A history podcast dedicated to examining the global history of the 1920s and 30s in order to explain the causes of World War II, both large and small. As you might imagine, there’s a lot of ground to cover just to contextualize how the conflict got so out of control. If you love historical deep-dives and play-by-plays of nations in way over their collective heads, this is the show for you. Best niche history podcast out there! PROTIP: If you’re a new listener and are hopelessly confused by me bouncing from topic to topic, the scope of this show has kinda gotten away from me over the years. I have included an index of miniseries in the description of Episode 1 to provide a guide for what I’ve covered so far.
Episodes
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
With the invasion of the Ruhr backfiring on them, the French electorate swung to the left and put a new coalition in power. The wealthy elites of the country, ever sensitive to the specter of Socialism, did not take the change well. Just as the Ruhr crisis was being wound down, a financial one back at home was started.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Adamthwaite, Anthony Grandeur and Misery: France 1914-1940 Arnold, 1995
- Wright, Gordon France in Modern Times, 4th Ed WW Norton Company, Inc, 1987
- Fortescue, William The Third Republic in France 1870-1940 Routledge, 2007
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Having won both war and peace, France then faced the challenge of actually enforcing that victory. Namely, they had to secure their finances and that meant turning the screws to the Germans and extracting every dime they could from them. Easier said than done, as the Germans were flat broke and France's erstwhile ally, the British, were half-hearted at best in helping get the money. The quest to secure financing would provide a demonstration to just how far France could go in exerting its new status as continental Europe's top power.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Adamthwaite, Anthony Grandeur and Misery: France 1914-1940 Arnold, 1995
- Wright, Gordon France in Modern Times, 4th Ed WW Norton Company, Inc, 1987
- Fortescue, William The Third Republic in France 1870-1940 Routledge, 2007
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Today we get introduced to France, the land of wine, cheese, and staggering loss. A lot of what happens in the decades we cover revolves around France and its ability, or inability, to control events happening in Europe. So to start off, this episode provides the context that France finds itself in during the interwar era. And also just what the cost of winning WWI actually entailed for the nation.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Adamthwaite, Anthony Grandeur and Misery: France 1914-1940 Arnold, 1995
- Wright, Gordon France in Modern Times, 4th Ed WW Norton Company, Inc, 1987
- Fortescue, William The Third Republic in France 1870-1940 Routledge, 2007
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Dec 27, 2020
Sunday Dec 27, 2020
Today is the last episode on Italy before the Great Depression and is also our first biography episode! Benito Mussolini is remembered mostly for his ineffectualness, and is often seen as the bumbling sidekick to the much more dangerous Adolf Hitler. And while that certainly isn't exactly wrong, it also focuses on those last years when everything got away from him. His early life, presented here, shows him to be a much more complex figure, both intellectual and savage. Starting from virtually nothing, this episode covers his journey from poverty to early 1919, when he formally launched his Fascist movement. It was in these years that the personality that would decide the fate of tens of millions took shape.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Bosworth, RJB Mussolini Oxford University Press, 2002
- Hibbert, Christopher Mussolini St Martin's Press, 2008
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Dec 20, 2020
Sunday Dec 20, 2020
Once the business of taking power in Italy was completed, the Fascists began to turn inward. Mussolini starts to distance himself from the old guard Fascists, the businessmen of the country successfully defend their economic privileges in exchange for their support, and even the Catholic Church comes around. Plus I cover a grab-bag of Italy's foreign adventures in this period.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005
- Whittam, John Fascist Italy Manchester University Press, 1995
- Morgan, Phillip Italian Fascism 1919-1945 St. Martin's Press, 1995
- Gooch, John Mussolini and His Generals Cambridge University Press, 2007
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Dec 13, 2020
Sunday Dec 13, 2020
After the March on Rome, Mussolini found himself in charge as Prime Minister, but the Fascists were still a minority party. But now that any viable opposition had demonstrated that they were unwilling to resist him in any meaningful way, he began the work of breaking apart Liberal Italy and bending the political system to his will.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005
- Whittam, John Fascist Italy Manchester University Press, 1995
- Morgan, Phillip Italian Fascism 1919-1945 St. Martin's Press, 1995
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Dec 06, 2020
Sunday Dec 06, 2020
Just when it looked like Fascism in Italy was going to be a non-starter, they decide to change the rules. Instead of being a strictly political party the Fascists begin to double-down on political violence and sign-on as muscle for business owners threatened by populist activity. With the official stance of the government being to wait the crisis out, Mussolini makes the most of his opportunity to destabilize democracy and march to power.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005
- Whittam, John Fascist Italy Manchester University Press, 1995
- Morgan, Phillip Italian Fascism 1919-1945 St. Martin's Press, 1995
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Nov 29, 2020
Sunday Nov 29, 2020
The Socialists are riding a high, the Liberals are getting worried, and the Fascists are trying to find their niche in today's episode. Join me as I get into the strife within Italy after the unsatisfying conclusion to WWI. Long story short, the establishment didn't have the answers and it became a race to see which populist would win over the nation.
Bibliography for this episode:
- Bosworth, RJB Mussolini's Italy Penguin Group, 2005
- Whittam, John Fascist Italy Manchester University Press, 1995
- Morgan, Phillip Italian Fascism 1919-1945 St. Martin's Press, 1995
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Nov 22, 2020
Sunday Nov 22, 2020
On today's episode we'll be covering Italy's experience in WWI and the political aftermath of the war years. Italy's military history in the twentieth century gets treated as kind of a joke, but there were very real consequences to all the disasters, which helped set the stage for Fascism to take root. The experience also caused an upsurge in populist politics in general, something the Italian elites were not prepared for or capable of accommodating.
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
On today's episode I get started on the miniseries covering Italy up to the Great Depression. The bulk of the first part of this show will be establishing context for each nation, and how they came to make the critical decisions that led to so much fighting later. There are a lot of reasons to cover why democracy in Italy failed and Fascism was able to take root here before anywhere else. Today I'll be providing a basic sketch of Italy, and where so many seeds of later misfortune were planted.
Questions? Comments? Email me at peaceintheirtime@gmail.com