President Trump's foreign and security policy: What is it? Does the military know? As American war ships steam towards the Korean peninsula and American diplomats argue with Russian leaders about Syria this FRDH podcast is a conversation with historian Robert Batement, Lt. Col (ret) of the US Army. Bateman, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq is currently a fellow at the New America think tank and a contributing columnist for Esquire magazine. He gives a nuanced analysis that non-specialists can u...
Apr 13, 2017•16 min
Brexit: An apostate thought: the EU will be better off without UK. Churchill saw it clearly in a speech given on the 19th of September 1946 at the University of Zurich. The war had been over for just over a year. Continental Europe had been partitioned, Much of it was in ruins. Millions were displaced and homeless. There was a way out of the catastrophic conditions around the continent, Churchill told his audience, “It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide ...
Mar 29, 2017•10 min
Facts are the building blocks of journalism leading, hopefully, to the truth, and the FRDH, First Rough Draft of History. In a world overwhelmed by data and statistics facts are easy to come by, but can numbers alone tell a story? In 2016, the bulk of institutional journalism missed the rise of Donald Trump because the numbers said his victory wasn’t possible … then it was. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb says journalism’s increasing reliance on data is behind this failure. Lies, damned l...
Mar 13, 2017•19 min
Resistance is a beautiful word. It is a Romantic word. It is the word of the moment. But what does resistance really mean? Are you a resister if you simply say you are? Anyone can call themselves a resister and put a hashtag in front of it. Does that make them part of the “#resistance?” Real resistance has an objective and it comes at a price. This FRDH podcast tells several stories of resistance from recent history to see if they have something to teach those who want to resist President Trump....
Feb 28, 2017•15 min
This is a meditation on PTSD and Donald Trump and does the shock from PTSD make it impossible to see Trump and his actions clearly. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb analyzes whether his experience of war and reporting from societies that slipped from stability to civil war affect his judgment about the state of America in the Age of Trump. He asks whether committing journalism in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq has left him with PTSD. Does his knowledge of how quickly well-established so...
Feb 15, 2017•10 min
President Trump's travel ban has now seen more than 100,000 people lose visas to travel to the US. In this FRDH special, Michael Goldfarb discusses the ban with Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi journalists who have long experience of living and working in the US. Today, thanks to the Executive Order issued January 27th by President Donald Trump: "PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES" these three journalists cannot visit the country because Iran, Syria and Ira...
Feb 03, 2017•47 min
America is undergoing historic political change as Donald Trump is sworn in as President. It is an "un President ed" break with history. No one, not even Ronald Reagan has represented such a dramatic break with the past since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and maybe ever. People are finding it hard to make sense of the impending new era and so is Michael Goldfarb, host of FRDH Podcast. In this episode he free associates his way through his own and America's history for the last half century look...
Jan 17, 2017•16 min
2016 was by any measure an historic year. A different America revealed itself to its own people and to the rest of the world. Donald Trump was unlike any Presidential candidate in history and now is set to be President. This FRDH podcast special explores How America Got This Way. FRDH stands for First Rough Draft of History, which is what journalists like to say they are writing and in this FRDH special four London-based journalists with a cumulative century of reporting on America and the way A...
Dec 16, 2016•48 min
Memoir as history. The paradigm in American politics has shifted since the election. It has many people racking their memories for a historical parallel, some source of guidance. This parable from the late 1970's in New York might help. It's a story about finding the courage to stand up when bad change happens in your society. Love, literature, torture and courage all figure in this story. It takes place in New York and Athens and in memory. Give me 15 minutes and I will give you the past as pro...
Nov 25, 2016•15 min
Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to deport millions of people who entered America illegally. The history of mass deportation indicates that's easier said than done
Nov 16, 2016•8 min
Social History: "Whoever wants to understand the heart and mind of America better know baseball" Jacques Barzun. Not really. They better know the South, the region that more than any other shapes US politics. This piece from 2004 foreshadows much of what shaped the election of Donald Trump + great music.
Nov 10, 2016•41 min
Social History: the reclassification of social classes + the history of wine
Nov 01, 2016•7 min
Political History: The true price of revolution.
Sep 30, 2016•10 min
History keeps happening to me. This first episode is a mission statement for a podcast about all kinds of history. the history I've reported and the history I have lived.
Sep 20, 2016•12 min
Cultural History: A biographical sketch of the philosopher Spinoza and his thought, particularly focused on the relationship between government and religion.
Jul 03, 2016•43 min
This draft of history - first b'cast on BBC Radio 4 just before the 2016 primaries - looks at the long history of irrational fear being used by American politicians to win office.
Jun 20, 2016•28 min
First draft of history: my documentary on British Jihadis made a year before the London bombings of 7/7. It won an award from the Overseas Press Club of America.
Apr 16, 2016•48 min
Draft History: A story recorded in Topeka KS in 1993 about the successes and failures of integration. Part of my Sony Award-winning series Homeward Bound.
Jun 20, 2015•14 min
This draft of history is from 1993: Race, violence, fear. It was part of my Sony-Award winning series, Homeward Bound. Listen to the voices recorded from the radio.
Jun 20, 2015•15 min
Whitman to Woodstock was originally made for the BBC on the 25th anniversary of the music festival. It aired on BBC Radio 3 as a Proms interval talk. It's a cultural draft of history tracing the historical chain of American bards and poets from Walt Whitman to the Woodstock festival. Something I hope will teach the children well. If you like it, share it and in the spirit of Woodstock, visit www.goldfarbpod.com and make a donation ... to keep the podcasts - new and from the archive coming.
Jun 01, 2015•20 min
A social history of the piano with lots of interesting facts and lovely playing.
Mar 11, 2015•44 min
A Christmas treat from the FRDH archive. A musical feature about the boy choristers of King's College Choir at Cambridge University. The piece is a backstage look at the boys' daily schedule of academics and rehearsal in the great Chapel of King's College. The King in question was Henry VI. Built in phases between 1446 and 1515, the chapel is one of the monuments of late Gothic architecture and possesses unique acoustics. There has been a choir associated with the building since its founding. Di...
Dec 23, 2014•9 min
Charlottesville: “What happens to a dream deferred” wrote Langston Hughes in the poem Harlem. Hughes was referring to the frustrations of African-American life 90 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Does the deferred Dream explode, the poet asked. What happens, ironically when the deferred dream is that of white supremacy and the Confederacy risen? Does it also explode? Charlottesville is the latest detonation in a process that has been left unaddressed for decades, for more than a centur...
Nov 30, 2014•14 min
Draft history. Race in America. A piece from 1995 reported from the Mississippi Delta
Nov 26, 2014•14 min
History on the move: the story of Ali, his two-year long journey from Afghanistan and his new life in the UK
Oct 21, 2014•26 min
History on the move: documentary about Ali, who left Afghanistan as 14 year old and snuck into Britain on a Eurotunnel freight train and today holds a masters in International Relations
Oct 21, 2014•23 min
Live history: 9/11 I was hosting the NPR program The Connection as the twin towers came down. How do you find the sounds to convey an epoch defining tragedy?
Sep 10, 2014•20 min
Political History: Federalism beginning with the Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 through to the European Union.
Sep 05, 2014•28 min
Turning Point in HIstory: Part 5 of my series on how the world dramaticall changed in Autumn 1973. The photo is of Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck MIchigan 8 years later.
Jun 04, 2014•16 min
Turning Point in History: How the Arab oil embargo caught the American and Uk governments by surprise and effectively ended the post-World War2 economic era of good feeling in under 10 weeks.
Jun 04, 2014•15 min
