchildren were growing up in the war as well. He seemed to make no distinction between his past and present enemies: ISIS, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's army, or the leaders of rival Kurdish clans. To him, they were all the same. "I shoot people because I can't shoot an ideology," he told me. Their ideology is hostile to us, and so everyone who embraces it is our enemy. His explanation surprised me. After all, Saddam Hussein's secular quasi-fascist Ba'ath Party and ISIS stood for entirely different things, and the ideology of rival Kurdish clans had nothing in common with either Saddam's regime or jihadists. So I pressed him, asking what exactly he meant when he spoke about this single ideology shared by all his enemies. The sheikh's men, with whom we were sitting around an enormous table in his house, a table holding nothing but coffee and bottled water, looked at me as though I were a fool, someone who failed to grasp the obvious. The sheikh, however, seemed perfectly happy to explain himself to a foreigner. "Look," the sheikh said, "they all have one ideology, tyranny. They want people to do whatever they're told, to be nothing but dumb pawns. Building Arab socialism like Saddam did or an Islamic state like ISIS, that's just wrapping paper meant to appeal to people. People fall easily for deceptive things behind which tyranny hides. That's why I fought my whole life. Tyranny will always find a way to be appealing." I don't know why, but I find myself recalling this conversation quite often. It seems to me that it explains a lot about us in Ukraine too, and about you as well- those living in a still peaceful West. What I mean is that, like the Kurdish sheikh who shot people because he could not shoot an ideology, we are now shooting Russians to whom their senseless, bloody tyranny seems very appealing. We may like it or not, but the only alternative is to submit to that brutal tyranny, to merge into it, to become part of it. And to move farther west along with it. And so our hatred of tyranny, our refusal to submit to it, that is the main thing defending the democratic world, the thin red line running between the savage mass of murderers and rapists on one side and ordinary, peaceful life on the other.

For early San Franciscans, seafood was an important source of nutrition and a feature of social life, inspiring culinary developments that remain components in California cuisine more than a century later. Consumers interested in flavorful alternatives to meat and associated health benefits could follow recipes for nearly fifty types of marine life from state waters, such as salmon, flounder, and oysters. Others are no longer available, out-of-vogue, or simply forgotten. Further, overfishing and environmental damage decimated many local seafood stocks, providing a cautionary tale with global significance. In San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table (Bloomsbury, 2026), Dr. Paul Stangl traces the development of San Francisco's fisheries, seafood markets, cookery, and dining culture from the Gold Rush to the 1920s. Migrants from around the world imported fishing techniques and cuisines, then slowly adapted as they came to understand local resources and each other. Newcomers found the tastiest fish through trial and error and assimilated the “best” into a new cuisine. Different ethnic and occupational groups collaborated, fought, and learned from one another as they irreversibly altered the natural world around them. By the end of the First World War, San Francisco's seafood cuisine scarcely resembled that of the 1850s, due to cultural adaptation, technological advancements, and changes to the natural environment. It was no longer derivative of New England and France, but included influences from the Southern states, Asia, and South America.San Francisco Seafood chronicles the city's transformation from a fish-barren town-where restaurants served canned, pickled, and dried fish from the East Coast-to a seafood-rich metropolis that harvested seafood from Mexico to Alaska. He emphasizes how the impacts on nature and local labor serve as a necessary cautionary tale for today's global seafood trade. This is a thorough and insightful history of a once emerging, and now essential, cuisine for food and history buffs alike. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the complex dynamics of the Mesopotamian campaign during the First World War – where subject peoples, caught between the collapsing Ottoman Empire and the advancing British, navigated their loyalties with survival in mind.