Making sense of this crazy world
I am a student of history, a teacher of history and a writer of history. You could say history is a passion of mine. I have a website for students and I had been mulling around this idea of a podcast for some time. Would people be interested? Would I make it interesting? That’s essentially what was holding me back. But with a new year starting, the craziness still all around us, I thought what the hell – give it a go, John! The primary purpose of the podcast is to use history to help us make a little more sense of this crazy world we are living in. I aim to do this by using history. It’s not the only tool to be used, but it is my chosen tool. Everything happens in a context and that context is recent history. But that recent history is almost always the result of older history. We have to go back into our past to understand today. I could easily rattle off a hundred other aims but trust me, they will be introduced as we go along. But there are two other aims I must own up to straight away. The first is that I really want to lay it on the line that history is always about people. I think it was the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm who said unemployment is an economic statistic but a human experience. And you can’t appear to be further away from people than with dry statistics – but you’re not. And the second is that there is always more than one story to tell; more than one “truth”. History is an interpretation of the past, nothing more. There are always other interpretations. When we look at this crazy world of ours today and try to make sense of what is happening, it is so important to bear that in mind - someone else thinks differently. And if we don’t understand that other interpretation, if we don’t even know it exists, then we can’t reach an understanding of what is happening. And our truth is less secure! I hope that makes sense.
Episodes
Jul 2, 2023
Jul 2, 2023
21 min
This was in fact a long century, lasting 110 years. For it began with the First Opium War with Britain which began in 1839. And it didn’t end until the end of WW2 and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It was a century in which China and the Chinese people suffered at the hands of imperial powers, mostly from Europe and Japan, but a little bit from America too. Every Chinese leader over the last century has regarded it to be his historic task to overcome that ‘century of humiliation’ and restore China to its rightful position in the world order: at the top. So, its important!
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
Jun 25, 2023
Jun 25, 2023
19 min
If China is to become a dominant player, if not the dominant player, in the 21st century and beyond, then it is important that the rest of the world reaches an understanding of just what it is we are dealing with. We see the world very much from the perspective we have been taught: the British perspective, the European perspective, the American perspective. Well, China’s culture, its values and its history is very different, and so too is their view of the world we share.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
Jun 18, 2023
Jun 18, 2023
21 min
With this episode I’m going to give you a few insights to China – its history and its culture. I think it’s important because I think the world is going to change radically in the not-too distant future. The Western perception of how things should be done – free markets, democratic norms, the rule of law, human rights – are going to be challenged by different civilisations, notably China’s.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
Jun 11, 2023
Jun 11, 2023
25 min
The leaders of the G7 met recently and China was high on the agenda for their discussions. Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, said that China posed 'the greatest challenge of our age.' He's not wrong, but how well does he know China? This episode begins a little series on China by giving some illustrations of the significance of the awakening giant.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
Jun 4, 2023
Jun 4, 2023
10 min
This episode looks at the consequences of the Iran-Iraq War as they rippled out across time from Iran and Iraq and their people, to the region as a whole and to the wider world.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
May 28, 2023
May 28, 2023
18 min
We’ve been looking at the impact of Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini on their people, and I’m going to end this mini-series by taking a look at the Iran-Iraq War. Lasting eight years, from 1980 through to 1988, the Iran-Iraq War was one of the longest wars since WW2, and it was one of the most bloody.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
May 21, 2023
May 21, 2023
19 min
We are looking at the impact of Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini on history and on people’s lives, and in this episode, it is the effect on the Iraqi and Iranian people that I will focus on.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
May 14, 2023
May 14, 2023
21 min
We are looking at the impact of Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini on history and on people’s lives, and in this episode, I’m going to look at the nature of their rule. Saddam is often described as a dictator, enforcing his vision of how a society should be, the policies that will make that vision a reality, and destroying anyone who thought differently. Whereas In sharp contrast, Ayatollah Khomeini's regime was a theocracy.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
May 7, 2023
May 7, 2023
28 min
“History is always about people” and this episode will look at the rise to power of two individuals who had a profound effect on history and not just in their own countries but in the Gulf states as a whole and, indeed, on the world. These two men were going to shake things up and the world is today a very, very different place, far less stable, than before they came to power.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023
26 min
In the light of the coronation of Charles III, this episode considers the role of the British monarchy in a class system that prevents a meritocracy and leaves Britain still looking as it did in the nineteenth century.
Intro and outro music curtesy of slip.stream:
https://slip.stream/tracks/58fb6726-c035-4d10-a8e8-eba70e5164ad