On November 2, 1917, England’s foreign secretary sent a letter to an English Baron, declaring that the land of Palestine, which was in the process of being taken militarily from the Ottoman Empire by England, would be given to the Jewish people as their homeland. Known to history as the Balfour Declaration, the first draft … Continue reading "Civ 1919 – Treaty of Versailles 10: England gives Palestine to the Zionists"...
Aug 16, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Carl Zha joins for our occasional Kung Fu Yoga series where we talk about India and China. Trump’s slapped new tariffs on India and given China another break. We go back to the Independence era, talk about Import Substitution Industrialization vs Export-Led Growth, the Chip War, the short India-Pakistan war a few months ago, and … Continue reading "AER 150: Kung Fu Yoga with Carl Zha on the new Trump Tariffs"...
Aug 14, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Mustafa Kemal foils the Great Powers’ plan to carve up Anatolia, but they do tear up the Arab lands. The fate of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, where local elites’ belief in the Fourteen Points were crushed by the Powers as they set the table for Zionism and neocolonial mandates.
Aug 04, 2025•1 hr 24 min
The story of Greece’s negotiator Eleutherios Venizelos, and how his success at negotiating sowed the seeds of future disasters.
Jun 18, 2025•28 min
Initial reactions to the new war (audio of the regular youtube sit rep).
Jun 15, 2025•43 min
Japan takes a stand on the principle of racial equality, but it’s a non-starter with the white powers. The Japanese insist, and ultimately yield so they can take a piece of China.
May 24, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Italy joined the allies late and wanted a lot of Yugoslavia. The dress rehearsal for Mussolini, Gabriele d’Annunzio, gathers Argonauts and makes a big move. Another seed of the next war planted at the conference in Paris 1919.
May 17, 2025•45 min
Frederik Soderholm and Mehmet Ali Arslan interviewed me (Justin) for their Fredshetsarna (Swedish) podcast about nonviolence and military matters in West Asia.
May 05, 2025•1 hr 32 min
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary’s fates are decided at the conference in Paris in 1919.
May 03, 2025•2 hr 9 min
Hamza from Defund the UAE joins to talk about the Sudan war. How did it start? Who are the belligerents? What makes the RSF the greater evil? What is the UAE doing in this war? What can be done from the West to help? Hamza mentions Sudanfunds.com and SudanNewsEnglish on telegram, to start.
Apr 28, 2025•37 min
The Anglo-Americans blamed the Germans for World War I, and won. Now they would impose terms. But if they sought too high an indemnity, Germany’s economy would collapse and they would never pay. If they helped Germany rebuild, what kind of punishment would that be? In the end, the Allies chose a path that guaranteed … Continue reading "Civ 1919: Treaty of Versailles pt4 – Germany"
Apr 26, 2025•1 hr 21 min
The Balkans are where the Great War began; there were two Balkan wars before the Great War and there was a Balkan war in the Great War. In Paris, delegations from the region made their cases, the Great Powers made their dispensations. New countries formed and new borders drawn, which would be changed again in … Continue reading "Civ 1919: Treaty of Versailles pt3 – the Balkans"
Apr 12, 2025•1 hr 2 min
The biggest player at the peace conference, Woodrow Wilson, wants a League of Nations, which in the age of imperialism, is a rather underdeveloped idea. The other problem is, how to continue colonialism but with a nicer name? And so were invented the Mandates.
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 1 min
At the end of WW1, the Americans and British went to Paris to decide on the fate of Germany and the future of the world. The Treaty of Versailles and the conference in Paris in 1919 set up the Interwar period and made World War 2 inevitable. Here we begin our short series on the … Continue reading "Civ 1919: The Treaty of Versailles pt1"
Mar 15, 2025•1 hr 19 min
Two and a half years. 50 episodes. 100+ hours. When we set out to cover World War I back in September 2022, after our Scramble for Africa and our Civilizations (1400-1900) series, we had a plan for how we were going to go about it. In this debrief, Dave and I talk about what we … Continue reading "World War Civ 51: The Debrief"
Jan 31, 2025•51 min
We have come to the end of our study of World War I, gone over its causes, events, and costs in great detail. Now it’s time for a plot twist: the idea that the whole war was conceived and extended by a conspiratorial group of race patriots at the heart of the Anglo-American elite. We … Continue reading "Was World War I an Immense Anglo-American Conspiracy?"
