Explaining History

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the American withdrawal from Iraq – the product of Trump's war with Iran, and a strategic defeat of historic proportions.Iraq has been enormously important to the United States since the end of the Cold War. It has served multiple strategic, foreign policy and domestic purposes. Its loss – the effective expulsion of American power from the country – is an epic disaster unfolding in slow motion. It doesn't look like the British retreat from Afghanistan in the 1840s, but it is a catastrophe nonetheless.The war against Iran has achieved the opposite of everything it intended. It has cost America its bases in the Persian Gulf. It has empowered the Houthi rebels in Yemen and threatened control of the Red Sea. It has surrendered the Straits of Hormuz. It has alienated the Gulf states and the Saudis. And now it has forced a strategic withdrawal from Iraq.We trace the long history of American involvement in Iraq – from the use of Saddam Hussein as a bulwark against revolutionary Iran and the Soviet Union, through the first Gulf War and the brutal sanctions regime that followed, to the catastrophic invasion of 2003. We examine the decision not to overthrow Saddam in 1991, the disbandment of the Iraqi army, the failure to understand Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, and the looting of the National Museum – met with Rumsfeld's infamous remark that "freedom is messy."Drawing on John Gray's critique of liberal interventionism, we consider the argument that there are things worse than tyranny – and that what replaced Saddam's Leviathan was anarchy, a condition that elements of the American right seemed actively to welcome.The withdrawal from Iraq is not the orderly dismantling of empire. It is a rout – and what replaces American influence will almost certainly be Iranian. Trump has defeated his own country.Topics covered:The American withdrawal from IraqThe war against Iran and its strategic consequencesIraq as a Cold War client stateThe first Gulf War and the sanctions regimeThe 2003 invasion and its catastrophic aftermathThe disbandment of the Iraqi armyThe looting of the National MuseumJohn Gray on tyranny and anarchyThe rise of Iranian influence in IraqIf you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we are joined by historian Peter Parker to discuss the remarkable rediscovery of James Courage's A Way of Love – widely regarded as the first gay novel by a New Zealander – and what it tells us about gay life in post-war Britain.First published in 1959 and banned in New Zealand in 1961, A Way of Love has returned to print after nearly seven decades. Set in 1950s London, it follows two men attempting to build a life together at a time when sex between men remained a criminal offence. Its timing is significant: it appeared two years after the Wolfenden Report recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer be criminalised, but eight years before the partial decriminalisation introduced by the Sexual Offences Act of 1967.Peter Parker, author of Some Men in London volumes one and two – acclaimed anthologies of gay life in the capital – joins us to explore this fascinating transitional moment. Drawing on James Courage's extraordinary diary as well as the novel, we examine what it meant to be a gay man in a society where prosecution, censorship and social stigma were constant threats.We discuss the geography of gay life – the private members' clubs and pubs where men could relax and be amongst their own people – and the language they used, including the secret argot of Polari. We also explore the long struggle for legal reform, the resistance of the Metropolitan Police, and the cultural shifts that helped change attitudes – from the pioneering work of the Homosexual Law Reform Society to the impact of films like Victim (1961) and John Osborne's A Patriot for Me.Peter also reflects on the "happy ever after" problem in gay history: the assumption that rights appeared by magic overnight, rather than being won through decades of struggle, persecution and sacrifice.Topics covered:James Courage, A Way of Love, and its suppression and rediscoveryThe criminalisation of homosexuality and the Wolfenden ReportThe policing of gay life and the "pretty police"Gay clubs, pubs, and cultures of solidarityPolari and coded languageThe Homosexual Law Reform Society and the fight for legal changeVictim, A Patriot for Me, and stage censorshipThe pushback of AIDS and Clause 28Memory, martyrdom, and the unfinished struggle for equalityPeter Parker's Some Men in London volumes one and two are available from all good bookshops. James Courage's A Way of Love is republished by Lyric Editions. Please consider buying from an independent retailer or directly from the publisher.If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.This response is AI-generated and for reference purposes only.

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Susan Pedersen's *The Guardians* – the definitive history of the mandate system – to examine one of its darkest chapters: the French bombing of Damascus in October 1925.The French had acquired Syria under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, though the British never really accepted their claim to it. Lawrence of Arabia had raced to Damascus in 1918 to deliver it to the Arabs – and by extension to the British – in defiance of the agreement. But the French got their mandate, and they ran it with a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and violence.The revolt that erupted in 1925 was not, as the French insisted, the work of brigands and agitators. It was the product of accumulated grievances: the division of Syria into four statelets, the creation of Greater Lebanon, the subordination of Syrian officials to French approval, the demotion of Ottoman-trained officers, and an economic policy that pegged the Syrian pound to the unstable franc. The Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash – a Syrian nationalist who had served in the Ottoman army and joined the Arab Revolt – was not a local warlord, as the French imagined, but a man with a vision of complete independence and free elections.The French response was brutal. Villages were burned. Circassian, Kurdish and Armenian irregulars were unleashed to loot and terrorise. Corpses were paraded through the streets of Damascus and strung up in Marjeh Square. And then, on 18 October 1925, French tanks rolled through the narrow streets and the bombardment began – two days of shelling and aerial bombing of an undefended city.The international outcry was immediate. The *Times* of London, hardly a radical publication, ran reports that turned colonial assumptions on their heads. Readers who knew nothing of Syrian villages could place them in the category of the primitive – but every biblically literate child had heard of Damascus. And now its ancient streets were being blasted by a European power that claimed to be a civilising force.This episode explores the bombing of Damascus as a moment of crisis for the mandate system – a moment when the gap between the rhetoric of tutelage and the reality of colonial violence became impossible to ignore.**Topics covered:**- The French acquisition of Syria under Sykes-Picot- The revolt of Sultan al-Atrash and the Druze- General Sarrail and the blindness of French colonial officials- The use of irregular forces and aerial bombardment- The bombing of Damascus, October 1925- The international outcry and the *Times* coverage- The crisis of legitimacy for the mandate system---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*

