Explaining History

Neville Chamberlain is chiefly remembered for his failed shuttle diplomacy with Hitler in 1938, but there is of course more to his time in office than just this. Chamberlain believed himself to be a social reformer, though the reality of life for the poor and those devastated by the Great Depression remained in many cases bleak. This podcast explores the state of housing, welfare, education and health in the second half of the 1930s.You can read more from today's book, Britain's War by Daniel Todman hereHelp the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

By March 1917 a new system of dual power had established itself in the capital city Petrograd. The Provisional Government, a group comprised of the Tsar's former ministers who refused to disband, and the Petrograd Soviet, a meeting of delegates from the committees established in factories and army regiments, existed in an uneasy partnership with one another. This episode of our AQA Revolution and Dictatorship 1917-53 study course explores in depth these two organisations and how their dysfunction provided opportunities for Lenin and the Bolsheviks.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

What happened when news of the Russian Revolution reached the empire's rural areas? How did the largely non literate peasantry interact with this change? How did the Russian Orthodox Church carry the message of the revolution? What did the empire's non Russian and non Christian peoples make of it? This episode explores the chaotic and fragmented way in which Russian society encountered revolutionary change. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

In the aftermath of the First World War, the delegates of the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference attempted to shape a post war world order. Woodrow Wilson, pioneer of the mandate system that saw former German and Ottoman imperial possessions administered through the new League of Nations, found that the British and French were hungry for new colonial acquisitions and saw the Mandate system as a perfect tool for their ambitions.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

Mohammad Tarbush's extraordinary life story, from growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp and hitchhiking to Europe to becoming head of Deutsche Bank is captured in his memoirs, My Palestine. This week we explore his recollections as part of the wider context of the current war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

An entire radical history of Los Angeles in the 1960s that rarely gets mentioned can be found in Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's brilliant book Set The Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties. This episode explores in brief the emergence of an independent radical press in the city in the guise of the LA Free Press or 'Freep', and explores reactions of the Freep and the reactionary LA Times to the Watts Riots of 1965.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

This episode is for all students of A Level Russian history, and it follows the AQA syllabus. In this episode we will explore the events of the February Revolution and the Tsar's catastrophic mishandling of the protests that began in Petrograd.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here

How did people outside Petrograd hear about the events of February 1917? News spread quickly to cities like Kazan and Nizhni Novgorod due to the telegraph and train but more slowly in the towns and villages. The revolution was not experienced by all Russians, at all times in the same way. Instead the fragmented nature of Russia, its geography and sparse population presented the new Provisional Government with challenges in explaining to some Russians who it was that now ruled them. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of content and would like to help the show continue, please consider supporting it in the following ways:If you want to go ad-free, you can take out a membership hereOrYou can support the podcast via Patreon hereOr you can just say some nice things about it here