History As It Happens

Subscribe now to enjoy ad-free listening and bonus content. Keep the narrative flow going in 2026! It wasn't very long ago when U.S. policymakers relied on a species of grand strategist known as the Sovietologist. It was the Cold War, and the strategies for dealing with the USSR ranged from containment to rollback, to détente and peaceful bridge-building. Zbigniew Brzezinski formulated the latter. President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser was an ardent anti-communist with a pragmatic streak, whose goal was to accelerate the breakup of the Soviet Empire. He also supported Palestinian autonomy, and after the Cold War, Brzezinski backed NATO expansion in Eastern Europe while criticizing the excesses of the global war on terror. In this episode, the Financial Times' Edward Luce discusses his timely biography, Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet. Also read: Martin Di Caro's review of Luce's book for Responsible Statecraft.  

Subscribe for 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Non-subscribers may listen to only the 40 most recent episodes. President Trump's harsh immigration crackdown would not be possible without a militarized law enforcement apparatus that presidents and legislators of both political parties built over decades. Even before the 9/11/2001 terrorist strikes, immigration began to be viewed as a national security concern requiring billions to beef up enforcement and deportations, while sensible immigration reform failed to pass Congress time and again. In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri explores the origins of today's crisis as President Trump's federal paramilitary force terrorizes American communities. Jeremi Suri teaches history at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He writes the newsletter Democracy of Hope and co-hosts This is Democracy podcast. Subscribe to History As It Happens Premium: www.historyasithappens.com Further reading: ICE Needs the DOGE Treatment by Jeremi Suri (Wall Street Journal)  

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 28-minute episode. (Or preview 7 minutes). On the streets of Minnesota, a federal paramilitary force in combat gear is executing a deliberate policy of terror and violence against American citizens and their immigrant neighbors. The lawless conduct of President Trump's immigration enforcers has supercharged a debate that's been roiling since 2016: Is Trumpism a form of fascism? In this episode, historian Roger Griffin argues that American (and global) democracy is under assault not from a resurgence of fascism, but from anti-liberal forces and ideas at odds with the universal values that were supposed to gain ascendance after 1945: democracy, human rights, and tolerance.

Subscribe now for 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes, ad-free listening, and bonus content. Non-subscribers may listen to only the 40 most recent episodes. The Trump administration's National Security Strategy calls for "flexible realism" in foreign policy, a supposed departure from the military adventurism that led to disasters in the Greater Middle East. Realism prioritizes national interests rather than ideology or high principles, such as democracy and human rights. Is Donald Trump a realist? What are the historical origins of realism? What are its opposites? In this episode, scholars Linda Kinstler and Stephen Wertheim break it down. Linda Kinstler is a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine and a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Recommended reading: The Theory That Gives Trump a Blank Check For Aggression by Linda Kinstler (New York Times)

Subscribe now to enjoy ad-free listening and bonus content. Keep the narrative flow going in 2026! This month Iran's clerical leaders and security forces spilled oceans of blood to suppress mass demonstrations after Iranians took to the streets to protest the regime's economic and political failings. Systematic violence has always been a tool utilized by the Islamic Republic to enforce obedience, but never in its history have Iran's leaders killed so many people in a short amount of time, if an estimated death toll of at least 10,000 — possibly 20,000 — is accurate. In this episode, historian Naghmeh Sohrabi examines the origins of a regime whose current government is desperately trying to hold onto power by killing thousands of its people. Recommended reading: These Are the True Things — Naghmeh Sohrabi's Substack about Iran/Middle East  How much longer can Iran's Islamic Republic survive? by Ali Ansari (New Statesman) Iran's coming reckoning by Siamak Namazi (Middle East Institute) Iran's ayatollah will fall — but the road may be long and deadly by Simon Sebag Montefiore (The Times of London)

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 37-minute episode. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the rules-based order is being ruptured by powerful countries who prefer coercion over negotiation. The following day, as if on cue, President Donald Trump broadcast his obsession with acquiring Greenland, although he said he would not use force. In this episode, the Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven discusses the potential dangers when the world's most powerful leader seems to believe preposterously false ideas, such as the imaginary threat posed to Greenland by Russia or China. Editor's note: After this podcast was published, President Trump said he was dropping his threat to impose tariffs on European allies as a way of obtaining Greenland through economic pressure.  Non-subscribers may preview 12 minutes of this episode. Don't miss out! Subscribe: historyasithappens.supercast.com Recommended reading: Trump's new 'gangster' threats against Greenland cross line by Anatol Lieven (Responsible Statecraft)

