History As It Happens

Subscribe now for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! HAIH Premium subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Monday, April 20.
With Gaza destroyed and Jewish settlers rampaging the West Bank, and with the IDF occupying parts of southern Lebanon and Syria, talk of achieving "Greater Israel" is now commonplace among influential political and media figures in Israel, as well as the settlers who have their eyes set on annexing Palestinian territory. What does this Old Testament idea mean? And what current forces — religious, nationalist, and others — are driving it? Political scientist Ian Lustick is our guest.
Ian Lustick is a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He's the author of many books, including For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel.
His next book, Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power, will be released in August, co-authored with Eli Clifton.
Further listening:
What is Zionism? w/ Ian Lustick

Subscribe now for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! HAIH Premium subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Thursday, April 16.
There was an old idea behind President Trump's threats to annihilate Iran's bridges, power plants, and other civilian infrastructure. It's called strategic bombing, and it was devised more than a century ago by an Italian air power theorist with a French-sounding name. Giulio Douhet said air power should be used to destroy the enemy's capacity to make war while terrorizing its citizens to crush their will to persevere. In this episode, historian David M. Kennedy discusses Douhet's ideas and the sinister purposes to which they can be applied.
Recommended reading:
Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 20-minute episode (or preview 5 minutes).
After 16 years in power, the self-described illiberal democrat Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz political party were trounced in Hungary's national elections. Critics of Orbán's authoritarian style had long become concerned that he had so tilted the electoral system in Fidesz's favor that he might never be beaten. So, what happened to MAGA darling Viktor Orbán? Political scientist Veronica Anghel of the European University Institute is our guest.

Subscribe now for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content!
Great Britain, France, and Israel's secret plan in 1956 to invade Egypt, regain control of the Suez Canal, and force the nationalist strongman Gamal Nasser from power ended in strategic disaster. The Eisenhower administration angrily opposed the surprise attack and pressured the aggressors to withdraw, ensuring Egypt would maintain control of the vital waterway. Today, as the U.S. fights a war of choice against Iran with no easy way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, some believe the United States is experiencing its own 'Suez moment,' which will accelerate its strategic decline in a region where so many American projects have failed. Historian Salim Yaqub is our guest.
Salim Yaqub is a historian at U.C. Santa Barbara and an expert on U.S. involvement in the Middle East in the postwar era. He's the author of "Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East."

Keep the narrative flow going in 2026. Subscribe now for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content!
Over eight long years in the 1980s, Iraq and Iran pulverized each other in an unwinnable, pointless war that nonetheless began as an existential threat to the new revolutionary government in Tehran. In the crucible of war, the Islamic Republic cemented hardline clerical rule, crushed dissent, forged an identity, demonstrated its resilience, ensured the country's independence, and created a powerful national narrative to challenge hostile "imperialists" in the West and East.

In this episode, political scientist Hussein Banai, an expert on U.S.-Iran relations, discusses the enduring relevance of the Iran-Iraq War as the theocratic regime attempts to survive a U.S.-Israeli onslaught in 2026.
Recommended reading:
Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict by Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman
Iran-Iraq War (Encyclopedia Britannica)