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 52 min
From the transformation of all the technologies of war – railways, air travel, wireless, tanks, poison gas – to the changes to the institutions of daily life (notably health care) World War I made many changes into the world we recognize today. Also – my apologies – in the second half, my recurrent audio issue … Continue reading "World War Civ 49: How the war changed how things work"
Jan 03, 2025•1 hr 56 min
Counting the costs and losses of World War I. 8.5 million killed on the battlefield, 21 million wounded. 10 million civilian deaths, then a flu epidemic that killed tens of millions more. The global economy transformed beyond recognition. The beginning of the end of the colonial empires. And various measures that are inevitably going to … Continue reading "World War Civ 48: Great War, at what cost?"
Dec 07, 2024•1 hr 46 min
Ludendorff’s final gamble has failed, fizzling out like every mass offensive of this war. The war is now unwinnable for Germany. But the Germans won’t admit it, and can’t find anyone to sign an armistice. Eventually someone is found, and the myth of the “stab in the back” begins to be written, a myth that … Continue reading "World War Civ 47: Germany Collapses 1918"
Nov 30, 2024•1 hr 11 min
With peace in the East, Germany can finally try to win the war against France in the West, and the clock is ticking before America’s troops make the war unwinnable. In addition to assembling a gigantic army and the largest artillery barrage in history, Ludendorff introduces Storm Troopers and a new tactic of “infiltration” past … Continue reading "World War Civ 46: Ludendorff’s Last Gamble Spring 1918"...
Nov 08, 2024•58 min
If politics is in everything, then what are the politics of martial arts as they’re studied and practiced today? For audiences of this show, it’s not a pretty sight. But Sam from Liberationist MA is trying to do things differently. He joins to talk about his play-based martial arts pedagogy, the world view it’s embedded … Continue reading "AER 146: Martial Arts Pedagogy and Politics"
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 17 min
The Bolsheviks had made their revolution promising Peace, Land, and Bread. But peace meant a deal with Germany, which could bring British and French subversion of their nascent revolution. How could Lenin get out of this impossible dilemma? By sending Trotsky to lead the negotiations with Imperial Germany. Did Trotsky go rogue? Was he following … Continue reading "World War Civ 45: Russia and Germany make peace at Brest-Litovsk"...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 24 min
It’s 1917. The French are suffering mutinies and the Entente is desperate for a breakthrough anywhere. It’s not to be. Arras, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Cambrai, and Caporetto – hundreds of thousands of men killed and no breakthrough. At the end of the year, the Germans have reason to believe they could win the whole war … Continue reading "World War Civ 44: The Agony of the Allies"
Oct 25, 2024•1 hr 39 min
When Russia withdrew from the war, Britain and France were in the lurch, but America saved the day. Why? Successful war propaganda, propinquity, or making good on investments and seizing a chance for world domination?
Oct 05, 2024•1 hr 39 min
Nora joins and we go over our memories of following Seyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speeches over the decades. He led the resistance for 32 years and freed Lebanon from occupation once. His successors will operate under a new set of rules of engagement.
Oct 01, 2024•50 min
The scientific principles of war propaganda that we’re all suffering from today were laid down by Anglo-American writers amazed by their own performance in World War 1. What are these principles? Why did Anglo-American propaganda work better than German?
Sep 21, 2024•2 hr 15 min
From July through to Red October 1917. The Kornilov Affair to the Bolshevik takeover. The culmination of our series on the Bolshevik Revolution.
Aug 17, 2024•1 hr 43 min
With Joe Emersberger. The co-authors of the Monthly Review Press book Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela, discuss the seventh coup attempt on Chavismo which is in the process of being defeated.
Aug 06, 2024•43 min
Way back in World War Civ 6,7, and 8, we covered the Russian Revolution of 1905 including future main characters Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Now as the 1917 Revolution unfolds we revisit these protagonists and study their actions and writings in the years leading to October 1917. Perhaps history is grand movements of masses, but … Continue reading "World War Civ 41b: Russian Revolution pt2 – Lenin and Trotsky"...
Aug 04, 2024•2 hr 48 min
A scholar who grew up in a Christian Zionist tradition, Jamin Hubner joins to talk about how the ideology is unrolled to kids and how he found his way out of it.
Jul 17, 2024•44 min