Subscribe now to enjoy ad-free listening and bonus content. Keep the narrative flow going in 2026! This is the first in an occasional series of episodes (one or two per month) marking the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In January 1776, a pamphlet printed in Philadelphia became an instant sensation. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" was a provocative attack on the British constitution and hereditary monarchy, and a call for American colonists to seek independence. In this episode, historian Lindsay Chervinsky, the executive director of Mount Vernon's George Washington Presidential Library, takes us back to the ideas and arguments that made a revolution. Recommended reading: To Make the World Again by Lindsay Chervinsky (Imperfect Union on Substack) Common Sense (contextus.org)

Subscribe now to enjoy ad-free listening. Keep the narrative flow going in 2026! Greenland's geostrategic importance to the United States has been evident since the Second World War, when FDR sent U.S. forces to occupy the island and capture German weather stations on its eastern shore. After WWII, President Harry Truman, in secret, offered to buy Greenland from Denmark, but Denmark turned him down. As the Cold War froze in 1949, the two nations became official allies under the NATO treaty. Today, despite having access to Greenland under a 1951 agreement, President Donald Trump is threatening to seize it, claiming falsely that if Washington doesn't act, Russia and China will. Mikkel Olesen of the Danish Institute for International Studies tries to make sense of this madness. Recommended reading: The history of U.S. presence in Greenland by Mikkel Olesen

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 30-minute episode. Since U.S. forces snatched Nicolàs Maduro and hauled him to New York, Americans have been asking questions about Venezuela, especially after the Trump administration announced its plans to run the country's moribund oil industry. Are U.S. oil firms clamoring to exploit Venezuela's enormous petroleum reserves? Does the global market need more oil? In this episode, historian Giuliano Garavini of Roma Tre University explains it all. He's an expert on the Global South, energy, and natural resources. Non-subscribers may preview 5 minutes of this episode. Subscribe: historyasithappens.supercast.com  

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. In the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, the name Jacobo Arbenz is forgotten in the United States. Not so in Guatemala, where the democratically elected leftist was toppled in a CIA-backed coup in 1954. Arbenz had angered United Fruit Company. More than 70 years before the U.S. abducted Nicolàs Maduro to seize control of Venezuela's oil, there was a coup over bananas. Historian Julia Young is our guest.

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. President Donald Trump is hailing a new era of U.S. dominance and coercion over the Western Hemisphere, starting with his illegal invasion and oil grab in Venezuela. In his remarks following the abduction of Nicolàs Maduro, Trump mentioned the importance of the Monroe Doctrine before offering his own twist on it: the 'Donroe' Doctrine. Most Americans learn about President Monroe's 1823 policy in school and then rarely think about it again. Time for a refresher, with University of Missouri historian Jay Sexton, who specializes in the political and economic history of the nineteenth century. Further reading: Excerpts of the Monroe Doctrine (Gilder Lehrman Institute)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Is Holocaust memory over? Genocide scholars Dirk Moses and Omar McDoom discuss whether elite political and media classes are cheapening the lessons of history by invoking the Holocaust to justify Israel's destruction of Gaza. The emotional issue has led to strife on college campuses, media shouting matches, and craven political cowardice as Palestinian society was pummelled. Dirk Moses teaches history at City College of New York. Omar McDoom is a political scientist at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Recommended reading: Is Holocaust Memory Over? by Dirk Moses (The Diasporist) It's Hamas' Fault, You're an Antisemite, and We Had No Choice: Techniques of Genocide Denial in Gaza by Omar McDoom (Journal of Genocide Research) The Growing Rift Among Holocaust Scholars Over Israel/Palestine by Shira Klein (Journal of Genocide Research) Introduction: Gaza and the Problems of Genocide Studies by Dirk Moses (Journal of Genocide Research)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Breaking news: The Trump administration ordered U.S. forces to invade Venezuela and kidnap its president, Nicolàs Maduro, who was indicted on narcotics-related charges in the United States. The operation violated international law, and the White House did not bother to consult Congress, either. It was the culmination of a months-long pressure campaign designed to oust Venezuela's autocratic leader with the aim of exploiting the country's vast oil and gas reserves, despite all the phony allegations regarding drug trafficking. In this episode, historian Alex Aviña says the attack and abduction are unprecedented, even when taking into consideration the long pattern of U.S. interventionism in Latin America.

