Category Archives: Podcasts 2026

The Rest is History Episode 680 The Netherlands: The Revolt that made the Modern World This is Part 4 of their series on National Anthems and here they deal with the 15-verse National Anthem of the Netherlands. It was adopted in 1932 but it has the longest history of any of the national anthems. The tune came from 1568 and the lyrics from 1572 and rather amazingly, the first verse starts off, which is written in the voice of William of Nassau announcing that “To the king of Spain I’ve granted
A lifelong loyalty”. It was written at the start of the Dutch Revolt, where William was appointed Stadtholder by the Spanish Hapsburg king Phillip II but he turned against him in the face of increasing resentment of the influence of the Spanish crown. The first letters of the fifteen verses form an acrostic of William of Nassau’s name. He ended up being assassinated and is seen as the founding father of the Netherlands. This episode is really interesting- I knew nothing about it. Dutch Republican’s didn’t like it much because of the profession of loyalty in the first verse (which is pretty weird- your national song pledging loyalty to another country but during WW2 the Nazi’s really didn’t like the song, so it was taken up by and inspired the Dutch Resistance. It’s the oldest coherent song to become a national anthem.

In Our Time The Colombian Exchange I haven’t listened to In Our Time since Melvin Bragg retired, and I must say that the new host Misha Glenny sounds more with-it than poor old Melvin. This episode features Rebecca Earle Professor of History at the University of Warwick; John Lindo Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University and Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. The “Colombian Exchange” refers to the exchange of cultures and biology across the Atlantic and Pacific after 1492. When Columbus reached the Bahamas, Europe had no potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers or, arguably, syphilis in its most virulent form; the Americas had no cattle, bananas, sugar cane or smallpox. One of the male historians (can’t remember which) challenged the whole concept of a “Colombian Exchange”, preferring the term “The Great Dying” which seems apt given that 90% of the American population in 1492 had died within ten years. In 1492, Europe, Asia and the Americans had similar sized populations. There was already TB and syphilis in the Americas, but different strains (the syphilis was transmitted by skin contact rather than sex). The death rate through smallpox, measles and influenza (as well as killings) led to the abandonment of farming, and the resulting reforestation did change the carbon dioxide levels and may have contributed to the Little Ice Age. The explorers left breeding pairs of sheep so that they would have a food source when they returned, and slavery was introduced because of the number of deaths as a result of contact. The importation of food into Europe led to great wealth, which in turn was put into science.

Short History Of… The Battle of Stalingrad Going back to February 2025 for this one, featuring Sir Antony Beevor, whose book on Stalingrad is on the shelf behind me, unread. Named for Stalin, Stalingrad was an urbanized and industrialized city, despite the starvation in the rest of Russia wrought by Stalin’s policies. When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in 1942, he assumed that the Russians and Ukrainians who had suffered so much under Stalin would embrace the Germans with open arms. Not so. When Hitler absolved the German army of any crimes that they might commit against the Soviet soldiers, it quickly became very brutal. His intention was to starve the citizens into submission, then enslave them. In 1942 German turned its attention to the oilfields in the Caucasus, Stalin ordered no retreat, on pain of death (indeed 13,000 Soviet soldiers were to be executed for desertion). Hitler changed course and ordered instead the capture of Stalingrad. Stalin refused to allow the citizens to evacuate, so that the soldiers could be provisioned. New conscripts sent to Stalingrad counted their life-span in hours. When the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, the German troops were encircled, and so you had both Germans and Soviet troops battling it out in the city, while there were still 10,000 citizens in Stalingrad at the end of the 6 month siege in February 1943. It was the psychological turning point of the war, but Hitler refused to admit defeat, and so the war dragged on for another two years.

