The Resident Judge of Port Phillip

The History of Iran: A Primer. This is actually a video, which can be seen on Youtube or here. You could just listen to it if you wanted to, but he has some diagrams to illustrate the various periods and dynasties He starts off by talking about periodization i.e. ancient Persia, then the Arab conquest around 630-40 leading to Islamic/Medieval Persia, then around 1800s with Western Influence in Modern Iran. He follows a string of different dynasties, some lasting centuries, other little more than two-generations. It is a little bit eye-glazing, but I learned a lot: like, for example, just how big that Mongol empire was. So, an interesting, rather pain-free 38-minute skate from 3200 BCE up to 1979 with the establishment of the Islamic Republic. I have no idea who ‘Premodernist’ is: he seems a bit shy about his name.

The Rest is History Episode 404 The Nazis in Power: The Night of the Long Knives (Part 1) I tend to think of the Nazis as all cut from that chiselled, resolute mould, but of course they had factions just like any other group. Ernst Röhm, streetfighter and flagrantly gay, headed the SA, or Stormtroopers which had 4.5 million (million!) paid up members. Röhm was from the faction calling for permanent revolution, and by 1934 he was suggesting that the SA should be the army. He was opposed by the police (who were generally Nazified too), the Army, the Old Order and Hitler’s own personal guards, the SS, who all wanted Hitler to bring everything into order, rather than embark on eternal revolution. Hitler was told (incorrectly) that Röhm and the SA were going to move against him on the one side, and that the Conservatives like Hindenberg and Von Papen were going to also move against him on the other side. So Hitler decided to get rid of all of his enemies at once, with the support of the Army, the police and the SS in the ‘night of the long knives’, which involved the arrests of SA members across Germany. In Berlin, Goering and Goebells went after the Old Conservatives. 85 were killed and Röhm was shot, declining the option of committing suicide. Hitler delivered a two-hour talk to the Reichstag, which passed retrospective enabling legislation to cover the killings. Hindenburg died, and the position of President of Germany was retired, leaving Hitler the only leader. The Army pledged an oath of loyalty to Hitler, and this was all tidied up with a referendum.

The Rest is Classified Episode 121 Kim Philby: Stalin’s Mole Inside MI6 (Ep.1) While listening to a podcast about the Spanish Civil War, all of a sudden Kim Philby’s name popped up. Who would have thought? Kim Philby has gone down in history as Britain’s most notorious double agent: spying for Stalin while running the MI6 counter-intelligence operation against him. His father was an Indian civil servant, and Kim was born in India and named after the Rudyard Kipling book, which ironically enough is about a spy. Young Kim was sent home to England during World War I while his father went to the Middle East where he became an Arabist for the rest of his life. Kim enrolled in history at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1929, then undertook economics. By then the Depression had taken hold, and there was a Labor government in England. Philby became a Marxist as an intellectual decision under the influence of Professor Dobbs. His handler was Arnold Deutsch, who recruited him to Soviet intelligence, although he was to have other handlers over his career.

Short History of… The London Underground (October 12 2025) When we travelled to London, we used the Underground a lot but as a result I had absolutely no idea of the layout of London at all. In the early years of the Underground’s operation, starting from 1863, there was an ongoing danger of ‘choke damp’, a toxic mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. At first there was a multiplicity of private lines, but by 1907 many of them were brought under the umbrella of the Underground Electric Railways . Company, which was financed by the American investor Charles Yerkes (how galling!) In 1933 the decision was made to merge all the lines and buses into ‘London Transport’. Some lines were extended and new stations were designed, influenced by European modernism. The famous Underground Map was designed using the metaphor of an electrical network rather than a geographical representation (hence my confusion when we emerged into the open air!) During WW2 there was resistance at first to the idea of using them as bomb shelters because it was feared that people would stay there, but public pressure saw them opened up, even though it was not always safe underground – although surely safer than at ground level. During the 1960s and 1970s there was more emphasis on cars and highways, and the Underground fell into disrepair, leading to accidents during the 1970s and the fire at Kings Cross station in 1987. In 2000 ‘London Transport’ was transformed into Transport for London (TfL). In 2012 there was the suicide bombing described in John Tulloch’s book One Day in July (my review here). During the London Olympics, most people travelled by Underground, and the Elizabeth Line was opened 160 years after the first services commenced. Pretty amazing really, given that Melbourne has only just opened its fourth Underground station early this year.

