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Today I sit down with author and historian, Joel Nelson, to discuss his book Kennedy's Only Hero: How JFK's Obsession with Winston Churchill Defined His Presidency. It is rare to get a biographical piece that features the two most common biographies I get. But it happened! This masterful piece examines how Churchill changed JFK in multiple ways - several of which we break down in the interview. The book is a great read for lovers of JFK, Churchill, western history, and everyone in between.  Buy the book HERE.  Western Civ 2.0

1943 saw World War Two finally flip. In 1942 the Allies stopped the Axis advance. By the end of 1943, the Axis powers were in full retreat. Sadly, the bloodiest year was yet to come.  Western Civ 2.0

The year 1942 is normally seen as the turning point of World War Two. In some ways it is. The Axis powers hit their highest peak of expansion but are turned back at Almein, Guadalcanal, and Stalingrad. Yet, to the people fighting and back at home, the future looked far from certain.  Western Civ 2.0

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the world is now well and truly at war in a way that dwarfed anything in World War One. Today, we back up a bit and cover the German invasion of the USSR in earnest and then move forward to the Battle of Midway.  Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial

Today I sit down with author and historian Leah Garrett and discuss her latest book: The Flight Nurses' War: The American Women Who Saved Thousands of Lives at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Pacific Theater was the setting for some of World War II’s bloodiest battles, and yet much of its history remains untold. As the war in Europe was winding down, fierce Japanese resistance and mounting casualties slowed the US advance toward Japan. The terrible death toll of doctors, medics, and corpsmen forced the United States Navy to deploy combat nurses to contested airfields, where they triaged desperately wounded men and evacuated them to safety. In The Flight Nurses’ War, award-winning historian Leah Garrett traces the lives of a team of nurses from their small-town origins to the devastation of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They risked their lives on rickety, unpressurized aircraft and braved constant enemy assaults. As the battles intensified, Army nurses were also deployed to hospital ships and the infantry front- line, where they endured disease, snipers, and Kamikazes. Successfully evacuating thousands of wounded men from danger, the combat nurses freed up troops to secure both islands and help win the war. Uncovering an extraordinary story of Second World War heroism, The Flight Nurses’ War powerfully brings to life the remarkable women who risked everything to save lives and assure America’s success in the Pacific campaign. Buy The Book Support The Podcast

Today I sit down with former Cook County Prosecutor Gregg Owen to discuss their book, Convergence.  This story seems impossible. But every word is true. Convergence is the account of a vicious double homicide in 1970s Chicago and a trial that almost didn't happen. This is a different kind of true crime book.It isn't a mystery, because the killer was arrested right away. It's not a police story, although Convergence is there at every step of their investigation. It's not a defense lawyer's story. This is a story from the other side of the courtroom. Convergence is the story of Gio Messina and Delphine Moore's murders and the trial that followed, but this time told from the perspective of the prosecution. You are there to witness how a case is built, how it's brought to court, and how it unfolds when the trial starts. You see what happens when power and money try and keep the trial from starting at all. You follow the prosecution from the courtrooms of Chicago to rural Tennessee looking for new evidence to replace the evidence that's vanished. You're introduced to the choreography of the courtroom: listening in on the careful strategizing, understanding the thought behind what a jury hears, and getting a close view of what's involved in how it's presented. Most importantly, you're introduced to Mike Goggin and Gregg Owen, the two prosecutors who fought to have the case heard. Goggin and Owen had set a record for convictions that still stands. They refused to let the Messina and Moore murders break it. Convergence is a historical snapshot of a time when Chicago was changing, and a timeless picture of how justice is sought and found. Buy The Book

It is not hyperbole to say that the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbor changed western history. Today we will cover the attack, why Japan did it, and look at the momentous decision Hitler made in the days that followed.  Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial

Today I sit down with medieval historian, James Palmer, and discuss his latest book: Charlemagne's Dream: The Rise and Fall of the Carolingian Empire.  Today, the Carolingians are best known as the dynasty of Charlemagne. In a few remarkable decades spanning the late eighth and early ninth centuries, Charlemagne united much of modern-day Europe through conquest and diplomacy, establishing the continent’s first empire since the fall of Rome. In Charlemagne’s Dream, historian James T. Palmer looks beyond Charlemagne alone to tell the full story of the rise and fall of the massively consequential Carolingian dynasty―the men and women who laid the foundations for his achievements, and the colorful heirs who squandered his legacy. Carolingian rulers established the royal court as a place of learning, attracting scholars and philosophers and driving a cultural and intellectual renaissance. They fought and traded with power centers as far-flung as Córdoba, Constantinople, and Baghdad. In allying with the pope, they forever changed the relationship between church and state in the West. And they dispatched the first missionaries to northern Europe, expanding Christendom’s reach farther than ever before. Charlemagne’s Dream details the powerfully human stories of the Carolingians, showing how their pursuit of ever-greater power built one of the world’s great empires. You can buy the book HERE.

