Episodes

Spies, Sex & Stalin: The Dark Truth About the Cambridge Five
April 1, 2026

Spies, Sex & Stalin: The Dark Truth About the Cambridge Five

BUY THE BOOK: https://amzn.eu/d/0eHvoNPP Were the Cambridge Five glamorous rebels… or something far darker? In this episode of History Book Buffs , Antonia Senior joins Roger Moorhouse from Cambridge itself to unpack the real...

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Agent Zo, the Polish Resistance, and Stalin’s Betrayal of Poland | Clare Mulley
March 25, 2026

Agent Zo, the Polish Resistance, and Stalin’s Betrayal of Poland | Cl…

How did one woman become one of the most extraordinary figures in the Polish Resistance? In this powerful episode of History Book Buffs , Antonia Senior speaks to award-winning historian and biographer Claire Mulley about her...

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The Most Dangerous Lying Memoirs in History? Kim Philby, Albert Speer & the Art of the Cover-Up
March 18, 2026

The Most Dangerous Lying Memoirs in History? Kim Philby, Albert Speer…

What happens when two of the 20th century’s most notorious men tell their own stories? In this episode of History Book Buffs , Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse dive into two of the most seductive, slippery and deeply unreli...

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The Death of Trotsky | Stalin, Espionage and Assassination – with Josh Ireland
March 12, 2026

The Death of Trotsky | Stalin, Espionage and Assassination – with Jos…

In this episode of History Book Buffs , Antonia Senior talks to historian Josh Ireland about his gripping book The Death of Trotsky , which tells the extraordinary story of how Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hunted down his gr...

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Murder or Suicide? The Cold War Death of Jan Masaryk. A Buffs in Brief special
March 10, 2026

Murder or Suicide? The Cold War Death of Jan Masaryk. A Buffs in Brie…

In March 1948, Jan Masaryk , the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia and son of the country's founding president, was found dead beneath the window of the Foreign Ministry in Prague. Was it suicide ? Or was it murder ordered b...

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Sex, Mysticism and Revolution: Rasputin at the Court of the Tsar
March 4, 2026

Sex, Mysticism and Revolution: Rasputin at the Court of the Tsar

In this episode of History Book Buffs , Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse dive into the extraordinary story of Grigori Rasputin —the mystic, healer, and alleged holy man who gained an astonishing hold over Tsar Nicholas II a...

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Was This the Worst Peace Treaty Ever? | Brest-Litovsk (1918)
March 2, 2026

Was This the Worst Peace Treaty Ever? | Brest-Litovsk (1918)

108 years ago, Lenin signed one of the most punishing peace treaties in modern history. In this 10-minute Buffs in Brief , Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse examine the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk — the deal that took Russia out...

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Buffs in Brief #2 — The Reichstag Fire (27 February 1933). Conspiracy or Opportunity?
Feb. 26, 2026

Buffs in Brief #2 — The Reichstag Fire (27 February 1933). Conspiracy…

A burning parliament. A communist caught at the scene. Within weeks, German democracy was effectively dismantled. Was the Reichstag Fire a Nazi conspiracy — or a brilliantly exploited accident? In this ten-minute deep dive, w...

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OTD: Stalin thrown under a bus by Khrushchev. A Buffs in Brief special #1
Feb. 24, 2026

OTD: Stalin thrown under a bus by Khrushchev. A Buffs in Brief specia…

Was this the most reckless speech in modern political history? In February 1956, at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a four-hour address that stunned the room — and reshaped the com...

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The Baltic Crusades: The Teutonic Knights and the Birth of Europe’s Most Dangerous Frontier
Feb. 18, 2026

The Baltic Crusades: The Teutonic Knights and the Birth of Europe’s M…

The Teutonic Knights. Pagan forests. Crusade-by-fire. And the medieval origin story behind modern Europe’s most volatile borderlands. Antonia Senior and historian Roger Moorhouse explore the Baltic Crusades through Alexander ...

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The Secret Nazi Scientist Programme that Helped Build America
Feb. 5, 2026

The Secret Nazi Scientist Programme that Helped Build America

What if the origins of America’s Cold War science boom — and even the Space Race — were built on the knowledge of Nazi scientists ? In this episode, Antonia Senior and historian Roger Moorhouse dive into the dark, fascinating...

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The Day Capitalism Broke: The Wall Street Crash of 1929 & the Road to Hitler
Jan. 21, 2026

The Day Capitalism Broke: The Wall Street Crash of 1929 & the Road to…

On 29 October 1929 , the world changed forever. As share prices collapsed, panic ripped through Wall Street, fortunes vanished in hours, and confidence in capitalism itself cracked. What began as a stock market crash in New Y...