Journey Through Time David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell continue their analysis of Reality TV. In Episode 37 From the Kardashians to Donald Trump they return to Big Brother, which changed the paradigm by bringing in the audience. Filmed over 9 weeks, 24/7 this program used surveillance as entertainment, and changed the business model for Reality TV because the infrastructure that supported the format became a money-making venture in its own right. For example, in Big Brother there was an automated telephone line for voting people out (and note that it is voting them OUT on the basis of dislike, not IN) that used premium rates, and the phone line itself- owned by the production company- became very financially lucrative. There was ongoing pressure on the Reality TV producers to innovate by crossing boundaries e.g. encouraging women to have cosmetic surgery on ‘The Swan’ or meddling with people’s family history in ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Survivor was the next breakthrough. We’ve ended up in the situation where so-called ‘Reality’ TV is not real. Being a Reality TV celebrity is now a profession, and ‘celebrities’ are able to recycle through the spin-off shows. That then leads Olusoga and Churchwell to Donald Trump, and neither of them is a fan. When they were casting for ‘The Apprentice’, the producers considered Warren Buffett, Richard Branson and General Electric’s Jack Welch but in the end they settled for Trump, who was at that time bankrupt. Ironically Trump supporters still say that he was a successful business man but he wasn’t then. He was involved for 14 seasons and he has brought to his presidency the mindset of Reality TV. For example, when he was belittling Zelensky in the Oval Office (I can remember listening to the audio of that meeting with my mouth quite literally open- I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!) he actually said “This will be great TV”. Among the many other dubious ‘benefits’ AI can bring us will be algorithmically edited Reality TV which will edit the huge tranche of footage collected by a program for the type of Reality TV you prefer.

The Book Club Episode 26: Mafia and Mystery: is My Brilliant Friend the Greatest Novel of the Century? Apparently The New York Times writers poll placed My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante atop their list– number 1– amongst the 100 best books of the 21st century. Neither Dominic nor Tabby would go that far, but they did enjoy it. I read the whole quartet some time ago (see my review here) and I had forgotten that the first book started with the frame story of Elena in 2010 when Lina has disappeared. They pointed out the use of dialect in the novel, as distinct from standard Italian (something that probably doesn’t come through in a translation very well) and they emphasized the use of doubling in the book, right through to the Elena/Lenu and Lila/Lina names. The two girls do not have a fixed identity and they mimic each other even while they are rivals. Tabby notes that it is as if they are climbing a ladder together, with who is ‘in front’ changing constantly. Dominic gave it 8/10 (which is higher than I thought he would) and Tabby gave it 9/10 on the strength of its ability to show the complexity of female friendship. And as for me, well, it’s encouraged me to go back and watch the series again while it’s still available on SBS.

Tocqueville Road Trip Episode 3: Boundless continent. Reader, I subscribed to the Economist podcasts. As a result, I was able to hear Episode 3 where the presenter John Prideaux follows de Toqueville along the Erie Canal into Michigan, which in de Tocqueville’s time was the frontier. De Tocqueville wondered whether the frontier spirit would spoil the beauty of the environment. In 2026 Pridaux ends up in the township of Saline, where plans were afoot to build a huge data centre as part of Trump’s Stargate project, which will invest $500bn in AI. There he met with Kathryn Haushalter, who was trying to stop the construction of the data centre, but was on a hiding to nothing because excavation had already started and there was no way to stop it. Despite the ‘township’ being the smallest unit of democracy, it cannot obstruct government – nor did de Tocqueville think it should be able to obstruct it. Pridaux has some sympathy for Haushalter’s fight, but in the end sees data centres as just the latest manifestation of the restless energy of America (being an Economist podcast, I think they would say that). Eventually de Tocqueville and Pridaux both end up at Niagara Falls, where Pridaux observes that yes, the frontier spirit did spoil the beauty of the environment, although if you get past the commercial businesses, you can still feel the power of the falls.

Bukele: el señor de Los sueños I’m rather proud of myself for reaching the end of this series, spoken completely in Spanish (although I admit to having to read the Spanish transcript alongside it). I’ve been listening to it for literally months, with a long gap in between. I finally listened to Episode 6 today, where Bukele has stacked the court and congress sufficiently to obtain a consecutive period as president, even though this is explicitly outlawed in the constitution. There is a final Extra episode, where they discuss the way that Bukele has become a role model for other Latin American countries that want to ‘solve’ their problem with gangs. If you can speak Spanish, it’s really worth listening to. You can find all the Spanish episodes here.

