Best Nick Shepley Podcasts (2025)

1
Nation In Arms: Lessons from Five Armies That Made Europe 37:58

4d ago37:58

37:58

What can the Roman legions of Constantine, the Ottoman forces of Mehmet the Conqueror, and the US Army of World War II teach us about modern military power? In this timely episode of the Explaining History Podcast, I speak with former senior British officer and acclaimed military historian Barney White-Spunner about his forthcoming book Nation In A…

1
Anglo American rivalries in the Middle East 28:51

10d ago28:51

28:51

At the heart of Britain's war time alliance was a deep wariness at what the outcome of the war would portend. Churchill was desperate for the USA to enter the war and Roosevelt saw the struggle against fascism as vital to America's security, but the US president like Wilson before him imagined a world without European empires. In this episode we ex…

1
Economic Sanctions: Crimes against humanity. 26:18

11d ago26:18

26:18

In this episode, we tear away the euphemisms and expose a grim reality: sanctions kill. Drawing on a 2025 study from The Lancet Global Health, we show how economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other powers are responsible for up to 777,000 deaths each year, with children and the elderly most at risk. We trace the history of sanctions from the …

1
From Powell Memo to Policy Powerhouse: How Right-Wing Think Tanks Hijacked America’s Future since 1973 26:08

14d ago26:08

26:08

How did neoliberalism go from fringe idea to ruling ideology in the United States? In this deep-dive episode of Explaining History, we trace the hidden rise of America’s most influential right-wing think tanks—Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute and more—from their birth in the 1970s oil-crisis chaos to their role in dismantlin…

1
Britain's Austerity Trap 30:06

19d ago30:06

30:06

Britain’s Austerity Trap Why is one of the world’s richest countries still behaving like it’s broke? In this episode of Explaining History, we dive into Yanis Varoufakis’s searing critique of Britain’s ongoing austerity dilemma under the new Labour government. Despite hopes for change, Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces the same iron cage of fiscal rul…

1
A Gaza coalition emerging 26:49

21d ago26:49

26:49

The extent to which western soft power and legal and moral authority has been shredded by Gaza is lost upon British, American and European populations for the most part, but across the global south a new movement appears to be coalescing around South Africa and Columbia. In Europe, Ireland and Spain have joined with them and sixteen other global so…

1
Moral justifications for modern war 29:41

23d ago29:41

29:41

Warfare had to be re-propagandised in the 20th Century, particularly in the western world, as a moral crusade. Mass democracy determined that leaders needed to present war as a manichean struggle between freedom and tyranny. The end of the Tsarist regime and the intervention of a liberal American president in the First World War was an ideal opport…

1
Maoist struggle sessions and the Cultural Revolution 23:51

25d ago23:51

23:51

This episode draws from the excellent book Red Memory by Tania Brannigan, an oral history of the Cultural Revolution. Here we examine the role of thought, how Mao sought to stimulate public thought during the Hundred Flowers Campaign of the late 1950s to seek out enemies and how struggle sessions were a form of thought torture, making ones own self…

1
Violeta Parra: Chile’s Folk Revolutionary, Cold-War Exile & Mother of Nueva Canción 36:49

26d ago36:49

36:49

***PLEASE LISTEN TO THE END*** Chilean folk icon Violeta Parra (1917-1967) was far more than the singer of “Gracias a la Vida.” In this episode, Erica Verba—Director of Latin American Studies at Cal State LA—reveals how Parra transformed from teenage street-busker and RCA-Victor recording artist into the archivist, painter and political catalyst wh…

1
Post war lesbian life in Britain 33:47

26d ago33:47

33:47

Join us on The Explaining History Podcast as we welcome Dame Vikki Heywood, former Executive Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre, to discuss her dazzling debut novel Miss Veal and Miss Ham. Set against the sleepy veneer of a 1951 Buckinghamshire village post office, this intimate tale reveals the hidden passions an…

1
Edwardian Britain's most famous fraudster 36:33

26d ago36:33

36:33

Join us on The Explaining History Podcast as we sit down with historian and author Mark Bridgeman to unravel the extraordinary life—and daring deceptions—of Violet Charlesworth, Britain’s first notorious female fraudster. In his landmark new book, Nothing for Something, Bridgeman spent three years mining court records, witness statements, private a…

1
Oligarchy in America and Russia 29:17

27d ago29:17

29:17

At the end of the 20th Century, the Cold War which had defined the struggle between various different iterations of capitalism in the western world and the USSR in the east was replaced by a slow oligarchic coup. An equivalent class has come to power in both countries and has similar imperatives, to occupy the state and cannibalise society. This po…

