Explore every episode of the podcast FRDH Podcast with Michael Goldfarb

The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris nearly burned to the ground five years ago, now, fully restored it is about to re-open. It is a remarkable rebirth. Agnes Poirier, native Parisienne, journalis and author of Notre Dame: the Soul of France, talks to FRDH host Michael Goldfarb about the fire, the restoration and the deep meaning of the cathedral being re-born for contemporary France. Give them 30:34 to tell you about it.

Since November 5th, 2024 the question on many lips is, So now what?, and the Financial Times' Edward Luce has some thoughts on Trump's second term, aka the Revenge Tour. Trump has promised retribution, will he follow through? In this wide-ranging conversation Luce and FRDH host Michael Goldfarb look at his cabinet appointments, his courtiers, and the likely trajectory of American history in the next four years and global history for the next century. Give us 38:56 to explain.

How do you price the political risk of the second Trump term and America's imperial decline from democracy to autocracy? In this podcast, Michael Moran, veteran foreign correspondent turned political risk consultant, takes a realistic look at what the second Trump term will mean for America's relations with the world. He also discusses the greatest source of instability and risk at the present moment. Give us 45 minutes to explain.

Georgia will be as important to Election 2024 as it was in 2020 when Donald Trump accused official of rigging the vote. This laid the foundation for his mendacious and deadly claim that the vote was stolen. IN this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb speaks with University of Georgia professor of History James Cobb about the state's inglorious tradition of using rules to thwart the will of the people.

The death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is not the beginning of the end for the terror group. That's the view of journalist Mitchell Prothero, who has spent much of the last two decades covering the Middle East based in Beirut. In this FRDH podcast he provides a turorial on the beginnings of Hezbollah, the end of its leader, and why this will not stop the group from continuing to be a threat to Israel.

"We’ll Always have Paris," Rick tells Elsa in Casablanca but what happens when the place where you knew love is lost and with it the language you have to express that feeling? Author Scott Carpenter learned the answer when his wife, Anne, was diagnosed with dementia. In this FRDH podcast he talks about his new book which with great good humor and insight looks at why people fall in love with the city (and fall in love in it), what happens when memories of the place disappear, and how to rebuild a life after great tragedy. Give us 41:43 to tell you about it. It's almost -- but not quite -- like going to Paris for the weekend.

The fact that the Gaza War caused by the pogrom of October 7th is still going on underlines the absence of truth in the search for peace. Telling the truth about what peace will really mean and the compromises on both sides needed to end war, is something very few people are willing to do. Brown University professor Omer Bartov is one of the truth tellers on the Israeli side. A veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and a renowned scholar of the Germany Army's role in the Holocaust, in this FRDH podcast Bartov speaks truth about his native country and its futile quest for security by violent occupation. Give us 53:35 to explore what Hamas's October 7th outrage has revealed about the truth of Israeli politics and society.

The world is waiting for the next round in the Iran, Israel conflict: will it be all out war or ritual -- and ineffectual -- retaliation for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran July 31st? In this FRDH podcast two veteran Middle East reporters, Liz Sly, former Middle East Bureau Chief of the Washington Post and Catherine Philp, World Affairs Editor of the Times, discuss the current situation, which way the conflict is heading and how it will affect people in Israel and, if it is all out war, Lebanon, home to Iran's proxy army, Hezbollah.

Anti-Semitism in places without Jews is a strange historical phenomenon in Poland where most of the deaths in the Holocaust took place. It is a tale of History vs Nationalism the story of how Poles deal with the Holocaust. In this FRDH podcast Professor Jan Grabowski, author of, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, and host Michael Goldfarb explore anti-Semitism without Jews in the country where before the war more than 3 million Jews lived and where today the Jewish population is a mere four thousand.

The SCOTUS decision on Donald Trump's claim of presidential immunity in the various indictments against him for the January 6th events has ramifications not just in American but also international law. In this podcast, noted human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, author of the award-winning best seller East West Street looks at how the concept of "absolute immunity" outlined in the decision works in relation to laws enacted to punish crimes against humanity and genocide. Give us 35 minutes to explain.

2024 was always going to be a year of elections globally but not in France, now President Emanuel Macron has taken a huge gamble and called a snap general election for the French parliament. Why did Macron risk the final three years of his presidency? What are the chances of his big gamble paying off? Author Agnes Poirier and former BBC present Gavin Esler look at France, the EU elections and Britain's upcoming general election and try to figure out Macron's odds.