The Daily El Nino is Back. And Worse Than Ever There’s a lot of talk about the upcoming El Nino event. This is a very clear episode featuring Chico Harlan, the global climate correspondent for The New York Times. He points out that the El Nino event takes place in a rectangle in the Pacific Ocean that stretches from the South American continent at Peru and across to Hawaii. Temperatures have already gone up .5 degree, and are expected to reach 2degrees- and maybe even 3 degrees- which makes it a mega El Nino. The effect is often seen in the years following the El Nino event (which is called El Nino because Peruvian native people noticed dead fish washing up on their shore in November/Dec and they called it El Nino de la Navidad – the child/son of Christmas). The problem is that we are facing a mega-El Nino at a time when we also have climate change, which is likely to make it more extreme. There is no scientific consensus over separating out El Nino from climate change: they may be affecting each other, or maybe not and we don’t have the records to prove whether El Ninos are becoming stronger. But perhaps 2027 with its mega El Nino will give us a preview of what is coming.

Journey Through Time Episode 36 The Art of Manipulation: The History of Reality TV Episode 2 Here Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga return to the American Family program from the 1970s that we left in Episode 1. The family featured, the Louds, already had a rocky marriage and the program showed a family undergoing a divorce. Many people began judging them, and as the first Reality TV victims the parents felt that they had to engage with the criticism. However, their gay son Lance was the first Reality TV star. He was already out to his family, but the show put a human face onto a social phenomenon. The BBC produced a similar show in 1974 called The Family, but unlike the American show, they chose a working class family, exposing the family to an open season of judgement. The next iteration of reality TV was a program called Living in the Past which had groups of adults and their children living in an Iron Age village c.200 BCE. They stayed there for 13 months- something that would not be allowed today, especially with children, but the camera was only there one day a week. What changed Reality TV was technological change. Film was expensive, and American Family required a 25 hrs of filming to generate 1 hour of television, and it took one year to edit. Once magnetic tape was invented, it was possible to film 1000 hours cheaply to generate that hour, and it could be computer-edited quickly . In 1992 MTV used this technology to present The Real World, where they brought in a group of young people into a plush apartment in different cities for each of their 33 (!!) seasons. The casting was manipulated to evoke conflict, and there was a ‘confession booth’ where the participants were interviewed. But it wasn’t just the cast that was manipulated: the audience was manipulated as well. It became increasingly gamified, with challenges set and the format was syndicated throughout the world.

Tocqueville Road Trip Episode 2: Against All Obstacles. Alexis de Tocqueville visited Sing Sing prison in the 1830s and in this episode John Prideaux, The Economist’s US Editor visits the prison in 2026. In spite of (or because of?) the American Dream that is supposedly available to everyone, Americans seem to be particularly censorious of those who choose the wrong path. Prideaux speaks with prisoners on the Sing Sing Prison College program which has reduced the 28% recidivism rate to only 2%. Tocqueville admired the spirit of voluntary organization in America in the 1830s, but nearly 200 years later this highly successful program remains in the hands of voluntary providers, and certainly does not extend to other states. I’m enjoying this series and this is the last free episode…will I splash out for digital access to the rest of it?

The Rest is History Continuing on with the series looking at the national anthems of teams likely to do well in the World Cup, now Dominic and Tom turn their attention to the German National Anthem with Episode 679 Germany: The Song Hitler Stole (Pt 3) . We tend to think of it as ‘Deutschland über alles’ but that is the first verse, that was sung during Nazi times, whereas the national anthem today uses the third verse. The tune was written by Haydn in 1797 based on a folk song and the words were originally God Save the Emperor (meaning the Austrian emperor) and it was known as the Austrian song. The tune was reused when German intellectual August Heinrich Hoffman wrote ‘The Song of the Germans’ in 1841- and note that ‘Germany’ didn’t exist at that time. The first verse ‘Deutschland über alles’ was an appeal for the separate German monarchs to combine to create one nation. Instead of being an incitement to domination as it was in Nazi Germany, it was a call for the ideal of Germany. Prussia had its own anthem- a direct rip-off of God Save the King and ‘The Watch on the Rhine’ was more popular. ‘The Song of the Germans’ just mouldered away until 1890s when it began to catch on, and it was taken up by WWI German soldiers. During the Weimar Republic there was debate over both the flag and the national song, and in a spirit of compromise, ‘The Song of the Germans’ and its first verse was adopted to appease the Right. The Horst Wessell song, which the Nazis sang alongside The Song of the Germans was an answer to the Internationale. After WW2 West Germany didn’t have an anthem at all, although Ode to Joy was used. In 1952 the third (not first) verse of the Song of the Germans was adopted. East Germany had a separate anthem but after the fall of the wall, it was decided to stick with the Third Verse version.