1
Trump's ICE brownshirts, an historical analysis 23:23

28d ago23:23

23:23

Nazism sought to bypass legal norms where it couldn't just sweep them aside. The German Weimar constitution took time to dismantle and new institutions, practices and laws needed to be created in order to subvert it. A similar process is underway in America at the moment and Trump's recent allocation of over $200 billion to ICE is a huge step towar…

1
Bowie and the 1960s 25:20

1M ago25:20

25:20

In this episode of Explaining History, we dive into the fascinating world of David Bowie’s 1960s—a decade of shifting cultural currents, personal reinvention, and the search for identity that would shape one of the most iconic artists of the 20th century. Drawing on Neil Stephenson’s insightful book David Bowie, we explore how the social upheavals …

1
British spies in Mesopotamia - 1915 31:15

1M ago31:15

31:15

This episode explores part of the story of St John Philby, father to Kim and eventually advisor to King Ibn Saud. Philby was one of the few administrators that the British government and its colonial government in India could find who understood Arabia and Mesopotamia. In 1915 as British fortunes against the Ottoman Empire took a turn for the worst…

1
Literary tastes, readers and book clubs in the inter war period 32:16

1M ago32:16

32:16

In the first decades of the 20th Century, a growth in literacy and the availability of paperback and hardback books created a culture of mass participation on literary reading that was unprecedented. Nicola Wilson's new book Recommended, a history of the Book Society, tells the story of Hugh Walpole, JB Priestley and Cecil Day Lewis amongst others …

1
Austerity Britain 2010 - 2025 33:19

1M ago33:19

33:19

The project to permanently shrink the British state and to inflict mass hardship on the most vulnerable which was commenced after 2010 has cost untold numbers of lives. The last calculations put the dead at around 338,000 people but it is likely now to be far higher and Britain has exchanged one austerity government for another. Now the Labour Part…

1
France: Collaboration and Occupation 1940-45 26:08

1M ago26:08

26:08

When France was defeated in 1940, across its empire it underwent a period of civil war as Vichy and Free French forces faced one another. Until at least 1943 there were widespread sympathies across France for the Vichy regime and antipathy towards the British and the Americans. This podcast episode explores the complexities of identity, loyalty and…

1
America, oil shocks and the crisis of the 1970s 28:12

1M ago28:12

28:12

In this episode, we dive into the turbulent decade of the 1970s, exploring how the oil shocks and economic crises of the era shattered the postwar order in America. Drawing from historian Gary Gerstle’s influential work The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Era, we examine how stagflation, energy insecurity, and geopolitical tensions fueled public di…

1
A radical history of Liverpool 36:14

1M ago36:14

36:14

Liverpool's modern history is one of struggle, adversity and community and today we hear from David Swift, author of Scouse Republic: An alternative history of Liverpool. In the 1980s the city was in deep economic decline from its Victorian heyday as one of the world's busiest ports. Liverpool's radical identity was forged by the ideological battle…

1
Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys - exploring the music and the melancholy of pop music's endless summer 32:50

1M ago32:50

32:50

This month Brian Wilson, one of the most gifted song writers and composers of the 20th Century passed away. In order to explore his work and the social and cultural context behind it, along with the meaning of the surfer sound of the early 1960s Toby Manning joins the podcast to talk about Pet Sounds, Smile, Surf's Up and more. *****STOP PRESS*****…

1
The Battle of the Ebro: Part Two 25:38

1M ago25:38

25:38

Continued from yesterday's episode, we read again from Adam Hochschild's brilliant book Spain in Our Hearts, about the overwhelming odds faced by the International Brigades in Spain as they crossed the Ebro River in the Republic's last attempt to hold off the fascist generals and attract the support of the British and the French. The agreement at M…

1
The Battle of the Ebro: Part One 24:00

1M ago24:00

24:00

In 1938, the fascist generals who had launched their insurrection two years earlier had divided the country but had not been able to seize Madrid. The Republican government was running out of fuel, arms and options, and decided on one last roll of the dice. Juan Negrin and his government agreed to send their army, including the International Brigad…

1
The planned break up of Iran 30:18

1M ago30:18

30:18

Here’s a polished episode description based on Michael Hudson's blog post: 🎙️ Episode Description: In this compelling episode, we dive into Michael Hudson’s incisive analysis of the escalating U.S.–Iran confrontation. Drawing from Hudson’s recent essay on Naked Capitalism, we uncover how America's strategic confrontation with Iran is deeply tied to…