The last week of May 2024 in Anglo-American politics saw a verdict in the trial of Donald J Trump and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have his electoral parade rained on. In these surreal times FRDH turns to Robin Lustig to calmly, rationally analyze the verdict in the Trump Trial and the curious local disinterest in the UK's elections.

The US Supreme Court is considering what Presidential immunity means in 2024 in the case of Donald J. Trump. In this wide-ranging conversation with constitutional law professor Frank Bowman FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb discusses the case, its merits, where political considerations enter Supreme Court discussions and whether Trump is just another guy, in the legal sense.

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has expanded as Hamas’s overseers Iran entered the fray with a massive launch of airborne ordnance at Israel. The internet is alive with fevered speculation that the Iran-Israel confrontation will touch off World War 3. In this FRDH podcast Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations provides a calm analysis of the situation.

The Ukraine war is now in year 3 and its people still want to fight. Why? We are witnessing the birth of a political nation. In this conversation with journalist and author Vladislav Davidzon who has lived in Ukraine on and off for the last 14 years, FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb looks at the tensions attending this birth to find the explanation for why, after 3 years of bloody, destructive conflict Ukrainians still fight.

Brian Klaas on why everything we do matters and nothing is really a fluke. Klaas is a political scientist specializing in the study of corruption and how authoritarian's gain power but in Fluke he turns his mind to what isn't random in our world even if it seems like it. A fast paced far reaching 43 minute long conversation.

2023 was marked by two terrible wars of disproportion in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine and Channel 4 News's International Editor Lindsey Hilsum spent most of the year on one frontline or the other. In this FRDH podcast she talks with host Michael Goldfarb about what she learned covering Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza and Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion. Hilsum learned a lot particularly covering Israel's war with Hamas. Give us 45 minutes to tell you about it.

Britain in 2023 is a country where much has gone wrong and it is not a happy place. Gavin Esler, former BBC news presenter, has noticed and written a book, Britain is Better Than This, about how so much went wrong. In this FRDH podcast he explains why to host Michael Goldfarb.

On the sixtieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, two people who lived through that day share their memories of Kennedy's assassination and the days and decade that followed. FRDH host Michael Goldfarb talks with Richard Parker, former professor at Harvard, and co-founder of Mother Jones magazine about what might have been had JFK lived and the meanning of the President's assassination today.

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, what are the prospects of the conflict spreading to Lebanon, Iran and the entire Middle East region? A special FRDH podcast with Kim Ghattas in Beirut and Robin Lustig, who has reported from the region for forty years. Give us an hour to explore how Hamas's October 7th sneak attack has changed the calculus in Lebanon and Iran and where the crisis might be headed.

The war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023 with a terror attack that killed 1400 Israelis and now the world is waiting for the next phase, an expected israeli invasion of Gaza. In the lull before the assault begins FRDH host Michael Goldfarb speaks with two veteran journalists who have been living the story and reporting on it for nearly 50 years. What can be done and how far will Israel be allowed to go by the US in its aim of eradicating Hamas? What are the prospects for gettting nearly 200 Israelis held hostage by Hamas safely returned?

In a world of conspiracy theories presented as facts in new media how can you be sure of what you know? In this FRDH podcast Dr. Matthew Sweet, cultural historian and BBC presenter who has spent more time than you or I investigating this murky world, explains how knowledge is intentionally corrupted by conspiracy friendly media and why people embrace these ideas.

A half-century after the Chilean coup of 1973 an eyewitness and participant in that traumatic history remembers. Marc Cooper, then an American in his early twenties, was the President of Chile Salvador Allende's translator. In this podcast he remembers what he saw before, during and after the coup; his narrow escape; and the US role in Allende's overthrow. Eyewitness testimony on an important but neglected moment in history.

Christian nationalism is an increasingly loud form of the faith and many evangelical Christians in America are tired of its hypocrisy. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb speaks with Andrew Whitehead, evangelical Christian and professor of sociology about his book American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens The Church.

For decades Saudi Arabia was a place of official silence but now it is taking its place and the center of the geo-political stage. Whether it is paying exorbitant sums to entice football stars to play in its new league or holding peace conferences on Ukraine or opening up diplomatically to Israel, Iran AND the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia's leader, Mohammed bin Salman has put his kingdom in the center of the global conversation without revealing much about the place. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations about the Silent Kingdom.