The History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs: Hindsight (Episode 7) Twenty five years after the bombings and this final episode of the series (there is one additional spin-off episode) returns to the journalists they have interviewed over the previous six episodes to ask: who do you think bombed the apartments? Some journalists (one called David- couldn’t catch the surname) think that the bombs were the work of experts and the only people who had that expertise were FSB. Scott Anderson who wrote the article called ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ can’t prove it but he thinks that Putin was behind the bombings. Yevgeny Kiselyov who was involved with the television program following the failed Ryazan bombing thinks that the FSB was involved, and that there were other suspicious deaths as well. However, journalist Steven Lee Myers from the NYT thinks that it’s a conspiracy theory. Putin didn’t need to order the bombings, and the Chechen war had already started. He thinks that it was Chechen terrorists, who also captured theatres and blew up schools and planes. BBC’s Gordon Corera thinks that it’s plausible that it was the FSB but just doesn’t know. Andrew Harding, also from the BBC is puzzled by the failed Ryazan bombing and says that there is no clear answer. He has spent time with Chechan leaders, and believes that if an opportunity presented itself, Chechnya would take it, so it’s not impossible. But what if it was BOTH an FSB and Chechen act? Steven Lee Myers thinks that the FSB was so corrupt that it could collaborate with terrorists if the price was right. Even if we had proof now, 25 years later, nothing would change. Jeremy Vine of the BBC reminds us that we need to remember the context- the West wanted to have a positive view of Russia’s future. But the bombings aren’t forgotten: at a 2024 Crocus City Hall attack, ‘Ryazan’ and ‘sugar’ surged as search terms again. So the story is still alive.

Journey Through Time The History of Reality TV Episode 1: Why We’re Obsessed with the Traitors. Well I’m not- in fact, I think that Traitors is only just reaching Australia now? This episode from October 7 2025 starts with historian David Olusoga talking about why he agreed to appear on the UK version. We tend to think of reality TV as a recent phenomenon, but it actually started with radio in 1947 with Candid Microphone, hosted by Allen Funt. This spawned Candid Camera, which I remember, which was made possible by 16mm cameras. The first ‘fly on the wall documentary’ was An American Family which heralded the convergence of reality TV and documentary. Filming began in 1971 for PBS and it featured the Louds (hah!), a couple with their five children . The 1970s were a period of social experimentation (e.g. the Milgram experiment) and the Louds became the first reality TV stars.

The Global Story I don’t normally list the Global Story episodes that I listen to because they’re often quite topical. However, the episode The US-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Deal: Could it all go wrong? deals with what seems to be the dead-in-the-water nuclear deal that Trump decided to make conditional on Saudi Arabia signing up to the Abraham Accords, which I can’t see happening. However, it goes back in time as well. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner points out that it was the United States that gave Iran its first nuclear reactor back in 1967. Other Middle East countries are likely to feel miffed: Egypt, Türkiye and UAE don’t have enrichment facilities. The differing fates of Libya and North Korea show the difference between holding a warhead (or 60 warheads) or not.

The episode Is Cuba Waging a ‘campaign of subversion’ against the US? challenges the 100 page report issued by the US. State Department.Michael Bustamante, a professor of history at the University of Miami discusses the report, which sees Cuba as the capital of 21st century capitalism. Although Cuba has a long history of support to left wing and communist movements, especially through the 1966 Tri-Continental Conference (Africa, Latin America, Black nationalism), and even though it has had high level espionage capability in the past, Bustamante does not agree that Cuba is the existential threat to the United States that the report suggests. By the way, I recently saw a good YouTube documentary called Cuba After Castro: The Island in the Crosshairs. It only premiered in June 2026 and it features Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s first leader born after the Revolution. It goes for about an hour and a half, and it’s really worth watching.

