Anthony Tucker-Jones, "Kursk 1943: Hitler's Bitter Harvest" (History Press, 2018)
The year 1943 was a pivotal one on the Eastern Front during World War II. The Axis had suffered a catastrophic defeat at the battle of Stalingrad earlier in the year, but wished to attempt to regain t...
4 Feb 20231h 13min
Richard Overy, "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945" (Viking, 2022)
Richard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 (Viking, 2022) to recast the way in which we view the Second World War and its origins and aftermath. As one of Britain's mo...
4 Feb 202358min
Chris Webb, "The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance" (Ibidem, 2016)
Chris Webb's The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (Ibidem, 2016) is a comprehensive account of the Belzec death camp in Poland, which was the first death camp to use static gas cha...
31 Jan 202339min
Zachary Shore, "This Is Not Who We Are: America’s Struggle Between Vengeance and Virtue" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
What kind of country is America? Zachary Shore tackles this polarizing question by spotlighting some of the most morally muddled matters of WWII. Should Japanese Americans be moved from the west coast...
29 Jan 202347min
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, "Beautiful, Gruesome, and True: Artists at Work in the Face of War" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022)
Art has a long history of engaging with conflict and violence. From the antiquities, through Goya, to Guernica, our museums are filled with depictions of battles, pogroms, uprisings, and their suppres...
29 Jan 20231h 2min
Radu Ioanid, "The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Radu Ioanid explores in great detail the physical destruction of Romania'...
28 Jan 20231h 22min
Postscript: Narrative and Influence Activities in the Russo-Ukraine War
For almost a year now, we have been absorbing news and information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are a variety of different, or competing, narratives to explain and define what we understa...
26 Jan 202350min
In the Swiss Guards: Reflections on Two Years Guarding the Pope
David Geisser was a Swiss Guard protecting Pope Francis and the Apostolic Palace between 2013 and 2015. He was following the footsteps of his father who had been in the service a generation earlier un...
26 Jan 202344min