This episode was first published in May 2025. New episodes will resume on January 6, 2026.  Keep the narrative flow going in the new year! Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Original show notes: President Donald Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act during peacetime is unprecedented, a part of his larger effort to portray undocumented immigrants as wicked and threatening as he seeks to deport them en masse. What is not unprecedented is the federal government weaponizing the law to shred constitutional protections and civil liberties. During the Second World War, the administration of Franklin Roosevelt arrested and incarcerated Italians, Germans, and Japanese aliens under the 1798 statute, but also interned roughly 100,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry — one of the most egregious violations of civil rights in U.S. history. In this episode, the eminent historian David M. Kennedy takes us back to those perilous years and their important parallels to the current crisis. Recommended reading: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy

This episode was first published in March 2025. New episodes will resume in early January 2026. Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Original show notes: In late June 1973, former White House counsel John Dean delivered startling testimony before the congressional committee investigating Watergate: Richard Nixon had an enemies list. The point, as Dean had written in a 1971 memo, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." The exposure of Nixon's dirty tricks led to his downfall. In 2024, Donald Trump openly campaigned to exact revenge on his enemies. Rather than alienating Republican voters, Trump's call for retribution rallied them. In this episode, historian Ken Hughes compares and contrasts the differences between then and now. Recommended reading: Nixon's official acts against his enemies list led to a bipartisan impeachment effort by Ken Hughes for The Conversation Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate by Ken Hughes (book)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. This is the final new episode of 2025. New episodes will resume on Tuesday, January 6. Historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel look back on a remarkable, distressing year in the U.S. and across the globe, from the Trump administration's lawless conduct to the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Jeremi Suri teaches history at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He co-hosts 'This is Democracy' podcast and co-writes 'Democracy of Hope' newsletter. Jeffrey Engel is the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. 'Red Dawn' was in many ways the perfect movie for its time. Released in 1984, it was an action flick with an exciting young cast that entertained moviegoers during a very cold period in the Cold War. The film was patriotic propaganda, depicting innocent American teenagers as fearless freedom fighters resisting the foreign occupation of their hometown. 'Red Dawn' was also a form of "imperial projection," mirroring the anti-Communist anxieties shaping the Reagan administration's rollback policy. In this episode, historian Alex Aviña, an expert on Latin America, reveals the crazy politics of a classic '80s action movie. Wolverines! 'Red Dawn' soundtrack was composed by Basil Poledouris.

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode.   It's a common argument in the Age of Trump: Neoliberal economic policies that hollowed out the middle class while enriching the Wall Street class caused the populist backlash. Low taxes, deregulation, austerity budgets, free trade, the unfettered flow of capital into and out of emerging markets, and the privatization of public assets – all fall under the rubric of neoliberal globalization. But is the term too loaded to help us understand what's going on? In this episode, historians Phil Magness and Daniel Bessner attempt to define neoliberalism over time and place.   Daniel Bessner is an associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the University of Washington. He is the co-host of American Prestige podcast.   Historian Phil Magness is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and the David J. Theroux Chair in Political Economy.

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. He's been called the world's most important prisoner, or the Palestinian "Nelson Mandela." Convicted on terrorism-related charges in 2004 during the Second Intifada, Marwan Barghouti is serving a life sentence in Israeli prison. However, his name continues to surface in negotiations over prisoner exchanges, and President Donald Trump has also mentioned that Barghouti's case was brought to his attention. This is because Barghouti is by far the most popular Palestinian political figure today, at a time when his people are desperate for unifying leadership. In this episode, the scholar Khaled Elgindy of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft discusses Barghouti's life story, which traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode. Rob Reiner was an actor, director, and political activist who left an enduring mark on American culture. Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found stabbed to death in their Hollywood home on Dec. 14. Their son has been arrested and charged with murder. In this episode, historian Benjamin Louis Rolsky reflects on Reiner's remarkable show business career, as well as his political activism, which followed in the footsteps of his role model, Norman Lear. Recommended reading: The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left: Politics, Television, and Popular Culture in the 1970s and Beyond by Benjamin Louis Rolsky