Past Present Future This program, which I have only just discovered, is undertaking a series on The History of Bad Ideas. In this first episode they look at Hysteria. Hysteria has a very long history, described differently at different times- sometimes as an expression of saintliness, other times as a form of possession or madness. It only tends to be applied to women, especially ‘unwomanly’ women. Men don’t want the diagnosis of hysteria, and men were instead described as melancholic or neurasthenic, or in later times shell-shocked. Men may be described as being hypochondriacs, but they still have agency: they are asking ‘what is wrong with ME?’ and distinct from ‘what is wrong with HER?’ French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot saw it as a form of epilepsy, with hypnosis as a form of diagnosis. Freud actually listened to his hysterics but he imposed his own narrative on what he heard. But might not hysteria be a reasonable response to sexual trauma. Later in the 19th century feminists embraced the term for a woman who didn’t fit in. The DSM removed ‘hysteria’ as a category, now using the term ‘conversion disorder’ or ‘histrionic personality disorder’. But how much grace do we give people if there isn’t a clinical disorder?

The Rest is History 678 : Britain- God Save the King Continuing on with their series on the national anthems of World Cup contenders, Dominic and Tom turn their attention to God Save the King. (All my life it has been God Save the Queen). Unlike the French and American anthems, God Save the King does not celebrate revolution, clinging instead to an image of King and God. An anthem is strictly speaking a musical setting for a biblical text, sacralizing the idea of a national song. No-one really knows who wrote it. It was thought for a while that it was written by very British composer Purcell, but in the 16th century it was said to be written by the appropriately-named John Bull. It has been thought that it might have referenced Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arrival off the coast of Scotland in 1745, bringing into conflict the Stuart vs. Hanoverian visions of monarchy. God Save the King erupted on the national stage in Drury Lane. It went viral, but people still didn’t know who wrote it. Was it a Jacobite anthem? But how to explain the Hanoverian spirit of the 2nd verse? The melody was adopted by other European states. However, it has fallen out of favour somewhat. In 1941 Orwell was ashamed of it, and the Sex Pistols had their own version. People sneer at it because it is a boring dirge, and Republican and secular politics see it as problematic. And how about the World Cup, where Scotland and Wales compete in their own right? Scotland could have the song ‘Flower of Scotland’ and perhaps ‘Jerusalem’ might be a good song for England (as distinct from Britain).

The War Game The Grey Zone Episode 5 Cyber Power (Part II) Hacking ISIS Well, after all these episodes about Russia hacking us, it was almost a relief to hear about how ‘we’ (i.e. Western democracies) are fighting back. ‘Cyber power’ is not something online or ‘in’ your computer, but instead it is the use of the online environment to change things in the real world. The line between cyber attack and information attack is a blurry one. The problem is that the West is legally and ethically constrained, but our enemies are not. In a Cyber War things stop rather than escalate. Russia is viewed as an acute threat; China is more of a chronic threat. ‘We’ (i.e. US and UK) were able to disrupt ISIS recruitment and battlefield communication, and even though they are no longer ‘dark’, they are less available on platforms.

The History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs 6: The Trial In 2003, four years after the apartment bombs, there was a trial of the suspected bombers. Mikhael Trepashkin, who believed that the ‘Chechnyan terrorists’ was a cover-up for FSB involvement , went to a journalist at the Moscow News before planning to appear at the trial to present his evidence. A few days before the trial he was arrested. The trial went ahead without him; the two ‘terrorists’ were found guilty and the case sealed for 75 years. Trepashkin was tried for possession of FSB material and two bullets (which he claims were planted on him) and sentenced to four years jail. Putin was elected for a second time with 70% of the vote. The template for Russian coverup was established: move fast; flood the media; and then seal any investigations. Ten years later Scott Anderson wrote about the bombings in an article called ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ but GQ spiked the story and would not allow it to be published online although it did reappear later.

