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.
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Episodes
Sunday Mar 02, 2025
Sunday Mar 02, 2025
Civil war broke out in Lebanon for a second time in 1975, partly as a result of the communal divisions in Lebanon but partly as a result of communal relationships with Syria and Israel, and because of the Arab world's conflict with Israel. But the consequences of the civil war would do nothing to ease the situation with regard to Israel.
Sunday Feb 23, 2025
Sunday Feb 23, 2025
In this, my last episode looking at the impact of the Cold War on the Middle East, I’m going to take us to the end of the Cold War and the part Afghanistan played in the Soviet Union's collapse.
Sunday Feb 16, 2025
Sunday Feb 16, 2025
Both America and the Soviet Union continued to build links with the region at every opportunity. But Iran and Iraq made it an unsettling, uncertain experience.
Sunday Feb 09, 2025
Sunday Feb 09, 2025
I thought it important in this long series looking at the Middle East and how we got to where we are today, to include a look at how the Cold War affected what unfolded. And this episode will begin that look in the 1950s.
Sunday Feb 02, 2025
Sunday Feb 02, 2025
From the prison massacres in 1988 to the Mahsa Amini protests that started in 2022, this episode takes a look at just what it is that so many Iranians oppose and how the Iranian theocracy has dealt with that opposition.
Sunday Jan 26, 2025
Sunday Jan 26, 2025
If you could sum up the impact of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in a sentence, it would be something like, ‘At one and the same time, Iran has dangerously widened the Sunni-Shia split that divides Muslims whilst becoming the rallying point for the Islamic anti-imperialist, anti-American and anti-Israeli movement.’ I'm going to add a little to this sentence!
Sunday Jan 19, 2025
Sunday Jan 19, 2025
We’ve been looking at really serious things with regard to Iran; and very worrying too. But the thing that has worried the West the most is undoubtedly Iran’s nuclear programme, and that's the focus of this episode.
Sunday Jan 12, 2025
Sunday Jan 12, 2025
I’m continuing my focus on the impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, moving away from the two superpowers of America and the Soviet Union, to consider the broader international impact, selecting examples of Iran’s presence across the world – some I think will tweak your memory but I think you’ll also be in for a few surprises.
Sunday Jan 05, 2025
Sunday Jan 05, 2025
This second episode on the impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran will focus on its impact on America and the Soviet Union. The Middle East with its oil, was always going to be an important region for the two superpowers, but the Islamic Revolution in Iran would unsettle the plans of both of them.
Sunday Dec 29, 2024
Sunday Dec 29, 2024
In this episode I’m going to return to 1979 and the event that triggered a process of geopolitical realignment that is up there with the collapse of the Soviet Union in its significance on our world today. America had put a lot of time and dollars into supporting the Shah in Iran, and in 1979 that blew up in America’s face, and gave us President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and later what Iran called an “Axis of Resistance”. So, 1979 is extremely important.