If you were alive from 1945 - 1990, the Cold War was an ever-present reality. We grew up being told that the world could end any minute - and you probably wouldn't know it was coming until it hit. On this series we're going DEEP on the Cold War - why it happened, how it happened and where it left us. As with our other hit podcast series, this show contains heavy doses of bad language, irreverent humour and singalongs.
Latest episodes
-
1 h 00 ↗
#109 – The Haiphong Incident
Vietnam. Late 1946. The gears of war are turning. One President commits suicide. Another continues to fight for a peaceful settlement. A new government is formed. Then the French a…
-
52 min ↗
#106 – Andrew Roberts, Churchill
Andrew Roberts has a huge new biography out on England’s favourite son, Winston Churchill, and he was nice enough to come on the show to answer a few of our questions about the man…
-
58 min ↗
#103 – The First Indochina War (Part I)
After Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam in September 1945, the British and Chinese troops arrived in Saigon and Hanoi to disarm the Japanese and prepare the return o…
-
58 min ↗
#99 – Ho Chi Minh III
* On December 7 1941, Japan’s main carrier force, seeking to destroy the American fleet and thereby purchase time to complete its southward expansion, struck Pearl Harbour. * And t…
-
1 h 07 ↗
#98 – Ho Chi Minh II
* Ho’s speech to the French socialist congress in 1920 was 12 minutes long and delivered without notes. * It got some applause but that was about it. * He realised that French soci…
-
1 h 09 ↗
#97 – Ho Chi Minh I
In 1919 a 29 year old Vietnamese man wrote a list of demands for political rights for his people to present to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference. Nobody p…
-
1 h 10 ↗
#96 – Marshall Plan III
* America’s approach to providing financial aid wasn’t popular with some of their allies either. * Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, resented American dollar diplomacy,…
-
59 min ↗
#95 – Marshall Plan II
* Something that Marshall mentions only briefly in his speech is the effect that would have on the US economy. (around the 7’20″ mark) * Europe’s economy might have been destroyed…
-
1 h 04 ↗
#94 – Marshall Plan I
* One of the greatest pieces of mythology to ever be produced in America is the “Marshall Plan”. * It’s right up there with the idea of glorifying the “Founding Fathers”, who were…
-
1 h 35 ↗
#87 – The Aftermath Part 2
* The military had long declared that radiation dissipated quickly in the atomic cities and posed little threat to the soldiers. * A 1980 Defense Nuclear Agency report concluded, “…
-
1 h 04 ↗
#86 – The Aftermath Part 1
* TRUMAN ANNOUNCES THE BOMB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_UJJ9ObDs * On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, killing at least…
-
1 h 01 ↗
#82 – Alex Wellerstein
Our guest today is Alex Wellerstein, a self-described “historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons”. He’s a Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Instit…
-
57 min ↗
#77 – Bombing Japan
* Which b
-
1 h 12 ↗
#74 – Benn Steil & The Marshall Plan
Benn Steil is an American economist, author of a great new book on “The Marshall Plan”, and senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relation…
-
58 min ↗
#73 – k
* Fission involved breaking apart the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium or plutonium. * Fusion involves forcing the nuclei of lighter elements, like hydrogen or deuterium, toge…
-
1 h 18 ↗
#70 – No Military Justification
* The Potsdam declaration on Japan was tricky. * It was drafted while Churchill was still PM. * In fact it was probably one of the last things he did as PM. * But it was signed by…
-
59 min ↗
#67 Clement Atlee
Attlee was Churchill’s lame duck deputy PM. In fact he was the first Deputy PM the UK ever had. I didn’t realise this, but in the UK the role of the Deputy PM isn’t like you’d expe…
-
1 h 14 ↗
#65 – Michael Neiberg
Prof Michael Neiberg is Chair of War Studies and Professor of History, Department of National Security and Strategy, US Army War College. He has also written a number of excellent…
-
1 h 11 ↗
#62 – Truman
Harry S. Truman. Farmer. Soldier. Failed businessman. Given his political career by a mobbed-up bootlegger. Became President through fate. Adopted John Wayne persona to try to look…
-
48 min ↗
#59 – Stalin Versus The Pope
Stalin crushes the Ukrainian Catholic Church, partly because socialists believe religion is the opium of the masses, and partly because the Pope, Pius XII, had done a deal with Hit…