FRDH Podcast with Michael Goldfarb

Turning Point in History: How the Arab oil embargo caught the American and Uk governments by surprise and effectively ended the post-World War2 economic era of good feeling in under 10 weeks.

As the House Intelligence Committee memo alleging FBI malfeasance in its Russia investigation grabs the headlines, a look back at Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. The Saturday Night Massacre was the hinge point of the Watergate scandal. The words coup and Third Reich were thrown around. The events of that weekend in October 1973 marked the beginning of the end of Nixon’s Presidency. Do they hold a lesson for today? President Trump has started his term of office exercising power in a similar fashion. His firing of the acting Attorney General Sally Yates has echoes of the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon said, “If the President does it, it’s not illegal.” Trump acts as if he thinks that is the way the world works. But Nixon found out even his own Republican Party didn’t think that was true. Will Trump? This is an essay from my archive and it offers a chance to reflect on how American politics has changed in the more than four decades since the Watergate scandal. If you like this be sure to tell your friends and make a donation to keep the podcasts coming.

Turning Point in History: The Yom Kippur war in 1973 changed Israeli and Jewish psyche's as well the relationship between the Arab nations and the Palestinians.

Turning Point in History: The Chilean coup and the end of anti-war activism. First of five essays on Autuman 1973 broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The Cost of History: the surge in suicides among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4

National History: Germans' constant attempt to answer the question "What is the German Nation?" has been one of the driving forces of history in the last 200 years.

National History: I have never witnessed the birth of a nation, but I have attended the death of one, Yugoslavia.

National History: The story of the Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without a "nation-state" of their own.

National History: When does a "tribe" become a "nation"? The case of Ulster's protestants or the Scotch-Irish as they are called in America

National History: Europe - what is "the" nation? What is the "nation-state"?

Cultural History: Buddha, Confucius and the first Greek taught man was responsible for his own fate not the gods. But then something strange happened: their teachings became the basis for religions anyway.

Cultural History: Buddha, Confucius and the first Greek philosophers all lived at precisely the same time. They were the first to say that man, not God or the gods, was the measure of all things. Coincidence? or were their civilizations in contact with each other? In this documentary, originally made for BBC Radio 3, archaeologists, historians and philosophers offer their answers.