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 22, 2026
Sunday Mar 22, 2026
This episode looks at the meeting of the Estates-General that, it was hoped, would decide the future of France and it was here that the bourgeoisie seized control of events from both the King and the aristocracy, and demanded a constitution.
Sunday Mar 15, 2026
Sunday Mar 15, 2026
It has to be one of the greatest ironies of history that the revolution that would ultimately remove the heads of many an aristocrat was actually started by the aristocracy, and by their selfishness at that. And that's what we'll look at in this episode and you will see its links to issues we face today.
Sunday Mar 08, 2026
Sunday Mar 08, 2026
I’m still back in the world of books and clever people. And this week its Jean-Jaques Rousseau, the man who saw democracy as a contract. And a thinker that still has a big influence on our world today.
Sunday Mar 01, 2026
Sunday Mar 01, 2026
With the French Revolution, I really have to make another diversion and consider the influence of the philosophes. Not only did they have an influence on the revolution but they have a profound influence on our world today. So, I’m back in the world of books and clever people. And I begin with the work of one Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu.
Sunday Feb 22, 2026
Sunday Feb 22, 2026
We’ve looked at the English Revolution in the seventeenth and the American Revolution that rid itself forever of the English monarchy but replaced it with an oligarchy of the wealthy. So now I’m going to turn our attention to the French Revolution, the one that gave us Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Well, we’ll see about that.
Sunday Feb 15, 2026
Sunday Feb 15, 2026
This episode wraps up our look at the American constitution, so-called American democracy by looking at the ratification process and making a final assessment of just what had been achieved.
Sunday Feb 08, 2026
Sunday Feb 08, 2026
This episode will focus squarely on the American Constitution, a constitution that Americans at least, still seem to think is fit for purpose. I say this because there have only been 27 amendments with the first ten making up the Bill of Rights, so really, they were always part of the constitution, and the 21st amendment was repealing the 18th amendment (prohibition) so, in effect, there have only been 15 amendments.
Sunday Feb 01, 2026
Sunday Feb 01, 2026
I left things last week with the American colonies at war with Britain. But also, at war with themselves. And this is going to continue. And this episode will look at the America that was created out of the Revolution and I’m going to suggest that what was in fact created was an oligarchy.
Sunday Jan 25, 2026
Sunday Jan 25, 2026
In this episode, I’m turning my attention squarely on the American Revolution, the revolution against British rule, because it led to an independent American state and to the Constitution that largely still operates today. And I'm going to suggest that for the people of America, it was a decidedly limited revolution.
Sunday Jan 18, 2026
Sunday Jan 18, 2026
This week I’m going to look at someone who, along with Karl Marx, was perhaps the most important thinker in shaping our world today. He was a pamphleteer, a journalist, a propagandist, a polemicist, and something of a philosopher. His name is Thomas Paine and he’s important because he had a remarkable influence on both the American and French revolutions.