The History Book Buffs

Forget the latest releases. For this special summer edition, The History Book Buffs are joined by Ollie Webb-Carter from the History Book Club to recommend the history books they've returned to again and again—the classics that have earned a permanent place on their bookshelves. From the Black Sea to Ancient Greece, from the English Civil War to Alexander the Great, from the American Revolution to Flashman, this episode is packed with books that combine outstanding scholarship with brilliant s

Hitler's most dangerous enemies weren't outside the Nazi Party—they were inside it. In this episode, historian Roger Moorhouse takes us inside the dramatic events of 30 June–2 July 1934, when Hitler unleashed a wave of assassinations against his own comrades in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Except it wasn't just one night. It was a murderous long weekend that cemented his dictatorship and changed the course of history. Why did Hitler betray Ernst Röhm, one of his oldest al

On 18 June 1940, with France collapsing and Britain seemingly standing alone against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill delivered one of the most famous speeches in modern history: "Their Finest Hour". In this episode, Antonia Senior and historian Roger Moorhouse revisit the speech that became synonymous with British defiance. What was Churchill trying to achieve? Who was he speaking to? And how persuasive was his message to those living through the crisis of 1940? The conversation explores the p

In August 1991, a group of hardliners inside the Soviet leadership launched a desperate bid to save the USSR. Led by the head of the KGB, they placed Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest, declared a state of emergency, and attempted to reverse the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Instead, they accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union. This week on History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss historian Robert Service's gripping new account of the August Coup: the drama

Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse examine one of the most dramatic episodes of the Second World War: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi official known as the "Butcher of Prague" and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust. In May 1942, Czech and Slovak agents trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive launched Operation Anthropoid, a daring mission to kill one of Hitler's most feared lieutenants. The attack succeeded—but at a terrible cost. The Nazi reprisals that

George Orwell wrote Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four before the full reality of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe had unfolded. So how did he see it coming? In this episode of History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss Orwell’s extraordinary political insight, his warnings about Stalinism and totalitarianism, and why his work still shapes political writing today. Prompted by Antonia Senior’s Orwell Prize shortlist for Stalin’s Apostles, the discussion explores Orwell’