Saul David
51 episodes listed below
PRESS PLAY
Monthly interviews with leading military historians
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Book-centered interviews turn campaigns and military careers into clear arguments about command, strategy and how historians interpret the past.
Saul David builds each conversation around a historian's current work, then presses beyond summary into the decisions that shaped campaigns and reputations.
Another Midway sounds tempting until you hear why Spruance kept his eyes on Saipan.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sober discussion of bomber crews, strategic air power, and uneasy wartime memory.
Patrick Bishop's Bomber Boys frames a careful discussion of British bomber crews, the strategic air campaign, and the uneasy place Bomber Command held in British wartime memory.
A focused Sword Beach discussion about leadership, preparation, and the shock of killing close up.
Max Hastings returns to D-Day by tightening the focus to Sword Beach and the 6th Airborne Division, using a contained part of the invasion to show how combat unfolds in detail and how leadership is tested under pressure.
A single date maps the British Empire at its height, and the resistance already forming beneath it.
Matthew Parker turns 29 September 1923 into a useful pressure point: the day the Palestine Mandate became law, and a way to see the British Empire at its widest reach.
A grounded conversation about U-boat conduct, Atlantic strategy, and the wartime stories that endure.
Roger Morehouse's Wolfpack frames the U-boat war as a test of combat rules as much as a campaign meant to choke Britain out of the war. The conversation draws strength from the research behind the book, especially Morehouse's account of working from raw material supplied by a…
A calm, thoughtful episode on research, restraint, and Rasputin's strange place in Russian history.
Saul David and Sir Anthony Beaver start with a neat bit of professional unease: how much a podcast interview should give away, and whether too much detail can blunt the appetite for a nonfiction book.
A focused, human account of Shaista Gull and the campaign to protect Afghans who worked for Britain.
Larissa Brown's account of The Gardener of Lashkar-Gar opens on the human cost of the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan in late August 2021, when Afghan former employees of the British, including Shaista Gull, were left exposed to the Taliban.
A grave, book-led Hiroshima conversation that is strongest on character, context, and consequence.
The episode uses a new book about Hiroshima to widen the frame beyond the bomb itself, tracing the wartime research race, the key people around it, and the decision to use it on 6 August 1945.
D-Day looks different when the naval battle takes center stage.
This episode shifts D-Day off the beach and onto the water around Normandy, where ships had to be swept, marked, bombarded, and kept moving before the shore could be taken.
Outnumbered units, remembered under fire.
Battle maps, war films, and patient context.
War news, tested against military reality.
Antique European history, read aloud.
Saul David speaks with James Holland and Al Murray about their new book, Victory 45, and the war's end in eight surrenders.
Jonathan Sumption discusses Triumphant Illusion, the fifth and final volume of his 43-year history of the Hundred Years’ War, with Saul David on Military History Club Podcast.
Saul David talks with Jack Bauscher about Thunder Run, Mechtila 1945 and the Burma campaign's push toward what the book describes as the greatest combined-arms manoeuvre battle of the Second World War.
Saul David welcomes Rob Lyman back to talk about Slim: Master of War, 20 years after publication.
Adam LeBor links his book The Last Days of Budapest, Spies, Nazis, Rescuers, and Resistance, 1940 to 1945 to more than 25 years living in Budapest, where he first saw bullet holes and shell scars on buildings in 1991.
Saul David and Roger Moorhouse discuss Wolfpack, which Roger says will be published on 9 October 2025, and Tunisgrad, which Saul says is due in early September.
Saul David speaks with historian Patrick Bishop about Patrick Bishop's book Paris 44: The Shame and the Glory, which was July's Book of the Month and drew praise from The Observer, the Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Saul David speaks with Sir Max Hastings about Operation Biting, the 1942 parachute assault on the German radar site at Bruneval, and why the raid mattered far beyond its small scale.
Saul David speaks with veteran editor Elio Gordon about 50 years in non-fiction publishing, including her work at Penguin, her move into freelance editing, and the military-history books that shaped her career.
Patrick Bishop discusses Bomber Boys with Saul David on the Military History Club podcast, timed to the release of Masters of the Air and the renewed attention on strategic bombing.
Saul David speaks with James Holland about The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy, 1943, with the discussion centered on why the Allies moved into Italy after Sicily.
Saul David welcomes Gordon Corrigan and opens with the question of whether the Duke of Wellington was Britain's greatest general.
Naval historian Nick Hewitt discusses his book 'Normandy: The Sailors' Story,' arguing that the crucial and prolonged naval campaign supporting the D-Day landings has been largely forgotten.
James Holland joins Saul David to discuss Casino 44: Five Months of Hell in Italy.
Historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore discusses his new book 'Battle of the Arctic', exploring the WWII convoy campaign to supply the Soviet Union.
Historian Roger Morehouse discusses his new book 'Wolfpack: Inside Hitler's U-Boat War' with host Saul David, examining German submarine warfare from research methods to strategic impact.
Author Iain MacGregor discusses his book 'The Hiroshima Men', which tells the story of the atomic bomb through key figures like the pacifist mayor of Hiroshima, General Leslie Groves, and pilot Paul Tibbets.
Author Henry Hemming discusses his book 'Four Shots in the Night', exploring the pivotal role of British intelligence and espionage in ending the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Historian and comedian Al Murray discusses his new book 'Arnhem: Black Tuesday' with host Saul David, focusing on the pivotal day of September 19, 1944, during the Battle of Arnhem.
Military history interview where Saul David discusses historian Richard Overy's book 'Reign of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Surrender of Japan.' Focuses on final six months of Far East war, examining American firebombing campaign under Curtis LeMay (removing weapons for incendiary payload, bombing at night from 5,000 feet, destroying 16 square miles of Tokyo).
29 September 1923 is where it turns.
Host Saul David interviews author and former paratrooper James Fenelon about his book 'Four Hours of Fury,' which details Operation Varsity, the largest airborne invasion of WWII.
Late August 2021 is the hinge.
Host Saul David interviews renowned military historian Max Hastings about his latest book, 'Sword,' which takes a micro-historical look at the D-Day landings at Sword Beach.
Saul David interviews Rob Gallimore, a former Welsh Guards major turned history teacher, about his combat experiences in Afghanistan.
Saul David speaks with Helen Carr, author of Septet Isle, The Red Prince, and co-editor of What Is History Now, about how she built a career in medieval history and broadcasting.
Saul David speaks with Evan Mawdsley about the Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944 and Mawdsley’s book, Supremacy at Sea, Task Force 58, and the Central Pacific Victory.
Sir Antony Beevor dodges the standard book-tour walk-through.
Saul David talks with historian Gary Sheffield about his career path, from Leeds University and King's College London to Sandhurst and his later work at King's.