War has come with a vengeance to Odesa in 2023 and poet and translator Boris Dralyuk wants to talk about Odesa's identity and the poetry and comedy and love it inspires. In this podcast he tells about Odesa's unique historical identity as the place where so many poets, novelists, musicians and comedians come from. He knows his stuff since he is one of them.

Karl Marx was wrong when he wrote History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. The second time around it is still tragic as the events of midsummer 2023 show. In this podcast with BBC great Robin Lustig we look at how from riots in Paris to Israeli incursions into the West Bank city of Jenin the conflicts we have covered 15/20/30 years ago keep blowing up again. Give us 50:56 to argue it out.

Every Saturday night for the last 26 weeks in Tel Aviv crowds of up to 150,000 have staged demonstrations against Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu over his attempt to gut the courts and steer Israel towards strong man rule, with Netanyahu as the strong man. This short shapr podcast contains sound and interviews from the demonstration held on July 1st, 2023.

To say Democracy is in crisis today is not hyperbole but people don't have an idea about fixing it. Forty years ago Oxford professor Maurice Pope saw the crisis coming and wrote a book about one possible solution. Needless to say the book couldn't find a publisher. Their attitude was crisis, what crisis? The manuscript was lost for forty years, rediscovered and has recently been published and in this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with the author's son, Hugh Pope, about his father's big idea to bypass electoral politics and take democratic decision making back to the people.

Journalist Isabel Hilton talks about China today, its leader Xi Jinping, and the many different Chinas he is trying to bring under his control. China is constanstly in the news but for all the coverage it remains an unknown place. Isabel Hilton has half a century of experience reporting on the country and in this wide-ranging conversation paints a picture of Chinese society and the recent history that has created it,

25 years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed this is the story of how Mo Mowlam accepted what the price of peace in Northern Ireland would be and heroically acted to make peace possible. FRDH podcast host Michael covered that story throughout the 1990s on the 25th anniversary remembers his encounters with Mo Mowlam and the twists and turns that led to Northern Ireland's peace after three decades of conflict as well as the key lesson of her brave work.

The voice missing from most US/UK histories of the Iraq war is that of Iraqis who saw their hopes raised and then ruined. This sound history was made by FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb who covered the Iraq War as an unembedded reporter. He followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein through the eyes of someone who had suffered terribly under Saddam’s regime. This radio documentary first aired in 2003 a few weeks after Saddam’s statue in Baghdad came down, it contains essential Iraqi voices and stands as a sound history of that conflict.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, takes an anniversary look at two of the big wars of the 21st century: Ukraine and Iraq. Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, talks about the current state of play in Ukraine on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion as well as what happened in Iraq on the 20th anniversary of the American invasion. Do the two conflicts have anything in common? Listen through to the end to find out.

In the year 2023 Israel reached a crossroad. Hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrated every week against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and its lurch towards authoritarianism. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with former Knesset Member Ksenia Svetlova about Netanyahu's power grab and the dangerous, violent nationalism of the the religious Zionists on whom he depends for power, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

Greenwich Village in 1944 as World War 2 came to an end saw the beginnings of an explosion of artistic expression among the Village bohemians. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb tells the origin story of two of them: Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. The pair met by chance and became lifelong friends in an unrepeatable time and place: Greenwich Village 1944

As Britain's NHS turns 75, author Henry Marsh, who worked as a surgeon and is now a cancer patient of the National Health Service, discusses his book "And Finally" which looks back at changes in the NHS over 40 years and the role reversal of being a patient in the service. Marsh was one of Britain's foremost neurosurgeons and his conversation roams from operating room tales to philosophy to the very different experience of being on the other side of the consultant's desk. Give us 39:50 to tell you all about the difference between being an NHS surgeon and an NHS patient.

American politics was held hostage in the first week of 2023. Once again the hostage takers were from the extremist right-wing of the already radical faction called the Republican Party who forced one of their own, Kevin McCarthy to go through 15 ballots before finally being elected Speaker of the House. The hostage takers extracted maximum concessions before giving their votes. In this extended, pull no punches conversation, Norman Ornstein, who has been studying Congress since the 1970s as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute traces the history of how the party became the threat to American democracy it has become.

In this FRDH holiday special to mark the end of 2022, Michael Goldfarb plays Jewish Ukrainian music recorded by him while on assignment in L'viv before Putin's war. The stories behind these pieces are interesting and the music is unique, lovely and presciently defiant.