**Drawing on Eugene Rogan's masterful *The Fall of the Ottomans*, we examine the Arab rebellions that erupted in the Middle Euphrates region in 1915. The Ottomans, desperate to hold their empire together, attempted to enforce conscription among their Arab subjects – many of whom had no desire to die in a war they had not chosen. When Ottoman authorities clamped down on deserters, the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala exploded in rebellion.The rebellion was not nationalist in the modern sense. The rebels did not seek independence; they sought autonomy from a distant Ottoman state that was extracting their young men and disrupting their lives. In Najaf, deserters holed up in the shrine city. When Ottoman soldiers violated local customs by searching under women's veils, the townspeople turned against them. The rebellion spread to Karbala, Al-Hilla, Samawah, and other towns, with rebels burning government buildings, destroying records, and driving Ottoman soldiers out.As the British advanced up the Tigris and Euphrates, local populations made pragmatic choices. Arab villages flew white flags to welcome the new conquerors. The Ottomans, meanwhile, faced a collapse of morale that led to mass surrenders – including at the town of Amara, where a single British steamer with a crew of eight sailors accepted the surrender of hundreds of Ottoman troops.We also explore the divided loyalties of figures like Ali Djaoudat, an Iraqi Arab officer who had served the Ottomans loyally but secretly sympathised with the Arab autonomy movement. His capture by British forces – after being ambushed by Bedouin tribesmen who had turned against the Ottomans – illustrates the complexity of the situation.**Topics covered:**- Eugene Rogan's *The Fall of the Ottomans*- Ottoman conscription and desertion in Mesopotamia- The Najaf rebellion of May 1915- The Karbala uprising and its spread- The collapse of Ottoman morale- The British advance and "Townsend's Regatta"- The surrender at Amara- The divided loyalties of Arab officers- Robert Fisk's "Lord Blair of Kut" comment- The experience of colonised peoples between two empires---*Eugene Rogan's *The Fall of the Ottomans* is available from all good bookshops. Please consider buying from an independent retailer.**If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard has a bold claim about a new car. Also in this episode, the weird world of ice cream vans, flying ants, First World War biplanes, getting hair in the car, a reminder about the upcoming Festival of the Unexceptional, a review of the new Renault Twingo, the fifth anniversary of the legendary clown in a Rascal letter, how Jonny bought a strimmer engine on a plinth while on stage at a live show, a new programme idea for Wayne Carini, and another cracking pic from the halls of Car & Classic. For early, ad-free episodes and extra content go to patreon.com/smithandsniffTo buy merch and tickets to live shows go to smithandsniff.comFOTU info here: https://www.hagerty.co.uk/official-events/hagerty-festival-of-the-unexceptional/ This episode is sponsored by Car & Classic https://candc.li/uc1yqz Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our 300th Episode we reflect on six years of the Old Front Line Podcast and go back to where we started in March 2020 by retaking a virtual walk through the battlefields and village of Pozières on the Somme.We start at the Pozieres British Cemetery and Memorial and then walk into the village seeing memorials, and discussing some of the 'characters of the Somme', walking up to Mouquet Farm and ending at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.Main Image: Thiepval Memorial to the Missing under a summer sky. (OFL Archives)Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

False Dawn – Russia's Two Utopian Experiments and the Legacy of Shock Therapyhttps://explaininghistory.org/historiography/russian-revolution/In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore John Gray's False Dawn and the remarkable parallels between two failed attempts to remake Russia on a Western model – Bolshevism and the "shock therapy" of the post‑Soviet 1990s.After the First World War, John Maynard Keynes warned that the Carthaginian peace imposed on Germany would lead to endless instability. The Treaty of Versailles was a missed opportunity – and so, in a different way, was the settlement that followed the Cold War. Instead of a new international order that might have integrated Russia into the world system, we got free‑market triumphalism and the chaotic dismemberment of the Soviet Union.John Gray's argument is provocative: both War Communism (1918‑21) and the shock therapy of the Yeltsin era were Western utopian projects, divorced from Russian history and culture, that produced catastrophic human suffering. War Communism, with its abolition of private property and markets, was an attempt to impose Marxian socialism on a country that had no industrial base to sustain it. Shock therapy, with its sudden price liberalisation and mass privatisation, was an attempt to impose an American‑style free market on a country that had no institutions to support it.The results were devastating. In the 1990s, Russia experienced collapsing life expectancy, spiralling inflation that wiped out life savings, the rise of gangster capitalism, and the emergence of an oligarchic class that would eventually centralise power under Vladimir Putin. Yet unlike the horrors of Stalinism, this second catastrophe has received relatively little attention in Western historiography.Gray also draws a broader lesson: the global free market is itself a utopia, hostile to tradition, culture, and human needs. Like Soviet communism, it demands the sacrifice of those who get in its way – and its shock troops, from the IMF to the editorial pages of major newspapers, share the same contempt for history as the Bolsheviks.