1
Trump and the lesson of 2008 27:42

1M ago27:42

27:42

*****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes, that of aspirant fantasy author and if that's your thing you can get a copy of my debut novel The Blood of Tharta, right here: What did the 2008 world financial crisis teach America's elite classes about the future of American capitalism? The coll…

1
Himmler and Auschwitz 26:53

2M ago26:53

26:53

The economic realities of a failing war in the east accelerated the timetable for genocide at the highest levels of the Third Reich, but in July 1942 Heinrich Himmler also intended Auschwitz Birkenau to be a site for extracting slave labour from prisoners. He intended this because of the impeding economic and production crises that would engulf the…

1
The demise of Britain's post war foreign policy 30:24

2M ago30:24

30:24

In the aftermath of the Second World War, as Britain's Empire faded away, British Prime Ministers had few choices than to take their lead from America. Following the disaster of the Suez invasion, Britain abandoned any pretence that it might have an independent foreign policy and operated as an arm of American power in the world until the present d…

1
Argentina's mothers of the disappeared 27:53

2M ago27:53

27:53

On October 6, 1978, Patricia Roisinblit — a young Jewish medical student and leftist activist — was abducted by Argentina’s military junta while eight months pregnant. She was never seen again. But her mother, Rosa, refused to let her story end there. In this deeply moving episode, we speak with journalist and author Haley Cohen Gilliland about her…

1
African Americans and the Oscars, from Gone with the Wind to Black Lives Matter 34:20

2M ago34:20

34:20

In this episode, we hear from with award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster Ben Arogundade about his latest book, Hollywood Blackout. Drawing on a century of film history, Hollywood Blackout explores how the Academy Awards have both resisted and reflected changing social forces — from the Nazi invasion of Europe to the Civil Rights Movement…

1
The Arab Regimes and Israel 25:37

2M ago25:37

25:37

Arab regimes across the Middle East have had a long history of comparative disinterest towards the Palestinian cause and apathy towards their emancipation. Israel has found willing collaborators in Egypt, Syria and the Gulf states, all of whom are happy to collaborate in the unfolding war with Iran. *****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about histo…

1
Iran and the Neocons 1979-2025 30:09

2M ago30:09

30:09

The neoconservatives were at the apex of their power and influence two decades ago but the project they longed for the most, war against Iran is now underway. This time, despite the changing rhetoric from Washington, the USA has so far committed no visible combat forces to the fight. Here we explore a developing situation and the role of neoconserv…

1
Israel's attack on Iran - a historical context 28:38

2M ago28:38

28:38

In this urgent episode, we break down last night’s dramatic Israeli raid on Iran—Operation Rising Lion—which targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities and killed top Iranian military leaders in the largest attack since the Iran–Iraq War. We unpack what happened on the ground, the immediate fallout—including Iran’s launch of over 100 drones in retaliation—…

1
Thoughts on Civil War 25:23

2M ago25:23

25:23

What leads a nation into a civil war? In this podcast we examine the crises of power and contestation of authority that create wars within, not between nations. *****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes, that of aspirant fantasy author and if that's your thing you can get a copy of my debu…

1
The fall of communism: An oral history 25:05

2M ago25:05

25:05

Oral histories can be very revealing in understanding the beliefs and feelings that people had in particular historical moments. In Svetlana Alexeivich's amazing book Second Hand Time, hundreds of former Soviet citizens reflect on their hopes, fears and their anger at the fall of the nation and the society that they knew. This episode is particular…

1
Colonial wealth transfers: A New Analysis 24:08

2M ago24:08

24:08

Question:What would have happened to Europe in the past two and a half centuries if it hadn't plundered the global south? What would have happened if Europeans had paid for the labour of Africans instead of stealing it? What would have happened if they had purchased cotton, tea, spices and other commodities at a price that reflected the labour used…

1
Neoliberalism and the European Economic Community 25:28

2M ago25:28

25:28

The post war neoliberals were divided over the European Economic Community, some viewing it as a protected enclave of the world economy that would hold back the global economic integration they hoped for. Others saw it as the beginnings of a borderless economic zone that would spread around the world, eventually subsuming all questions of politics …

1
Trump, Musk and the end of American Empire 29:51

2M ago29:51

29:51

All American presidents since 1945 have been managers of the USA's global economic empire, Trump notionally fulfils the same role but has little or no understanding of the complexities, challenges and limitations that his predecessors have had to navigate. As with all narcissists, he sees America's crises through the prism of his own personal exper…