Short History Of… The Silk Roads (broadcast 23 Feb 2026) Note that ‘s’ in Silk RoadS because there were multiple silk roads, forming a lattice of networks over about 1000 years, spreading from the steppes in the north, Afghanistan in the south and reaching across to Persia and later the Mediterranean in the west, and China in the east. We know of the roads from 9th century BCE with trade between the Greeks and Persians, and in 4th century BCE Alexander the Great travelled along them. Coming from the opposite direction, in 2th century BCE the Han dynasty in China sent an envoy to see what was beyond the steppe horsemen who were blocking their progress, and he came home with tales of wealth and plenty. Now the Han knew that they were just one corner of a global path. Because of danger, traders would form caravans, stopping at pluralistic way-stations along the way. In the 2nd century CE there was a rare period of peace when the Romans, Parthians, Kushans and Han all wanted peace. Trade and goods moved across the Silk Roads, but so did ideas, particularly religious ideas – for example in the depiction of the Buddha. Maths, cartography, artistic systems, astrology all moved across west and east. In late antiquity (approx 550 to 1000 CE) the Sogdians from modern-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan began operating over huge distances, instead of the small relay-like journeys that had been undertaken in the past. By 610CE the rise of Islam brought new political and social networks, as Arabic became the lingua franca and as pilgrims moved along the silk roads. By the 11thcentury CE the Crusades brought a new age of war fuelled by faith. In the 13th century the Mongols sought to impose the world’s largest contiguous empire. In 1279 Marco Polo traversed the road to meet with Kublai Khan. In the mid 14th century, the Black Death travelled along the Silk Roads. By the 15th century, under the Ottoman Empire, ships linked ports between Europe, Asia and Africa and the dominance of the Silk Roads faded. In the 19th century European explorers and archaeologists rediscovered them. Today, there are new versions of the silk roads, with trains traversing the land, and modern versions like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or India’s Cotton Route replicating the crossing of the original Silk Roads. Features Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at Oxford University, and author of The Silk Roads.

Short History of… The East India Company. All this talk of Singapore and the East India Company drew me to this Short History episode from July 2025. When the upper class of Britain demanded the spices from East India, merchants were dependent on middlemen to procure them for them. On 31 December 1600 the East India Company received a royal charter which carried the authority of the English Crown without the Crown having to assume financial responsibility for its activities. Their charter enabled them to establish ‘factories’, comprising fortified warehouses, a residence and officer’s mess, in specific locations. In 1610 it adopted a Joint Stock structure which allowed a generalized investment, instead of funding an individual voyage. When the Dutch and English came into conflict in the East Indies, the East India Company looked to India instead as a new source of markets. They undertook a new approach with the Nawabs: at first they were defensively armed but eventually they had 250,000 Mughals under their banner. The Mughals thought that they had control over the East India Company instead of the other way around, but by the early 18th the Mughal empire was fracturing. In 1744 eighteen-year-old Robert Clive arrived in India, first as a clerk then as an army officer. He became involved in Nawab politics and battles, and in 1765 was given taxing power first in Bengal, and then later throughout the provinces as well. At its peak the East India Company controlled half of all global trade. It extended further between 1760 and 1830 and turned itself to the ‘civilizing mission’ of Anglicizing India. However, by 1772 it had to be bailed out of financial trouble and in 1773 was constrained by the Regulating Act which installed Warren Hastings as Governor General in Bengal (or was it just governor, Barry Jones?) In 1787 Hastings was impeached after a 7 year trial. In 1784 the India Act renewed the East India Company’s charter but increasingly stripped back its power. In 1824 the Company banned suttee, and in 1833 lost its tea monopoly. It lost further prestige with the Opium Wars and the 1857 Indian Mutiny when a patchwork of mutinies was repressed viciously. By now the East India Company was no longer trusted to rule and in 1859 it was overtaken by the Crown. In 1874 it was dissolved, but its intellectual framework remained.

Tocqueville Road Trip. Unfortunately only two episodes of this series seem to be available, but I’m enjoying it so far. It’s presented by The Economist, where the Economist’s US editor John Prideaux uses Alexis De Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America as a guidebook as he travels around Trump’s America. ADT (my initials for Alexis De Tocqueville) was in America for 9 months in 1831 where he visited 17 of the 24 states, filling 14 notebooks with his observations. At this time, America was the first modern society without an arisocracy, and ADT writes about the “idea” of America, where democracy was a social phenomenon rather than a political one, underpinned by the equality of conditions. In Episode 1 Game of Chance Prideaux follows De Tocqueville to New York where he, like ADT was hosted by New York’s elite. ADT met President Andrew Jackson – Trump’s favourite president (ADT was not impressed) but Prideaux had to settle for a function at the Lincoln Centre attended by New York arts luminaries. He speaks with two very wealth New Yorkers: Babara Tober, Philanthropist and former Editor of Brides magazine and John Catsimatidis, CEO of Red Apple Group. The latter in particular has become very Trumpist. Prideaux observes that most Americans say that they would rather live in the past, and a majority of people view their fellow citizens as morally bad. Objectively the United States is more equal than in ADT’s time so why have so many Americans lost faith in it?

