Radio War Nerd

Recorded: October 12, 2021 The Nobel Prize for Lit just went to a Zanzibar-born writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Not exactly Africa's most exciting writer, but the occasion called for an episode on the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, which for a few months that year created a Cold War freakout in Washington and

Guest: Steve Davis, historian Recorded: July 23, 2021 Nelson Mandela became a living legend after his release from prison in 1990, when he led South Africa from apartheid to black majority rule. Mandela's image transformed as well, from leftist African guerrilla leader, to avuncular racial strife he

Guest: Annibale Recorded: January 22, 2021 In the second part of our 2-part series on Italy's 1970 Borghese Coup plot (RWN #264), our Years Of Lead expert Annibale describes the political conditions in Italy at the time of the coup, the events, who benefited, the likely goal of the coup plotters, an

Guest: Vincent Bevins, journalist & author Recorded: May 15, 2020 The 1965 anticommunist holocaust in Indonesia killed somewhere between 500,000 and 2 million, though we don't know the actual figure, for reasons we discuss—and it was fully supported by the US Embassy and Washington. Why do we know s

Guest: Annibale Recorded: April 24, 2020 In this second part of Annibale's look at Italy on the Eastern Front in WWII, Hitler agrees to have a modest-sized Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia join the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union to perform mostly backup duties well behind the front lines. By

Guest: Audra Wolfe, writer & historian Recorded: June 28, 2019 For non-subscribers, here is a 25+ minute preview of Radio War Nerd episode #188 with guest Audra Wolfe about her new book "Freedom's Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science" — on the instrumentalization of science for