1
The Black American Experience in World War Two 25:24

2M ago25:24

25:24

During the Second World War the immense needs for labour and military manpower transformed American society and gave Black Americans an historic opportunity to advance themselves. This podcast explores the barriers they faced and the racial discrimination of segregated armies and workplaces, and the ironies of a military power based on racial discr…

1
Suffrage, Medicine and Murder 33:45

2M ago33:45

33:45

In the 1850s a medical revolution was beginning with the discovery of anaesthesia and a political and social revolution was still in its infancy in the guise of the embryonic suffrage movement that would emerge in earnest over a half a century later. In their latest novel together under the pen name Ambrose Parry, Christopher Brookmyre and Marisa H…

1
Conflicted Loyalties: Minority voices in wartime Britain and America 24:12

2M ago24:12

24:12

What did Irish Americans make of Roosevelt's wartime pact with Churchill? What did Polish Americans make of his alliance with Stalin? In this podcast we explore the many complex, conflicted and often divided loyalties as a vast multi ethnic and global anti fascist coalition fought to defeat Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese Imperialism. *****STO…

1
The political right and 'anti wokeness' 26:40

2M ago26:40

26:40

Wokeness and anti wokeness are inventions of the political right on both sides of the Atlantic. They are confected ideas that are pushed by elite think tank, media and political groups and have been used in different ways since the era of the counter culture in the late 1960s. Their prime advocates claim that 'woke' is some manner of threat to eith…

1
From F. Scott Fitzgerald to pulp detective novels - 1925 America's greatest literary year 33:33

2M ago33:33

33:33

A century ago, America was the literary and intellectual powerhouse of the world. Black writers defined the black experience in the Harlem Renaissance, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the glamour and hypocrisy of the jazz age in The Great Gatsby and thousands of detective, western and sci fi pulp novels were published, creating the foundations of mode…

1
Britain, France and the creation of Iraq 1919-21 25:52

2M ago25:52

25:52

When the mandate system was created at the Paris Peace Conference, it became a powerful tool for the British and French to carve up the Middle East and Africa following the defeat and collapse of the German and Ottoman Empires. France took control of Syria and created the state of Lebanon and the British gained Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. This…

1
The plot against Harold Wilson - 1967 33:01

2M ago33:01

33:01

In the late 1960s the British secret state, bankers, right wing newspaper and TV proprietors and other elite figures sought to remove Prime Minister Harold Wilson from power. They were indifferent to the fact that he had won two general elections in a row and thought that a government that included unelected business figures would save the nation f…

1
Carter, Reagan, Bush and China 27:04

2M ago27:04

27:04

From the late 1970s onwards China and the USSR were on two very different historical paths and three US presidents, Carter, Reagan and Bush sought to harness the potential of the world's most populous country as it rapidly became wealthier. China, often cited as having embraced capitalism after Mao, abandoned inward looking autarchy and opened its …

1
Maoism and Anti Imperialism 24:35

2M ago24:35

24:35

Mao's ideas presented a clear challenge to western imperialism throughout the 20th Century and became a rallying cry to national liberation movements and anti imperialist groups wiithin western countries from the Baader Meinhof Gang to the Yippees. *****STOP PRESS***** I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes…

1
Britain's Broken Media 36:28

3M ago36:28

36:28

In the past two decades successive scandals have revealed that Britain has some of the worst media institutions in the developed world. The ability of ordinary people to interpret the news, use accurate information to hold politicians to account or to gain a coherent sense of the world has arguably never been weaker. In his new book Breaking: Break…

1
Gaza Update 29:12

3M ago29:12

29:12

Britain, France, Canada and other western governments have today issued a statement decrying the blockade of Gaza after nearly two years of offering unconditional support to Israel.This follows weeks of increasingly critical headlines in newspapers and magazines that are traditionally staunch supporters of the Zionist state. What does this suggest?…

1
China after Deng (Part One) 25:07

3M ago25:07

25:07

Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are often overlooked but pivotal figures in recent Chinese history whose role in steering China through its extraordinary economic transformation in the 1990s and 2000s is overshadowed by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. This is the first in a series of podcasts about these two figures and how they created the China now ruled…

1
Discussing Mark Twain's 'Jim' 35:11

3M ago35:11

35:11

The character of Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was written as a condemnation of the Jim Crow regimes that were springing up across the South as the Reconstruction Era slowly came to an end. Twain's Jim was the first Black character in popular American literature that can be thought of as being written in depth and without …

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