**In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore Srinath Raghavan's brilliant *India's War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939–1945* – a book that places India at the centre of the Second World War, rather than at its margins.**India is frequently overlooked in histories of the Second World War. When it appears at all, it is as a source of manpower for the British Empire – a vast reservoir of soldiers and labourers to be deployed in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. But as Raghavan demonstrates, India was not simply a British asset. It was the engine of the Allied war effort in the East – and the war transformed it in ways that would lead, inexorably, to independence.By December 1941, when Nehru emerged from prison, India stood at the intersection of two major theatres of war: the Mediterranean and North Africa on one side, and South Asia, China and the Pacific on the other. The defence of India was no longer a British prerogative; it had become a focal point of Allied grand strategy. Indian politics could not be insulated from the pressures emanating from Britain's key wartime allies.Drawing on Raghavan's narrative, we trace the debates within the Congress Party as it wrestled with the question of whether to cooperate with the British war effort. Gandhi insisted on non-violence and non-participation; Nehru advocated non-participation for political reasons; a third group, led by Rajagopalachari, believed that cooperation was available – if the British did the right thing. The compromise resolution that emerged was, as Gandhi observed, "like the Indian dish *khichri*" – a mixture of pulses, rice, salt, chilli and spices.We also examine the American perspective on India, which was shaped by a mixture of exotic fantasy, missionary prejudice and strategic calculation. By 1941, the State Department had concluded that the situation in India was "very serious indeed" and that the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, was "a man of small vision." American officials took a sympathetic stance towards Congress demands, reporting that the British were following a policy of "divide and rule." Even the conservative *Reader's Digest* carried a favourable profile of Nehru. The British cabinet, alert to American opinion, took hardly any major decision on India without reference to its impact on public opinion in the United States.**Topics covered:**- India's central role in the Second World War- The Congress Party debates on cooperation and non-participation- Gandhi, Nehru and Rajagopalachari- The "Quit India" campaign and the refusal of Indian soldiers to serve- American perceptions of India and the British Raj- The strategic importance of India to the Allied war effort- The beginning of the end of the British Empire in India---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore Keith Lowe's *Prisoners of History* and the contested world of memorialisation – focusing on one of the strangest and most controversial memorial sites in Europe.Monuments occupy public space, and they impose meaning on it. Walk through any city and you'll find statues placed with particular agendas – to memorialise the past in certain ways, to place a particular interpretation on history. As a result, they are almost always contested. The recent removal of statues associated with the transatlantic slave trade, from Edward Colston in Bristol to Confederate monuments across the American South, provoked a furious reaction from the right, who framed it as a free speech issue. What they were really defending was the right of white supremacy to own and occupy public space.Keith Lowe argues that there is no escaping the monsters of our past. We can try to ignore them, rehabilitate them, or annihilate them – but their absence becomes its own kind of presence. There is only one final course open to us: ridicule.This brings us to Grūtas Park in Lithuania – a sculpture park displaying the statues of Stalin, Lenin, and other Soviet figures that were torn down after independence in 1990. Lithuania's 20th century was one of repeated invasion, occupation, and mass deportation. Around 300,000 Lithuanians were sent to Soviet gulags in the 1940s and 50s. So when independence came, the statues were decapitated, blowtorched, and dynamited. The government then stored the best-known examples in warehouses – until a former wrestling champion and mushroom farmer named Viliumas Malinauskas offered to take them off their hands and build a park.His proposals were extraordinary: tourists arriving on cattle trucks, actors dressed as guards herding them onto trains, barbed wire, guard towers, the whole gulag experience. Critics called it a "Stalin theme park." Over a million people signed a petition against it. Former partisans and political prisoners accused Malinauskas of profiting from their misery.But the park opened anyway – and became a hit. What makes Grūtas Park so interesting, and so troubling, is that it creates a space that is completely ahistorical. It was built in the era of the "end of history," when we thought we could turn the past into a meaningless theme park.History didn't end. Spoiler alert.**Topics covered:**- Keith Lowe's *Prisoners of History*- The contest over public memorials and public space- Francis Galton, eugenics, and the limits of ridicule- Lithuania's experience of Soviet and Nazi occupation- The fate of Stalin and Lenin statues after 1990- Viliumas Malinauskas and the creation of Grūtas Park- The petition, the protests, and the constitutional court ruling- The postmodern, ahistorical aesthetics of the park- The "end of history" and its illusions---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we explore the Macmillan years – that remarkable, contradictory period of post-war British history when the country was forced to confront its diminished place in the world, even as it sought to cling to the vestiges of imperial power.When Anthony Eden led Britain into the Suez Crisis in 1956, he did so believing that Britain could still act unilaterally on the world stage. The rebuke from Eisenhower told a different story. The crisis exposed the weakness of Britain's post-war economy, triggered a run on the reserves, and revealed that the country could no longer act without American permission.Harold Macmillan – who became Chancellor in the aftermath and then Prime Minister in January 1957 – understood the lesson. Suez had been a tactical defeat, he told his cabinet, but it could yet prove "the prelude to a strategic victory." What followed was a decade of managed decline: the military budget was cut, national service was abolished, and the white paper on defence argued that spending 10% of gross national income on defence was excessive.Drawing on Kenneth Morgan's *The People's Peace*, we examine the "one nation Toryism" that characterised Macmillan's government – a form of liberal conservatism that would be denounced by today's Tory party as "creeping Bolshevism." We trace the withdrawal from empire: the end of the Mau Mau emergency in Kenya, the winding up of the Cyprus troubles, the independence of Ghana and Nigeria, and Macmillan's famous "wind of change" speech before the South African parliament in 1960.But we also confront the darker side of British decolonisation – the concentration camps and torture in Kenya, the police state in Nyasaland, and the selective memory that allows Britain to present its retreat from empire as "relatively tranquil and civilised."**Topics covered:**- The aftermath of Suez and the reality of decline- Macmillan's "strategic victory" and one nation Toryism- The 1957 Defence White Paper and massive retaliation- The abolition of national service- The end of the Mau Mau emergency and the Hola Camp scandal- The Cyprus settlement and the release of Archbishop Makarios- Macmillan's "wind of change" speech- The dissolution of the Central African Federation- Britain's diminishing role in the Middle East- The intervention in Jordan, 1958- Parallels with American decline today---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*