How Did We Get Here? Israel and the Palestinians Episode 9: From the Second Intifada to Netanyahu’s Re-election. This episode features two journalists who have reported from Israel and the Occupied Territories: journalist and film-maker Jane Corbin, who has been reporting from the region for more than 30 years, and by the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen. The second Palestinian intifada, or uprising – bloodier than the first – began on the West Bank and in Gaza in 2000 and lasted till 2005. It resulted in the deaths of over 4000 Palestinians about 1500 Israelis (this 3:1 ratio is much lower than the death ratio that we’ve seen in Gaza recently). It was triggered by the visit of Likud’s Ariel Sharon to the Al Aqsa mosque, but was grounded in the failure of the Oslo Accords. At first the Palestinian protests were unarmed, but when met with a heavy Israeli response, the violence increased. By 2001 Sharon was Prime Minister, replaced Labor’s Ehud Barak. Suicide bombings in Israel led to a heavy response in the West Bank, and the erection of a wall, not on the Green Line but jutting into Palestinian land. Arafat found himself isolated in Ramullah before his death in 2004, leading to the rise of new groups. In 2005 Sharon ordered disengagement in Gaza- somewhat surprising given that he was from Likud, but he was aware of the demographic timebomb in Gaza and thought it best to withdraw. Hamas arose in 2004, at first providing social services, and in 2006 it won elections in Gaza. There was a brief civil war in 2007 between Hamas and Fatah. The US, Israel and the ‘Quartet’ (United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations) all opposed Hamas. In 2009 Netanyahu became Prime Minister for the second time. He had always been opposed to a two-state solution, but he has waxed and waned in his approach and at first he saw Hamas as a counter to Fatah. He has always been confident of US support, to the extent of disregarding Barak Obama’s request not to address Congress.

War Games Grey Zone Episode 4 Cyber Power (Part I) Cyber Pearl Harbour. The National Cyber Security Centre has identified three types of cyber threats: 1. Theft of money or data 2. Attacks for strategic advantage e.g. the theft of a huge cache of US data on public servants, including fingerprints, by China; or the planting of spyware. 3. Cyber destruction to cause physical harm. So far this hasn’t happened, although there are signs of it with the Russian cyber attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure. It’s unlikely that there will be a huge, one-off event like Cyber Pearl Harbour or Cyber 9/11: instead it’s more likely that there will be a drip, drip. They then go on to talk about the May 2017 WannaCry attack, blamed on North Korea, which seriously impacted the UK’s NHS because they were using old computers. They also speak with Marcus Hutchins, a young hacker employed by a computer company, who was able to reverse engineer WannaCry.

The Rest is History Episode 677 The Star-Spangled Banner Tom and Dominic are doing a series on National Anthems and they start off with that impossible-to-sing anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. No wonder it’s impossible: it has 19 semi-tones. It was written in the 1812 war with Britain (a war largely forgotten except in Canada) and it was originally called The Defence of Fort McHenry. At the time the stars-and-stripes consisted of 15 stars and 15 stripes, and Fort McHenry had a huge 42×30 ft flag which was taken down at night and raised every morning in defiance of the British- so despite the impression given in the song, it wasn’t fluttering all night getting shot at. The tune was “The Anacreontic Song” which was used by 80 other songs with different words. The words to the anthem were written by Francis Scott Key. Even though it’s not explicitly there in the song as it is usually sung, Tom and Dom acknowledge that there are racist overtones in the lyrics with its mention of “the hireling and slave” in the third verse, especially as American slaves who escaped to the British military during the war, were offered freedom and the opportunity to join the Corps of Colonial Marines to fight against U.S. forces. Also Key was a slaveowner in his own right, and a statue of him was toppled in 2016. By the end of WWI there was still no U.S. anthem with ‘Hail Columbia’ and ‘American the Beautiful’ sung as patriotic songs. In 1931 the Star Spangled Banner became the national anthem but it has always been controversial.

