Stay ConnectedDiscover how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. History As It Happens features interviews with today’s top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history’s archive.
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Some 23 years after the U.S. invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, the country's stability and sovereignty remain compromised.
Washington continues to demand that Baghdad disarm powerful, Iran-backed Shia militias — a promise the new Iraqi prime minister Ali al-Zaidi made during his July visit to the Oval Office. The war over the Strait of Hormuz is exerting even more pressure on Iraq's delicate balancing act.
Here to explain Iraq's difficult geopolitical position and internal politics is Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
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Myanmar is not a country. It is a place of endless violence and ethnic strife, with its 50 million people trapped in another civil war, now in its fifth year, with no end in sight. Since its independence from Great Britain after the Second World War, Burma (now Myanmar) has been ruled mostly by military juntas. Every generation or so, a better future has seemed possible, but democracy and economic prosperity have never been allowed to blossom.
Our guest is historian Maitrii Aung-Thwin, who teaches Myanmar and Southeast Asian history at the National University of Singapore. He is the co-author of A History of Myanmar Since Ancient Times.
Further reading:
The War Forgotten by the World is an Apocalypse Now (New York Times)
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Since returning to the White House in 2025, President Trump has threatened to annex Greenland by force, mused about making Canada the 51st state, claimed he was ready to retake the Panama Canal, and turned Venezuela into a vassal by kidnapping its leader. Trump is trying to turn the clock back to a time when annexation (or territorial expansionism) was a norm in international relations. Since its birth, the United States has been expansionist, but its conduct has taken on different forms over time.
In this episode, author Mark Kawar traces the historical shift from annexationism to global influence through alliances, trade relations, and military bases. It's what some call hegemony, others imperialism.
Recommended reading:
America, but Bigger: Near Annexations from Greenland to Galapagos by Mark Kawar
Why America Stopped Annexing Territory by Mark Kawar (article in Law & Liberty)
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The Oslo Peace Process seems like ancient history. Today, a truly just and durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians appears impossible, as Gaza has been destroyed and Jewish settler-terrorists rampage through the West Bank with the support of their state. President Trump's vision for Gaza may render any surviving Palestinians as second-class citizens.
A quarter-century ago, in the summer of 2000, President Bill Clinton brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders together at Camp David to try to resolve the most difficult problems standing in the way of peace. To this day, each side blames the other for the summit's collapse. What really happened there? Our guest is historian Mark LeVine at the University of California, Irvine.
Recommended reading:
Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 by Mark LeVine
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This special episode features an exclusive interview with United States Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Congress' attempts to end the Trump administration's Iran war fiasco have thus far come up short. The same goes for the movement to end U.S. weapons and bulldozer shipments to the Israeli government, which has used American military hardware to destroy Gaza and southern Lebanon, killing tens of thousands of people in the process.
In this conversation with Sen. Van Hollen, we cover the War Powers Act and Iran, unrestrained executive power, the Libya intervention of 2011, Israel and AIPAC, the genocide in Gaza, the future of U.S. hegemony, and more.
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The American way of war is broken. Like many of his White House predecessors, Donald Trump is stuck in a stalemate of his own making. In Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq — to name four major wars — the president who went to war was unable to extricate the U.S. from the morass. It was up to his successor to salvage something from the wreckage of U.S. credibility and prestige.
Our guest is Will Walldorf, who teaches in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. He is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank.
His latest book is To Shape Our World For Good: Master Narratives and Forceful Regime Change in United States Foreign Policy, 1900-2011.
Recommended reading:
Trump Needs to Defy History to End the Iran War by Will Walldorf (Foreign Policy)
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The Trump administration is attempting to topple Cuba's government through economic warfare.
An oil embargo and other punitive measures have led to severe consequences, including massive blackouts and water shortages. Ordinary Cubans are suffering, yet both they and their communist government are persevering — at least for now. The New York Times reports the CIA has established a secret task force to increase the pressure. The Cold War may be over, but U.S.-Cuba relations are frozen in time.
What explains more than six decades of hostility? Historian Alexander Aviña is our guest. He's an associate professor of Latin American history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.
Further reading/listening:
Timeline of U.S.-Cuba relations (Council on Foreign Relations)
Flirting with Armageddon w/ Max Hastings on the Cuban Missile Crisis
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The world is aflame with endless wars and racial strife. Some societies are tearing themselves apart as mass migration fuels a nationalist backlash. Since the nineteenth century, ethnic nationalism has been a potent force, galvanizing peoples — imagined nations — around shared myths and historical truths.
Our guest is Sune Haugbølle, an expert on global political sociology. He specializes in social memory, the history of radical movements, and transnational solidarity at Roskilde University in Denmark.
He is the author of War and Memory in Lebanon (Cambridge Middle East Studies).
Further listening:
The Nakba: 1947-present w/ historian Mark LeVine
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This is the 70th year of Sudanese independence, but there is little to celebrate and much to lament as the country continues to tear itself apart. Three major civil wars have consumed 43 years of Sudan's seven decades, not counting the many years of violence and genocide in Darfur from 2003.
The current war has entered its fourth year with no prospect of peace. Recent fighting has drawn the world's attention to the central Sudanese city of El Obeid, where thousands of desperate civilians are sheltering from a feared onslaught by the genocidal Rapid Support Forces. Alex de Waal returns to the podcast to discuss the driving forces behind the violence and why the world is incapable or unwilling to stop it.
Alex de Waal is the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa. He is the co-author of The Sudans: Africa's Search for Peace, Democracy, and Two Viable States.
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The precarious international consensus on nuclear non-proliferation is cracking. The Trump administration announced a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia — long sought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — which experts fear could lead to the Saudis pursuing nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The deal allows for the kingdom to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium on its own soil.
In this episode, Joe Cirincione explains the potential danger to the U.S.-led nuclear order.
Recommended reading:
Trump's Saudi pact could be the worst nuclear deal in history by Joe Cirincione (MS Now)
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