In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the recent electoral victory of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt – and what it tells us about the global resurgence of the far right.The AFD's crushing victory has alarmed commentators around the world. An openly fascist party emerging in Germany has a special and terrifying significance. But as veteran left intellectual Tariq Ali argues in a powerful Substack essay, this is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of a global trend – and it is a direct consequence of the failures of neoliberalism and the "extreme centre."Ali writes that the election results "are not a huge surprise." The so-called firewall created by the extreme centre parties of the German elite has only aided the AFD's growth. The Christian Democratic Union, which won 37% in 2021, is now down to 18.5%. Meanwhile, Die Linke has won more votes than the Social Democratic Party, and the Sahra Wagenknecht Party has crossed the 5% threshold.The problem, Ali argues, is that the political and economic elites insist "that no reforms are possible and the current form of capitalism is fixed indefinitely." Telling people that an economic system that erodes their living standards year after year is the only option has created a vacuum that the far right is only too happy to fill.We also explore the historical context: the incomplete reckoning with Europe's fascist past, the failure of post-war denazification, and the erosion of the social democratic contract that once made Germany and other European countries resistant to extremism.Topics covered:The AFD's victory in Saxony-AnhaltTariq Ali's analysis of the rise of the far rightThe failure of the "extreme centre"Neoliberalism and the erosion of living standardsThe collapse of the post-war social democratic contractEurope's incomplete reckoning with fascismThe global nature of far-right resurgenceIf you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.

# Episode DescriptionIn this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we tackle one of the most persistent problems in how we teach and understand the civil rights movement: the "happy ever after" narrative.For many years, students have been taught that the struggles of the 1950s and 60s culminated in victory – that the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act somehow "solved" racism in America. This is, of course, nonsense. History doesn't work like that. The civil rights movement achieved significant gains, but the idea that racism was somehow "sorted" in 1968 is deeply misleading.Drawing on Kevin Verney's excellent book *The Debate on Black Civil Rights in America*, we explore the historiographical challenges of writing about the post-1968 period. Historians are naturally cautious about passing judgment on recent decades, which means the story of African American life since 1980 is often reduced to a few paragraphs about the emergence of a black middle class – and, bizarrely, a section on performers like Michael Jackson and Will Smith.We examine the debate around Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns, the argument over whether race or class is the primary division in American society, and the continuing crisis of inner-city poverty and police violence that the "happy ever after" narrative conveniently ignores.Topics covered:- The "happy ever after" problem in civil rights historiography- The challenge of writing about recent history- Jesse Jackson and the debate over black political leadership- Race vs. class in post-civil rights America- William Julius Wilson and the "declining significance of race"- Inner-city poverty and institutionalised racism- The limitations of liberal reform---*If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.*