Tarak Barkawi, a Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics, has written an important book that will cause many of us to rethink the way we understand the relationships between armies and societies. In Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Barkawi argues that many scholars o ... Show More
Mar 3
Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers of France, Britain, and Italy faced a fundamental problem: keeping their soldier and civilian populations safe from starvation. W ... Show More
54m 45s
Mar 1
Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supporting it and causing it. Wool's strategic value in wartime, a position it gained over centuries, and contrived shortages of same ... Show More
1h 9m
Mar 1
James Giesler, "Francisco de Saavedra's American Revolutionary War, The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown" (James Giesler, 2025)
Francisco de Saavedra’s American Revolutionary War: The Spanish Contribution to the Battle of Yorktown (James Giesler, 2025) by James Giesler is the story of how the decisive victory in the American Revolutionary War, at the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781, was the result of F ... Show More
59m 34s
Oct 2023
205 - Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-40
<p>As some of you may know, I am also a First World War historian, and the academic history of the war can be very different from the public perspective, which dwells on the first two years of the war. </p> <p>Forgetting the victories of 1917 and 1918 is not new; it is something ... Show More
56m 31s
Jun 2023
Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and ... Show More
42m 30s
Aug 2014
Episode 2 - Forgotten Heroes, The Indian Army in the Great War
In the second part of his documentary looking at the Asian contribution to WW1, Sarfraz Manzoor charts the experiences of soldiers and labourers in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. The story for India changes as the war wears on. Recruitment becomes more draconian, British officers are ... Show More
29m 2s
Aug 2022
4. Between Two Massacres: 1857-1919
Join William and Anita for the latest episode of Empire, which picks up in the aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion and the establishment of the British Raj.
The episode covers the birth of Gandhi, the arrival of Michael O'Dwyer, Indian soldiers in the First World War, and the lead up ... Show More
42m 25s
May 2024
224 - The Theory and Practice of Command in the British and German Armies
<p>In this podcast episode, we will discuss the different approaches to command and control of the British Army and the German Army. From a management point of view, both organisations developed different doctrines to deal with the 'fog of war' or 'friction', which affected how c ... Show More
1h 4m