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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Over eight long years in the 1980s, Iraq and Iran pulverized each other in an unwinnable, pointless war that nonetheless began as an existential threat to the new revolutionary government in Tehran. In the crucible of war, the Islamic Republic cemented hardline clerical rule, crushed dissent, forged an identity, demonstrated its resilience, ensured the country's independence, and created a powerful national narrative to challenge hostile "imperialists" in the West and East. In this episode, political scientist Hussein Banai, an expert on U.S.-Iran relations, discusses the enduring relevance of the Iran-Iraq War as the theocratic regime attempts to survive a U.S.-Israeli onslaught in 2026.
Recommended reading:
Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict by Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman
Iran-Iraq War (Encyclopedia Britannica)
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Can a Siberian peasant influence the course of history? In the case of Grigori Rasputin, the answer was yes. A wanderer, mystic, and spiritual healer, Rasputin was also corrupt and lecherous — and his meddling in the affairs of state helped bring down the Tsarist autocracy in the crucible of war and revolution. In this episode, Antony Beevor, the renowned military historian, talks about his new biography, 'Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs.'
Further reading:
Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 by Antony Beevor
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Wars in Eastern Europe and the Greater Middle East are killing and displacing societies and roiling the global economy. There is no end in sight: despite possessing powerful military arsenals and cutting-edge tech, warring states are unable to achieve decisive victories in modern warfare. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage, the director of the Kennan Institute, defines the limits of power and how the failure to grasp these limits threatens further disorder.
Recommended reading:
The War in Ukraine Changed the World in Ways We're Only Starting to Comprehend by Michael Kimmage (New York Times)
Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability by Michael Kimmage
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With the Greater Middle East on fire from Gaza to Iran, bureaucratic and administrative changes taking place inside Israel may be easy to overlook. The right-wing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's security establishment are annexing the West Bank. Even before the Six-Day War in 1967, the West Bank, often called Judea and Samaria, had been eyed by Jewish settlers, some of whom believe their holy books sanction the taking of Palestinian territory. In this episode, Dahlia Scheindlin and Yael Berda delve into the historical origins of today's crisis and explain how annexation has been realized.
Dahlia Scheindlin is a public opinion researcher and a political advisor who has worked on nine national campaigns in Israel and in 15 other countries. She is the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled.
Yael Berda is an Associate Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at Hebrew University. Her research focuses on the way bureaucracy shapes politics, and how mundane and routine practices of the state determine citizenship, sovereignty, and social power.
Recommended reading:
'Tectonic': Israeli Annexation of the West Bank Is Now a Legal Reality by Dahlia Scheindlin (Haaretz)
The Theory of Annexation by Ronit Levine-Schnur, Tamar Megiddo, and Yael Berda (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies)
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President Donald Trump is not the first president to consider seizing Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. Forty-six years ago, Jimmy Carter and his national security team mulled deploying troops to take the oil-critical island to compel Iran's revolutionary government to free more than 50 Americans held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Today, the idea behind any such attack would be to force open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed to most tanker traffic after the U.S. and Israel started bombing on Feb. 28.
In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri reflects on Carter's bind and the potentially disastrous consequences if Trump deploys boots on the ground.
Jeremi Suri teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He cohosts 'This is Democracy' podcast and co-writes the Democracy of Hope newsletter.
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The destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza is not over. More than five months after the ceasefire, Israel continues to kill Palestinians in airstrikes while restricting food and medicine to the enclave's desperate population. Yet the world's attention has moved on to other problems. Enter historian Jean-Pierre Filiu, who traveled to Gaza for 32 days to bear witness to the consequences of Israel's war of national annihilation. In this episode, Filiu shares what he experienced on the ground in Gaza, the subject of his new book, "A Historian in Gaza."
Further reading:
Why Gaza Matters by Jean-Pierre Filiu (in Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations)
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Israel is at war in Lebanon again, displacing a million Lebanese from their homes in the southern part of the country, its latest attempt to disarm Hezbollah. This new invasion continues a long pattern stretching back decades, where Israel tries and fails to create a Lebanon it can control. In 1982, that meant picking the country's president amid a destructive civil war. It almost worked — until an assassin's bomb killed Bashir Gemayel. Our guest is historian Ahron Bregman.
Ahron Bregman is a historian at King's College London and the author of Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947.
Recommended reading:
Lebanon's Negations by Loubna El-Amine (New York Review)
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One of the world's longest ruling autocrats, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike, the opening blow of a war to defeat or destroy Iran. During his 37 years in power, Ali Khamenei was a mysterious figure, forged by revolution and fired by anti-Western hostility. He tormented his people and exported violence across the Greater Middle East. Who was he? And what is his legacy? Our guest is historian Roham Alvandi.
Dr Roham Alvandi is Associate Professor of International History and Director of the Iranian History Initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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"Peace Through Strength" has long been a mantra in American foreign policy. Yet peace never seems to arrive despite all the strength. Instead, the Pentagon budget soars toward $1 trillion, and the U.S. military is being used to coerce and bomb other countries into submission once more — even after the cascading interventionist disasters of the post-9/11 period. In this episode, historian Brandan Buck charts the origins of "peace through strength" and reflects on the overlooked tradition of anti-war conservatism from the early 20th century.
Recommended reading:
When Peace Through Strength Means War is Peace by Brandan Buck and Beckett Elkins (The American Conservative)
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Nearly three weeks into launching an unprovoked attack on Iran, whose supreme leader was assassinated in an Israeli air strike, it has become clear that President Trump and his national security team badly misjudged their enemy. The regime is surviving. And, according to expert Vali Nasr, Iran is transitioning to an IRGC-led state with even more uncompromising leadership. Unintended consequences were, therefore, inevitable because key U.S. decision-makers misunderstood Iran and ignored intelligence warnings about the unlikelihood of regime collapse. Vali Nasr teaches Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of "Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History."
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