The History Book Buffs

In September 2022, explosions ripped through the Nord Stream gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea. Who was responsible for one of the most audacious acts of sabotage in modern history? Russia? The CIA? Or Ukraine itself? This week on History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse break with tradition to discuss The Nord Stream Conspiracy by investigative journalist Bojan Pancevski — a gripping account of the operation and the German investigation that followed. But this is much more th

How do you make a history book read like a novel—and where should you draw the line? This week on History Book Buffs, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss David Grann’s The Wager, an extraordinary story of shipwreck, survival and mutiny. Both loved the book, but what makes its storytelling so powerful? When HMS Wager is wrecked off the coast of South America, naval discipline gives way to competing loyalties and a desperate struggle to survive. Grann turns the survivors’ conflicting acco

Thomas Cochrane: The real-life Master and Commander | Peter Moore’s A Dangerous Game Naval hero. Political radical. Convicted fraudster. Thomas Cochrane’s life makes the fiction he inspired look almost tame. Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse discuss Peter Moore’s A Dangerous Game, a biography of one of Britain’s most extraordinary—and troublesome—naval commanders. From the audacious capture of a vastly superior Spanish warship to the stock-market scandal that destroyed his career, and his rei

We’re back — and starting with a book that genuinely floored us. In 1949, Polish resistance fighter and journalist Kazimierz Moczarski was thrown into a Warsaw prison cell with Jürgen Stroop, the SS general responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. They lived together for 255 days. The result was Conversations with an Executioner: Moczarski’s extraordinary attempt to understand the man beside him. Stroop talks about his childhood, his embrace of Nazism, his rise through the SS and

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