In this edition of Bible Study for Atheists, FRDH host MIchael Goldfarb looks at the results of the 2022 Midterm Election through the story of the children of Israel's search for a strongman, a King. What does it say about American society that nearly half the country want to give over their democratic republic to an autocrat, if not Donald Trump than Ron DeSantis? Give him 13:30 to lead you through a Bible Study that gives an answer

FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb was in L'viv Ukraine recently and this is his diary. L'viv is a city he knows well and he explores how war has changed it and how different the courage of Ukrainians who are living through real war is to the enervated resignation of Britons and Americans to their own deteriorating democracies. Give him 13:30 precisely to explain it to you.

The autumn of 2022 has brought Britons local and global economic crises and in this podcast the Financial Times' Martin Wolf tries to make sense of both. Did new British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng not know their budget that they said wasn't a budget would cause a crisis in the markets? Didn't they think for a minute about the difficult state of the world economy reeling from three years of pandemic and now war? Give Wolf and FRDH host Michael Goldfarb 35 minutes to untangle the factors creating these economic crises and perhaps find a bit of hope for getting out of them.

Was Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev a geopolitical visionary or a leader who failed at domestic politics in Russia? In this FRDH podcast, Martin Walker, who covered Gorbachev’s years in power as the Moscow correspondent of Britain’s Guardian newspaper looks back with host Michael Goldfarb on the achievements, the failures and the long eclipse of Gorbachev the man who ended the Cold War and unintentionally ended the Soviet Union. Give them 40 minutes precisely to relive those thrilling days of yesteryear that shaped the world of today.

Bill Russell was one of the great figures of his time, and what a time it was. Russell was a man who transcended sport, a leader at the moment when athletes became leaders by example in the Civil Rights movement. In this FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb talks with Michael Carlson, American ex-pat and long-time interpreter of American sport to British audiences, about Bill Russell's historic significance and what it was like to be young in a time when sporting Gods were heroes off the court as well.

America’s Children of WW2 Victory grew up in a time of progressive politics and have lived our adult lives in a reactionary age and the reason is the events of October 1973. That's FRDH host Michael Goldfarb's theory and in this podcast he looks at America just before October 1973 and what happened to it after as the Great Inflation which started that month took hold. Give him 22:18 to explain his thesis.

Inflation is back and in this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb speaks with Financial Times columnist Martin Sandbu about the difference between inflation now and then, then being the 1970s. Nothing inspires fear in policy makers like inflation. It is the economic problem that more than any other can change a nation's trajectory in history. Take 29:30 to learn about inflation now, and what it was like back then.

As Queen Elizabeth the Second celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the throne, this First Rough Draft of History podcast looks at how the Queen intersects with many lives, including that of host Michael Goldfarb. The Jubilee marks the end of an era and is a time for a bit of reminiscence about the Queen, her family and what reporting on them over the decades has taught him about the place of the monarchy in British and American lives.

To mark three months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine a conversation with the Economist's Wendell Steavenson who has been an eyewitness writing the first rough draft of the history of the war. Steavenson, a veteran reporter and author of books about the 21st century's major conflicts has fresh impressions to share with FRDH host Michael Goldfarb about Ukraine and the extraordinary mobilization of its citizens, to fight a war, like "none we have seen in this century."

This FRDH podcast originally broadcast on the BBC World Service looks at the story of Jewish Emancipation and how it changed Jewish identity through attempts at assimilation. This is done through conversations with three prominent Jews each representing a very different strand of post-war Jewish experience ... plus lots of music. A podcast that has resonance for all minority groups trying to assimilate into societies where they are not completely welcome.

War defies simple words, it's the time when we turn to poets to make sense of the incomprehensible. In this FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb speaks with award-winning British poet George Szirtes who has written more than two dozen poems so far trying to make sense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In this wide ranging half-hour conversation they talk about poetry, form, and the difference between how Central and Eastern Europeans experience history from those of us in the West. And also read poems, lots of poems.

What is the real Russia? The Russia of great culture: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Akhmatova; or is it the country of dictators like Putin and Stalin and Ivan the Terrible? IN this wide ranging FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb speaks with Professor Catriona Kelly of Cambridge University about the gargantuan contradiction at the heart of Russian society: it's deep cultural tradition and its almost medieval sense of cruelty. Kelly, who was in St. Petersburg just before the invasion, shares her insights into the country, the war with Ukraine and how the conflict might end.