Feb 19, 2018 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
* In 1913, H. G. Wells wrote a book called The World Set Free* The novel begins: “The history of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal. . . . Always down a lengthening record, save for a set-back...
Feb 19, 2018 | Free, Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
* 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 Attlee.* Stalin had to be involved, but he couldn’t sign it because the U.S.S.R. was still...
Jan 12, 2018 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
* Episode 69.* Ray’s favourite number.* Have you actually had one yet, Ray?* Sister in law?* Truman had given his final approval to the plan to invade Kyushu, the southern most island of Japan, just two weeks before leaving for Potsdam.* A Russian invasion of...
Jan 7, 2018 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
Well the election result shocked everyone. And the rest of the contingent at Potsdam weren’t very happy about it either. We might think that the Soviets would be please to be dealing with a British government made up of socialists. But that wasn’t the case. Stalin...
Dec 24, 2017 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
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 expect, like it is in Australia or like the Vice-President in the USA. The Deputy PM...
Dec 15, 2017 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
Stalin arrived in Potsdam a day late. Claimed he had a small heart attack. Might have been a ruse. It gave the others a day to take a tour of Berlin on July 16 and see the destruction first hand. During the first week of the conference, everyone was jubilant, having...
Dec 8, 2017 | Free, Latest, Podcast, Recent |
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 books on the First World War – as well as the book we are talking about today...
Nov 17, 2017 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
After a string of fuckups, Truman starts listening to other people, like Joseph Davies, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1937-38, one of the guys he had ignored before his first meeting with Molotov. They decide a new meeting of the Big Three is needed –...
Nov 10, 2017 | Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
Truman listens to certain people who tell him he should get tough with the Russians. At his first meeting with Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister said “I have never been talked to like that in my life.”“Carry out your agreements and you won’t get talked to...
Oct 27, 2017 | Free, Latest, Podcast, Premium, Recent |
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 tough.
