The Past Is Now: Recent Episodes
Jordan
‘The Past Is Now’ aims to explore Britain’s relationship to history, the myths that surround it, how it affects us in the present and what this tells us about Britain today.
Welcome back to The Past Is Now and our final episode of Series 1. In this last episode, historian Andy Chatterton, tells us all about Britain's secret defences on the Home Front during the Second World War. As he states, the narrative around Britain's anti-invasion forces usually centres around 'Dad's Army' type characters running around with pitchforks, unprepared for an invasion. Today, Andy tells us how far from the truth this really was.
When we think of the Home Front in Britain today, images of 'the Blitz' and the 'Blitz spirit' often spring to mind. But what was the Home Front really like? Are these images that hold strong in our popular memory an accurate interpretation of the reality of the British Home Front during the Second World War? What are some of the darker realities of the Home Front that are often overlooked? Today, we are joined by the brilliant social historian Neil Storey to explore just this.
Recommended books:Stuart Hilton - Their Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Home Front 1939-1945Andy Chatterton - Britain's Secret Defences: Civilian Saboteurs, Spies and Assassins during the Second World WarNeil Storey & Fiona Kay - The Home Front in World War 2
Neil Storey & Fiona Kay - Faces of the Home Front, 1939-1945 (Neil Storey also has a host of other titles that you can search online).
Welcome back to The Past Is Now! Today, I am joined by Paul Bristow from the Dunkirk 1940 museum to discuss the many myths that surround one of the spectacular events of not just the Second World War, but the 20th century. We then go onto explore the 'Dunkirk spirit' and how we have come to view the evacuation in contemporary Britain.
Recommended reading:Hugh Sebag Montefiore - Dunkirk: Fight to the Last ManDr. Phillip Weir - Dunkirk and the Little Ships
James Holland - The War in the West: A New History (Volume 1)Walter Lord - The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation DynamoJoshua Levine - Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture
Today, we are joined by a very special guest to continue our discussion on Winston Churchill. A world renowned historian, Andrew Roberts wrote Churchill: Walking with Destiny, described as 'undoubtedly the best single-volume life of Churchill ever written.' We continue where we left off in Part 1 as Andrew and myself explore the myth that surrounds Winston Churchill and how this has changed over time.
Today, we are joined by former soldier turned military historian, Gordon Corrigan. In the first part of our focus on Winston Churchill, I ask Gordon about the myth that has come to surround Churchill in contemporary Britain and how we may have reached this point. We continue to explore our great wartime leader, both the good points and the bad, before we take a look at what our thinking about Churchill potentially reveals about us today.
Recommended books:
Gordon Corrigan - Blood, Sweat & Arrogance: The Myths of Churchill's War
Andrew Roberts - Churchill: Walking With Destiny
Steven Fielding - The Churchill Myths
Warren Dockter - Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East
Christopher M. Bell - Churchill and the Dardanelles
John Charmley - Churchill: The End of Glory
Welcome to ‘The Past Is Now’ podcast!
This trailer episode will give listeners a brief introduction to what this podcast is all about. ‘The Past Is Now’ aims to explore Britain’s relationship to history, the myths that surround it, how it affects us in the present and what this tells us about Britain today.
The first series of ‘The Past Is Now’ will focus on The Second World War. The last great global conflict ended over three quarters of a century ago, yet it still looms large in Britain’s public memory and national consciousness. Since 1945, Britain has continued to seek out and utilise the war and its stories for political, social and commercial reasons. This fascination with the war continues in Britain to this day, yet as time goes on and we draw further away, much of what happened has fallen into myth and simplistic narrative. History is far from black and white. History is very much that grey area in between.
‘The Past Is Now’ will be diving into the history of Winston Churchill, the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940 as well as the Home Front and ‘Blitz spirit’ in Britain throughout the war, all of which are enshrouded in myth. This podcast will not only look to dispel these myths but also explore our relationship and understanding of this past in Britain today.
Stay tuned for the forthcoming episodes that will be released weekly throughout August!