Stuff Matters LEDs: How a little blue light changed the world Prompted by a cheap throw-away flashing wrist band at a sporting game, Ed Conway considers the millions and millions of LEDs in the world. Light Emitting Diodes had been invented earlier and promised a huge saving in energy costs, given that unlike incandescent lighting which emits only 5-10% of its energy as light (as distinct from heat) most of its energy is expressed as light. Red and green LEDs had been invented earlier, but the holy grail was a blue LED. After years and years of experimentation largely at his own expense and time, in 1979 inventor Shuji Nakamura finally successfully invented the blue light, which could provide the white light we know today. Fortunately he finally received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014. But would it run into the Jevons Paradox i.e. the phenomenon that when technology becomes more efficient, do we actually use less of it, or simply find new ways to consume more? Will we just innovate our way into more consumption? Fortunately, it seems that the Jevons Paradox doesn’t apply here. In rich countries LED has cut electricity usage even though LED use has become even more pervasive, and in poor countries where electricity use has finally arrived, there has been less energy use that would have occurred with incandescent lighting. LED may have broken the Jevons Paradox, but it is unique in having such a strong effect.

How Did We Get Here? Israel and the Palestinians Episode 8: From the First Intifada to Camp David featuring presenter Jonny Dymond, the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen, and Mark Tessler, Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, and five years later we saw the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising with kids throwing stones. Arafat, at that time in Algiers, was surprised by the uprising but things had changed with the significant immigration of Russian Jews to Israel. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait in the First Gulf War, leading to United States involvement and evoking anti-US feeling. The Madrid Conference of 1991 saw George H. W. Bush trying to revive the Israel/Palestinian peace process, which was made easier by the Labor party’s return, which had a policy of supporting a two-state solution. There were two Oslo Accords signed- the first in 1993 and the second in 1995. However, there were protests against the Accords on both the Jewish and Palestinian sides and in 1995, the Israel Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist. Likud came back into power, but was defeated in 1999 by Ehud Barak who worked with Bill Clinton for the Camp David Accords- the last roll of the dice. The talks collapsed and Likud won again.

The History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs Episode 5: The Investigator “As Putin’s power grows, American journalist Scott Anderson returns to the story of the 1999 apartment bombings. Only one man will speak to him: Mikhail Trepashkin. Once KGB, then FSB, Trepashkin used to believe fiercely in the system he served. Now, drawn into the mystery surrounding the bombings, he follows the evidence into the shadows where police sketches don’t match suspects, allies end up dead and the cost of digging deeper into the FSB’s activities keeps rising. In this episode, Helena speaks to Scott about the investigator turned whistleblower who refused to give up.” After Trepashkin tried to alert Yeltsin, he was sacked from the KGB and so he used his skills as a lawyer to work on an independent enquiry set up by MPs and represented one of the victims. However, on the case reaching court he found that the files had been cleaned out. The committee dissolved when commissioners began being poisoned. It’s not good to be an opponent of Putin.

The History of Singapore Episode 3: The 99% When the British East India Company set up a trading point in Singapore in 1891, there were only about 1000 people on the island. After the signing there was an influx of Bugis from Indonesia, attracted to Singapore as a port city. Trade and piracy were two sides of the same coin: it would be ‘trade’ if conditions were good or ‘piracy’ if conditions were bad. Singapore soon became the Port Royal of the East Indies, as alcohol, drugs (especially opium) and coolie labour replacing piracy as a source of wealth. Coolie labour from China brought many dialect-speaking Chinese to Singapore, and by 1900 three-quarters of the Chinese population were dialect speakers. The Bugis were exploited and oppressed by the British, while Indian immigrants, mostly from South India, moved into the merchant and money changing professions where they largely allied themselves with the British- the 1%. The British were happy to be hands-off, and the Chinese secret societies moved into the vacuum, keeping control of their members and clashing with other secret societies. Singapore became a Crown Colony in 1867, with a governor, executive council and legislative council. In 1877 the British government imposed the Chinese Protectorate to control the Chinese community, and it suppressed most of the secret societies. Voluntary associations arose, often linked by family, occupational and professional networks. In 1889 the Chinese Advisory Board was appointed to report to the governor, and merchants with status and wealth competed for influence. In 1906 the Chinese Chamber of Commerce was formed, and it became a form of Chinese parliament. After WW2 politics continued to draw on this ‘association’ model.