Journey Through Time Episode 66 The Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Picasso and the Nazis (Episode 5) As well as a laboratory for totalitarianism, the Spanish Civil War also acted as a proving ground for German military equipment. This was particularly true of the three-hour aerial bombing of the market town of Guernica, carpet bombing at first, followed by incendiary bombing, then strafing the citizens as they ran away – a new form of war that was intended to break the morale of the citizens. The Italians, on the other hand, used Spain as a way of showing their massed manpower to project strength. The Republicans sorely needed a victory, which they gained at Brunete and Teruel with huge casualties, but then they gave up the advantage almost immediately. By this time Stalin’s support of the International Brigade was declining, and Republican observers were beginning to warn of the dangers of Germany and tried to raise funds to bolster the Republican side. The Battle of Ebro was the longest one of the war and again, after initial success by the Republicans, it got bogged down and culminated in four months of futility. In 1938 the International Brigades were ordered out, in the hope that Germany and Italy would withdraw- a rather mad, forlorn hope.

The Book Club I’ve heard the Goalhanger The Book Club advertised on other Goalhanger production (e.g. The Rest is History, The Rest in Politics) but I can’t find it on Podbean. It is hosted by historian and author Dominic Sandbrook and his producer on The Rest Is History, Tabitha Syrett. The first episode is Wuthering Heights: Passion, Violence and Revenge in the Moors. They hadn’t seen the movie at that stage, so they stuck to the book. They point out the nested narrators: the new tenant Mr Lockwood interrogates Nelly, who had worked at Wuthering Heights thirty years earlier, and she is not necessarily a reliable narrator. Despite the visual imagery of the moors, much of the action takes place indoors. It was already historical when it was written, and violence permeates the whole book. The book has doubling throughout, and the repetition of names from one generation to another is very confusing. They give a score at the end. Dominic gives it 7/10 and Tabitha gives it 7.5/10.

Short History Of… I’m interested when an American or British podcast deigns to tackle an Australian topic. The Australian Gold Rush starts with Rev Clarke’s discovery of gold in Australia in 1841 and 1844, and Governor Gipps’ suppression of the news because as a convict society, they feared that ‘we shall all have our throats cut’. However in 1849, after the California gold rush and the cessation of transportation in most states, Gipps changed his mind and instituted an incentive scheme where 10,000 pounds would be awarded for the first discovery. Edward Hargreaves, along with his guide, John Lister, and the two Tom brothers found gold at Lewis Ponds Creek, but Edward Hargreaves took all the glory (and the money). Hargreaves was made a Crown Land Commissioner, and the prerogative of renaming the location which he called the Ophir goldfields. The episode has a lot of emphasis on the effect of the gold rush on First Nations people with the ruination of the environment and the introduction of disease (I think that the diseases had been long introduced before that). Emphasis is also placed on the Native Police as the first law enforcers on the gold fields, something I didn’t know. It then deals with the Gold Rushes in what became Victoria, and the later small gold rushes in the other states.

Witness History The Storming of Spain’s Parliament I don’t know whether it was because the attempted coup occurred on 23 February 1981or whether it was prompted by the death Putsch leader Antonio Tejero hours after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declassified files detailing the seizure of parliament in Madrid. It was the second attempt at a putsch by the civil guard, and 350 members of Parliament were held captive for 18 hours. Eventually King Juan Carlos talked them down, and condemned the coup (although since then there have been questions over when the King was himself involved). It was a vivid demonstration of the fragility of Spain’s democracy which was at that stage only six years old, and it coincided with a change of democratically elected government- obviously a dangerous time!