History Unplugged Podcast

• The Unhealed Wounds of WW2 POWs and Combat Veterans

  Nearly 16.4 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, and for millions of survivors, the fighting left many of them physically and mentally broken for life. There was a 25% death rate in Japanese POW camps like Bataan, where starvation and torture were rampant, and fierce battles against suicidal Imperial Japanese forces, like at Iwo Jima, where 6,800 Americans died. Additionally, the psychological toll of witnessing Holocaust atrocities and enduring up to three years away from home intensified the war’s brutality. This is why when they returned home, they had physical and psychological wounds that festered, sometimes for years, sometimes for decades, and sometimes for the rest of their lives. Veterans suffering from recurring nightmares, uncontrollable rages, and social isolation were treated by doctors who had little understanding of PTSD, a term that didn’t enter the DSM until 1984. Returning veterans and their families were forced to double up with their parents or squeeze into overcrowded, substandard shelters as the country wrestled with a housing crisis. Divorce rates doubled, with more than 1 million GIs leaving or being left by their wives by 1950. Alcoholism was rampant, and an entire generation became addicted to smoking. To explore this dark shadow that hung over the WW2 generation, we’re joined by David Nasaw, author of The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II. Those affected include the period’s most influential political and cultural leaders, including John F. Kennedy, Robert Dole, and Henry Kissinger; J. D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut; Harry Belafonte and Jimmy Stewart. We look at the ways the horrors of World War 2 shaped their lives, but we also see incredible resilience and those who found ways to move past the horrors of their wartime experiences, and what we can learn from that today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Robert McNamara Thought Enough Data Could Win Any War. Instead, It Led America to the Vietnam Quagmire

  Robert S. McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during JFK and LBJ’s administrations, and one of the chief architects of the Vietnam war, made a shocking confession in his 1995 memoir. He said “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” McNamara believed this as early as 1965, that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Yet, instead of urging U.S. forces to exit, he continued to preside over the war as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s principal wartime advisor. It would be eight more years until the United States officially withdrew from Vietnam. By then, 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese had lost their lives. Why did McNamara fight so hard to escalate a war that he’d soon realize was beyond winning? Why was he so loyal to LBJ, whom he’d later describe as “crude, mean, vindictive, scheming, and untruthful”? While these questions are personal, the answers are vital to our understanding of the Vietnam War and American foreign policy at large. Today’s guest is Philip Taubman, author of “McNamara Wat War: A New History.” We look at McNamara’s early life and how he epitomized the 20th-century technocratic 'whiz kid' through his Harvard-honed data analysis skills, which he applied to optimize the firebombing of Tokyo during WWII and later revolutionized Ford Motor Company as president, using statistical efficiency to drive innovation. His technocratic approach shaped U.S. strategy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War, where he relied on data-driven decision-making, though with mixed results, notably escalating Vietnam based on flawed metrics like body counts. We look at how ultimately, McNamara’s war was not only in Vietnam. He was also at war with himself—riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• The Philistine Connection: Do the Roots of October 7 Go Back 3,000 Years?

  The October 7th attacks of Hamas on Israel were an unprecedented, surprise incursion by land, sea, and air that stunned the world and prompted Israel to declare war. The attacks, which included massacres in Israeli communities and a music festival, resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the capture of some 251 hostages. This deadly terrorist attack was years in the making, but the underlying conflict goes back much further. It starts with the 1948 formation of Israel and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the wars that began there, an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba (Arabic for "catastrophe"). But the roots of the conflict extend even further—to Ottoman-era conflict between Jewish and Arab residents, the Bar Kokhba revolts in the 2nd century AD, and battles between ancient Israel and its enemies, tracing back all the way to the Iron Age wars between Israelites and the Philistines. The October 7 attack is seen by some as an echo of the cyclical theme of persecution and existential threat against the Jewish people chronicled in the Old Testament, recalling narratives like the Exodus and attacks on ancient Israel. The modern conflict specifically originates in the same coastal region once controlled by the Philistines—an ancient people who lived on the southern coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until their demise in the 7th century BC. Furthermore, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 AD) was the third and final major Jewish-Roman war, resulting in a devastating defeat for the Jewish population of Judea and leading to the Roman renaming of the province to Syria Palaestina. Today’s guest is Dinesh D'Souza, the director and executive producer of The Dragon's Prophecy. His documentary utilizes archaeological discoveries, suggesting a historical parallel and continuation of conflict. This shows how current global instability and the conflict over Israel are part of a larger story concerning the destiny of nations. We also look at the intersection of religion, history, and current events to see how the last 3,000 years explain what’s happening today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• The Thucydides Trap: How A Rising Athens Made The Peloponnesian War Inevitable

  The Peloponnesian War is considered one of the most famous wars of the ancient world not only because it was a massive and devastating conflict that reshaped the Greek world, but also because its thorough documentation by the historian Thucydides transformed how we understand history and war. On the face of it, the Peloponnesian War, fought over 2000 years ago in a corner of the Mediterranean, shouldn’t have made history. While the war was quite long, lasting 27 years, and oftentimes brutal, the two major parties, Athens and Sparta, were politically irrelevant within a century of the war’s conclusion. Plus the war’s cause is murky and takes a detailed understanding of Greek’s chaotic political history. And yet, it was this conflict which would be remembered for centuries. As the subject of a detailed history by Thucydides, an Athenian war general and historian, the story of the Peloponnesian War remains essential reading for politicians, historians, and students. Today’s guest is Polly Low, who authored part of a new translation of The History of the Peloponnesian War. The translation depicts the events of the war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BC and would continue until 404, a conflict that embroiled not only mainland Greece but Greek states from the eastern Mediterranean and as far west as Italy and Sicily. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• The Free French Army in North Africa, 1940-1945

  One of the principal architects of Allied Victory in North Africa during World War Two was French General Louis Dio. His importance in North Africa lies in his role as a key leader of the Free French forces and a trusted subordinate to General Philippe Leclerc. He participated in every battle from Douala to the Fezzan Campaigns in the early 1940s. The most heroic moment of General Louis Dio came during the siege of the Italian fort at Kufra, a key desert outpost in southern Libya, in 1941. During the intense fighting, Dio personally led a daring night grenade assault on an Italian position, an action for which he was seriously injured and later made a Companion of the Liberation by Charles de Gaulle. Despite all that, he remains largely unrecognized because he was a modest and discreet man who left no memoirs and did not seek glory, preferring to live a simple life after the war. Many books exist in French to recount General Philippe Leclerc’s famous WWII epic, from his 1940 arrival in Cameroon until the final 1945 victory in Germany. However, few are dedicated to his fellow combatants. In this episode, we retrace the steps of this epic journey from the Free French soldiers fighting under Dio’s command. They had started in the forests of Gabon and ended at Hitler’s Eagle Nest. Particular interest is paid to the role of Dio Tactical Group in the seizure of the town of Alençon in Normandy, the liberation battles of the left bank of Paris, the thrust into Alsace and Lorraine, the conquest of Strasbourg (fulfilling Leclerc’s “Koufra Oath” to see the tricolor fly from the city’s cathedral. Today’s guest is Monique Seefried, author of “Général Louis Dio, the Wartime Epic of One of Free France’s Greatest Soldiers, 1940-1946.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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