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🎆 The History Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2026 🎆
Jan. 8, 2026

🎆 The History Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2026 🎆

Happy New Year from History Book Buffs! After our 21 Days of Christmas Book Gifts , we’re back with a special episode looking ahead to the most exciting history and historical fiction books coming out in 2026 . From Soviet as...

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Brilliant Books for Christmas Stockings PART 2
Dec. 18, 2025

Brilliant Books for Christmas Stockings PART 2

Welcome back to History Book Buffs for Part 2 of our 21 Days of Christmas Books series — a bumper festive episode packed with brilliant history (and a couple of cracking novels). I’m Antonia Senior — writer and journalist — j...

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Brilliant Books for Christmas Stockings — Part 1
Dec. 3, 2025

Brilliant Books for Christmas Stockings — Part 1

🎄 21 Days of Christmas Book Gifts – Round-Up of the First 10 Books 🎄 In this special episode, we run through the first ten titles in our 21 Days of Christmas Book Gifts series — a curated collection of the very best in histor...

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Nuremberg: Day 1...20.11.1945. The Days that Changed the World
Nov. 19, 2025

Nuremberg: Day 1...20.11.1945. The Days that Changed the World

Eighty years ago, the world watched as the Nuremberg Trial opened in a ruined German city — the first time leaders of a defeated regime were prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace. In thi...

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The Days that Changed the World: 23 August, 1939. The signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Nov. 5, 2025

The Days that Changed the World: 23 August, 1939. The signing of the …

On 23 August 1939, two dictators who despised each other made a decision that reshaped the world. In this episode, we explore the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — often known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact — and its profound impact on Euro...

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Inside Operation Biting: The History Book Buffs read Max Hastings.
Oct. 22, 2025

Inside Operation Biting: The History Book Buffs read Max Hastings.

🔍 Inside Operation Biting: Antonia and Roger review Operation Biting, Max Hastings's account of one of WWII’s Most Daring Raids | Churchill, Radar & Revolution Step into the shadows of World War II as we uncover the high-stak...

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The horrors of U-boat warfare: the books that inspired Wolfpack by Roger Moorhouse.
Oct. 8, 2025

The horrors of U-boat warfare: the books that inspired Wolfpack by Ro…

KeywordsU-Boat War, Wolfpack, Das Boot, WWII, German perspective, naval history, PTSD, memoirs, historical narrative, empathySummaryIn this conversation, Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse dive into the complexities of the U-...

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Did books defeat the Soviet Empire? The History Book Buffs read The CIA Book Club by Charlie English.
Sept. 25, 2025

Did books defeat the Soviet Empire? The History Book Buffs read The C…

In this episode of @TheHistoryBookBuffs Antonia Senior is joined by bestselling author Roger Moorhouse to discuss The CIA Book Club by Charlie English — a thrilling history of how the CIA used books as weapons in the Cold War...

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Tunisgrad. Was this the battle that changed the course of WW2?
Sept. 14, 2025

Tunisgrad. Was this the battle that changed the course of WW2?

In this episode of "History Book Buffs," hosts Antonia and Roger delve into the often-overlooked Tunisian campaign of World War II, as detailed in Saul David's compelling book, "Tunisgrad." Join them as they explore the strat...

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Storm of Steel and All Quiet on the Western Front: A WW1 classics showdown
Aug. 6, 2025

Storm of Steel and All Quiet on the Western Front: A WW1 classics sho…

Two masterpieces. Two utterly different visions of war. In this episode, the History Book Buffs go head-to-head over Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque — the twin titans ...

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The Siege: Terror and the SAS in the London Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980.
July 23, 2025

The Siege: Terror and the SAS in the London Iranian Embassy Siege of …

In this episode, Roger Moorhouse and Antonia Senior delve into Ben McIntyre's gripping narrative, "The Siege," which masterfully recounts the harrowing events of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London. Through meticulous re...

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Which books shaped our lives? The HistoryBookBuffs take the 3 Book Challenge.
July 9, 2025

Which books shaped our lives? The HistoryBookBuffs take the 3 Book Ch…

🎙️ Top Historian Roger Moorhouse & Critic Antonia Senior Take the 3 Book Challenge! 📚 In this fascinating episode of The History Book Buffs , acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse (author of First to Fight and Devil's Alliance ...

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