**Topics covered:**- Keynes and Clemenceau on the Treaty of Versailles- The missed opportunity of the post‑Cold War settlement- John Gray's *False Dawn*- War Communism and its consequences- Shock therapy and the collapse of 1990s Russia- The parallels between Soviet and neoliberal utopianism- The human cost of economic experimentation- Russia's "indigenous capitalism" and the rise of Putin- The arrogance of Western state‑building in Iraq and Afghanistan---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Old Front Line Podcast, we answer another fascinating selection of listener questions covering some of the most intriguing aspects of the First World War.We begin by exploring the formidable German concrete fortifications of the Somme, including the infamous Quadrilateral. How were these massive bunkers and strongpoints constructed so close to the front line, and why were the Allies seemingly unable to prevent their development?We then examine war expectations in 1914 including the belief that the war would be over by Christmas. What did Britain and Germany actually expect from the coming conflict? How did military planners believe victory would be achieved, and what political and territorial objectives were they hoping to secure?The discussion then turns to the Hindenburg Line. How much of this vast defensive system survives today, where can visitors still see it, and why were the Allies caught off guard when German forces withdrew to it during the spring of 1917?Finally, we tackle a practical but rarely discussed aspect of trench warfare: sanitation. Was toilet paper available to soldiers on the Western Front, what alternatives were used, and what can this tell us about daily life, hygiene, and disease in wartime conditions?Main Image: Remains of a German trench in Gommecourt, showing a concrete dug-out entrance, March 1917. (IWM Q4913). Image by John Warwick Brooke.Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin.You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop.Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.Send us Fan MailSupport the show

What was life really like in the trenches of the First World War? In this episode, we step into the mud of the Western Front to hear about the horrors that soldiers faced; from artillery bombardments and sniper fire to disease, rats and relentless weather.Joining us is Joshua Levine, author of "Forgotten Voices of the Somme", to explain the daily dangers soldiers faced, and the remarkable ways they survived.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Matthew Wilson.We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did century-old 'landships' developed from agricultural tractors evolve into the armoured giants of the modern battlefield? Today, we trace the lineage of the tank, from its origins in the trenches of the First World War to Second World War behemoths and their modern battlefield descendants.For this, we're joined by Mark Urban, historian and writer specialising in defence and foreign affairs. With him, he discusses the all-important question: in an era of drones, missiles and precision strikes, does the tank still have a place on the battlefield?Mark's book is called "Tank: The 10 War Machines That Changed the World and the Remarkable Men Behind Them".Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

H.W. Brands describes how, by the summer of 1939, the destruction of Poland by German and Soviet forces confirmed that war was imminent, prompting Roosevelt to invoke neutrality laws as required by Congress. Despite his desire for privacy, Lindbergh began using his celebrity status to secure national radio airtime, feeling a duty to prevent Americafrom repeating what he viewed as the "mistake" of the First World War. His father, a former congressman, had been driven out of politics for opposing American intervention in 1917, a legacy that instilled in Lindbergh a profound distrust of politics as a "mean business" where truth was rare. Lindbergh argued that Britain and France were launching a war they could not win and would eventually force the United States into a permanent presence in Europe. During this period, he consulted with figures like Herbert Hoover, who suggested forming a committee that would eventually become "America First," and visited the "House of Morgan" through his wife's family connections. British observers, such as Harold Nicolson, were less impressed, dismissing Lindbergh as a "schoolboy" who possessed technical talent but lacked a mature understanding of diplomacy and the complexities of governing a great empire. Lindbergh remained unfazed by British criticism, asserting that he was an American and that his country's interests were distinct from those of the British Empire. (2)1936