Today I sit down with renowned historian of the Catholic Church, Ambrogio Caiani to discuss his most recent work: Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalization.  The history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is one of spies, scandals and bad political choices. It's a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In this book, Ambrogio Caiani lifts back the heavy velvet curtains of the chancel and peers behind the locked mahogany doors of the Vatican to reveal the shocking truths that make up a century of Catholic corruption. For many, Catholicism's flirtation with evil has become impossible to ignore: a pope courting Nazi officials and, horribly, turning a blind eye to the Holocaust; the Vatican becoming embroiled in a series of dodgy financial dealings; the child abuse continuously perpetrated by members of the clergy. Time and time again, Catholic figures have made terrible choices in private and preached in public about goodness and morality. This is the first history that focuses exclusively on Catholicism throughout the twentieth century, sketching not only scandalous stories of corruption but also lively portrayals of Catholicism's key characters – from a beret-clad communist revolutionary priest to the bizarre morning routine of the pope who followed a daily cold bath with dry unbuttered toast. Caiani, a critical Catholic himself, takes a frank and sceptical look at the trajectory of global Catholicism and wrestles with vital questions about the future of the church. Taking in the wider socio-political contexts of a world at war and the accumulating momentum of social progress, this brilliant history traces the evolution of the Catholic church alongside the development of our modern society right up to the election of Pope Leo XIV in 2025. Buy The Book HERE.

In the summer of 1940, with continental Europe under Nazi occupation, Great Britain stood alone against the seemingly unstoppable German war machine. This episode chronicles the Battle of Britain, a high-stakes aerial campaign where the heavily outnumbered pilots of the Royal Air Force clashed with the Luftwaffe in the skies over the English Channel. We dive into the tactical decisions, the revolutionary use of radar technology, and the sheer human endurance that prevented a full-scale German invasion. Join us as we explore how a few thousand young aviators—immortalized as "The Few"—defied the odds in a turning point that fundamentally shifted the trajectory of World War II. Western Civ Podcast 2.0 Free Trial

The Phony Way ends abruptly in May 1940. It does not take long for the world to learn that this world war was NOT going to be like the previous one.  Western Civ 2.0

The Second World War does not begin everywhere on September 1, 1939. In fact, in Asia, it's already been raging for two years. Today, we explore that story and see how the machine toward Pearl Harbor is already in motion. Western Civ 2.0

There is an argument that there are not two world wars. Just one with a twenty-year pause. Today I explore that idea as we break down the beginning of World War Two in Europe and evaluate what is the same compared to the Great War and what has REALLY changed.  Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial

Today I sit down with historian Hans van de Ven and discuss his latest book: Blood Dawn: World War II and the Making of Modern Asia. Drawing on deep archival research across continents, historian Hans van de Ven tells the dramatic story of how Asia’s people mobilized to defeat both Japanese aggression and European imperialism, forging modern Asia in the process. By the early twentieth century, from India to China, Western imperial powers dominated Asia. Then, in the 1930s, Japan began to tear down this old order in pursuit of its own imperial ambitions―first by invading China, and then by launching its assault against British, Dutch, and American outposts across Asia and the Pacific in December 1941. As Japanese forces seized vast swaths of territory and pressed toward India, the brutal fighting cost millions of lives across the continent. Simultaneously, the war’s chaos and suffering supercharged anti-colonial movements from British India to Dutch Indonesia. Ultimately, it was the charismatic leaders of these movements―Mao, Nehru, Sukarno―who built the new Asia of independent nation-states that emerged in the war’s bloody wake. Blood Dawn is a powerful new perspective, revealing how Asia’s Second World War was absolutely central in creating the postwar order. You can buy the book HERE.

For the last two weeks, we have been focused on Europe and Asia, but now we come back to the United States. While Hitler has assumed power in Germany and while Japan expands into Manchuria, most Americans are still just trying to deal with the Great Depression. In this episode, we follow FDR as he navigates America through its worst economic crisis and toward a second world war.  Western Civ 2.0