Modern crises, traced back through power.
Explaining History is a serious, historically minded guide to power in the modern world. Its episodes move from Spain, Mesopotamia, Russia, China, Britain, and America toward larger questions about empire, ideology, democracy, and capital.
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Explaining History is a long-running modern history programme with a grave, analytical center. Its interest is not merely what happened, but what older conflicts reveal about the political world still being lived in. Episodes often begin with a current or familiar problem, then pull it backward through war, empire, finance, ideology, and class. The show is comfortable with complexity. It can spend time on the Arab peoples of Mesopotamia under Ottoman rule and British invasion, showing how local revolt, religious duty, civic pride, deserters, Bedouin forces, and imperial weakness produced unstable forms of autonomy. It can also turn to Spain, where the International Brigades become a way to examine working-class activism, anti-fascist politics, morale, and the strange seriousness of soldiers writing about political theory while preparing for battle. The scale keeps shifting. A local rebellion leads to imperial structure. A battlefield leads to political education. A financial reform leads to a theory of democracy. In episodes on Russia after communism, China after 1978, and capitalism without democracy, the programme keeps returning to the collision between markets and political legitimacy. It is skeptical of easy liberal stories about capitalism naturally producing freedom. It is equally interested in how states try to modernize societies without losing control of them. China’s reforms are discussed through Deng Xiaoping, rural poverty, communal land, market pricing, and the Communist Party’s fear that economic power might become political opposition. American and British politics appear as part of the same historical field. The centre-left, austerity, Corbyn, Mamdani, the Democrats, Labour, Bush Snr, Trump, and the post-1945 world order are treated as symptoms of larger transformations rather than isolated news items. The tone is serious, sometimes dry, and often openly judgmental about war, imperial violence, and financial power. It is not tidy. Its strength lies in accumulation: each episode adds layers until the present looks less accidental and more historically produced.
Made for: For listeners who like political history with substance: students, teachers, history readers, and anyone drawn to empire, capitalism, war, and ideology. It best suits people who do not mind slower argument and detailed context.
What sets it apart: Explaining History stands apart by treating economics, foreign policy, and political movements as one connected historical problem. Its episodes favor structural explanation over neat lessons, with enough skepticism to challenge familiar stories about democracy, markets, and empire.
How do we make sense of the modern world? We find the answers in the history of the 20th Century. For over a decade, The Explaining History Podcast has been the guide for curious minds. Host Nick Shepley and expert guests break down the world wars, the Cold War, and the rise and fall of ideologies into concise, 25-minute episodes. This isn't a dry lecture. It's a critical, narrative-driven conversation that connects the past to your present. Perfect for students, history buffs, and anyone who wants to understand how we got here. Hit subscribe and start exploring. Join us at Explaining History for daily modern history articles and news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Nick Shepley connects modern political conflicts to the institutions, ideologies and economic settlements that made them possible.
Explaining History follows power through institutions, political movements and economic systems, with Nick Shepley shifting comfortably between guest conversations and solo analysis.
Oscar campaigning turns into power politics, exactly where your movie-night curiosity starts getting nosy.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A letter-led account of morale, political education, and working-class solidarity among volunteers in Spain.
Explaining History approaches the International Brigades as a story of political commitment tested by military pressure. Centered on Tony Fox, organiser of the North East Volunteers for Liberty, and Remember Me to My Comrades, a new collection of letters from Spain to Britain,…
A focused account of Mesopotamian towns challenging Ottoman rule as British pressure reshaped the region.
The episode frames the Arab uprisings in Mesopotamia as a story of pressure from both sides: British forces moving up from Basra, while Ottoman authority still shaped daily politics in the region.
A wide-ranging historical review connecting Versailles, Russia, war communism, and Bolshevik utopianism.
The episode builds from John Maynard Keynes's view of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles into a wider reading of political and economic order.
A focused look at how French language and culture helped sustain French imperial power.
The episode frames French imperialism around a useful question: what did its organizers have to believe for empire to present itself as a civilizing mission?
A sober look at how postwar order was built, strained, and then came apart.
The episode treats the post-1945 order as something assembled in stages, defended in public, and now starting to fray. It moves from Bush's address and the warm accord with Gorbachev after Malta to the harder realities underneath: Lithuania, the Gulf conflict, and Bush's effort…
A hard look at how power thins out before conflict gets named.
Explaining History asks whether the present moment is tipping into a global conflict, then uses Richard Overy's Blood and Ruins to sort out what actually makes world wars world wars.
A sharp look at how the Oscars became a gatekeeper of taste, influence, and status.
Explaining History uses the Oscars as a way into the bigger story of how Hollywood turned an industry ceremony into a gatekeeper of taste, influence, and status.
Ottoman decline becomes a study of power, identity, and the state at the imperial center.
It frames the fall of the Ottomans after the Balkan Wars as a story about the imperial center, not only a battlefield defeat. From territorial losses in southeastern Europe, it moves into the way failure alters power in the metropole and pushes imperial subjects toward national…
Small things, real markets, strange incentives.
Markets, money, and Germany in motion.
This episode analyzes key economic and geopolitical trends of 2025, focusing on de-dollarization, tariffs, and the end of the 'Long 20th Century'.
Host Nick Shepley argues the post-Cold War world order established under George H.W.
This episode examines the reported rise of anti-Semitism in Canada, questioning the accuracy of claims that Montreal has become the anti-Semitism capital of North America and that Jews are the top target of hate crimes.
Host Nick Shepley interviews Dennis Broe about his new novel 'Pornocopia', which explores the historical rise of gambling and pornography industries in America.
This episode discusses the internal conflicts within Western capital one year into Trump's second term, while also highlighting wildfire research at the University of British Columbia and healthcare innovation in Ottawa.
Tony Fox discusses The International Brigades and the fight for Spain through his book Remember Me to My Comrades, which uses unpublished letters, diaries, and family archives from 20 British volunteers.
Explaining History examines how Arab communities in Mesopotamia responded when British forces invaded territory already ruled by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
Explaining History examines Russia’s 1991–93 shock therapy through John Gray’s comparison of Bolshevism and post-Soviet market reform as Western utopian projects.
The Explaining History episode examines Richard Overy's Blood and Ruins, which presents the Second World War as part of a wider Great Imperial War from 1931 to 1945.
Explaining History compares Zion Mamdani’s New York left politics with Jeremy Corbyn’s 2015–2020 Labour leadership and argues that Democratic and Labour establishments may pose greater obstacles than Republicans or Conservatives.
The episode treats the post-1945 order as something that held together in stages, not one steady settlement.
This episode examines China's rise as a global economic power, tracing its transformation from 1978 under Deng Xiaoping and comparing his legacy with Mao and Xi Jinping.
This episode explores the often-assumed but questionable connection between capitalism and democracy, examining how capital's interests have historically clashed with and often prevailed over democratic aspirations.
This episode speculates about a future without NATO, particularly if the U.S.
This episode explores how historical perspectives shifted after World War I, focusing on critiques of empire and the mandate system through Susan Peterson's book 'The Guardians'.
This episode explores the emergence of a multipolar world order and its potentially apocalyptic consequences for the West, focusing on current events in the Persian Gulf.
The host starts by asking whether a global conflict is already unfolding.
Monica Sandler joins Explaining History to discuss the Oscars and the making of Hollywood.
The host returns to the Ottoman collapse after the Balkan Wars.