159. Young Putin, the KGB and the Soviet Unio...

Who was Samuel Johnson, the dominant literary celebrity of 18th century London and the man who wrote the Dictionary? Why did his friendship with James Boswell, a sex and celebrity obsessed, but very talented writer, flourish? And, how does this titanic friendship open a window on ...  Show more

With the Incan emperor on the run, and the Spanish divided, what atrocities would unfold in the final phase of this brutal conquest? Who would triumph, Francisco Pizarro or his brutal former partner Diego de Almagro? And how would the once mighty Incas, finally fall…? Join Domini ...  Show more

In our most recent episode, Alastair mentioned our sister podcast, The Rest Is History, and its recent mini-series on the Soviet Union, its fall, Putin's early life and his subsequent rise to power. Here's the first episode of the series on Brezhnev, Putin's formative years, his ...  Show more

Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. But who is the man behind the headlines?

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 24th February 2022, but how did we get to this point? After the brutality of the Second World War, Ukraine was completely under the control of Moscow. Then in the 1980s, with Chernobyl as the catalyst, the Ukrainian nationalist movement regained ...  Show more

On the 24th of June, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his paramilitary group Wagner carried out what appeared to be an attempted coup in Russia. In a seismic turn of events, his mercenaries marched across the Russian border without resistance and seized key military installations i ...