History As It Happens

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 16-minute episode (or preview 6 minutes).
President Trump is the eighth U.S. president to visit China since Richard Nixon's bold gamble to establish diplomatic relations with the Communist country in 1972. During his two-day summit with Xi Jinping last week, Trump's first China trip since 2017, the two leaders praised one another and discussed several pressing issues, but they came away with few, if any, substantive breakthroughs. Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft offers his post-summit analysis.

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
The Nazis' official name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which may seem a strange choice given Hitler's ferocious hostility toward Marxism and Communism. Yet many right-wing pundits and politicians today argue that the Nazis were a left-wing movement opposed to capitalism, as evidenced by the party's name, rhetoric, and policies. Is it true? Historian Roger Griffin, one of the world's leading experts on fascism, is here with a nuanced take on these historical ambiguities.
Recommended reading:
Fascism: A Quick Immersion by Roger Griffin

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
What emerged as a national movement to liberate Europe's Jews by establishing a Jewish homeland has become a racist, irrational, vengeful state ideology worthy of history's dustbin, contends historian Omer Bartov in his new book, "Israel: What Went Wrong?"
Bartov, an expert on the Holocaust and genocide at Brown University, was among the first major historians to warn that Israel's destruction of Gaza could turn genocidal. He argues that decades of the occupation of Palestinian territories (since 1967) had already inured most Israeli Jews to the suffering of others before the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023. Today, he says those feelings have hardened into outright hostility or utter indifference.
Where did it start going wrong? Bartov points to Israel's founding: David Ben-Gurion's opposition to writing a constitution and to defining the new state's borders.
History As It Happens Premium costs $5/month or $50/year. 10-day free trial, cancel any time. Subscribe here: https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 18-minute episode (or preview 6 minutes).
Two and a half months after President Trump ordered U.S. forces to bomb Iran, there is no war, no peace, and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed at both ends. The global economy is staggering from the loss of energy resources (oil and natural gas) that normally traverse the strait. Iran wants to establish its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz as part of any settlement. What's actually happening out there? The Wall Street Journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov joins us from Dubai, which faces the Persian Gulf.

Subscribe now for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content!
Lebanon, a small country on the Mediterranean coast that cannot defend its borders, is once again stuck in a hellacious bind, between Hezbollah fanaticism and Israeli destruction. Since its long civil war (1975-90), sectarian strife and foreign occupation have intermixed with economic mismanagement and political paralysis, leaving Lebanon in a near-permanent state of crisis. In this episode, Maha Yahya of Carnegie Middle East Center joins us from Beirut to explain the causes of the country's deep domestic problems.
Recommended reading:
Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon by Robert Fisk