History As It Happens

This is the second of two episodes looking back on the major events of 2023. Our year in review continues with historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel. As professional scholars, they share their perspectives on the controversy involving free speech and antisemitism on college campuses. They also look ahead to the presidential election of 2024 for which there appear no obvious parallels in U.S. history. The two historians and host Martin Di Caro conclude by sharing their favorite moments of 2023 as well as their thoughts on the importance of historical thinking.

This is the first of two episodes looking back on the major events and ideas of 2023. What events this year compelled you to reassess the past? What historic moments will you speaking about for years to come? In this penultimate episode of 2023, historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel talk about the enduring appeal of Trumpism, the health of democracy in the U.S. and abroad, the historical antecedents of the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and much more.

This conversation was first published in a Washington Times video on Dec. 20 available at washingtontimes.com. Catholic University historian Michael Kimmage, an expert on post-Cold War Europe and U.S.-Russia relations, discusses the state of the Russia-Ukraine war. As winter sets in, Kyiv finds itself in an impossible situation. Its armed forces are entirely reliant on other countries for ammunition and hardware, but Republicans in Congress are not keen on an open-ended commitment in the tens of billions. Kyiv cannot expel Russian forces from its territory. On the other side, Putin does not believe he is losing even though Russia has failed to score a battlefield victory of strategic significance since the summer of 2022.

As Americans opened their Christmas gifts 32 years ago, the beleaguered president of a superpower on the other side of the world endured a unique humiliation. Mikhail Gorbachev, whose open mind and magnetism had captivated Western publics after coming to power in 1985, announced his resignation as leader of the Soviet Union. The nation-state he had tried to reform into something better was swept into the dustbin of history. December 25, 1991: Gorbachev was gone; the country he led no longer existed. The moment was celebrated in the West. But if democracy and market economies were on the march as the curtain fell on the Cold War, their advance halted in Russia during the disastrous Yeltsin years of the 1990s. In this episode, historian Vladislav Zubok, who was born in Moscow in the 1950s and witnessed the rise and fall of perestroika and glasnost, takes on a provocative question: what if some kind of union had survived the tumult of 1991? A proto-democratic, voluntary confederation with decision-making authority devolved to the now former Soviet republics? The question matters today. A revanchist, chauvinist Russia under Vladimir Putin seeks to dominate its neighbors. Western commentators worry about the fate of the "liberal world order" and the waning of U.S. hegemony just a generation after they appeared triumphant.

Audio excerpts of Napoleon courtesy Sony Pictures and Apple Original Films. Many historians have skewered Ridley Scott's Napoleon for inaccuracies and for failing to convey the monumental historical significance of its subject. In this episode, historian Alan Strauss-Schom, the founder of the French Colonial Historical Society and author of "Napoleon Bonaparte" (1997), discusses the origins of Napoleon's military genius and the nature of his despotic rule.

Bayard Rustin was born a Quaker in Pennsylvania and became an advocate of non-violent resistance in the civil rights movement. He was openly gay at a time when most people in his position would have kept knowledge of their homosexuality secret. He was a brilliant organizer. Bayard Rustin was also a socialist who called for a sweeping economic rights program designed to pull all poor Americans out of poverty, rather than narrowly focusing on race. But you wouldn't learn the socialist aspects of Rustin's philosophy and activism from watching the new Netflix biopic "Rustin," which was executive-produced by the Obamas. In this episode, historian William P. Jones discusses the Rustin that doesn't appear on screen, a man dedicated to economic justice who also refused to publicly condemn the Vietnam War.

The Israel-Hamas war has provoked an angry, bitter debate over the meaning of genocide as partisans on both sides of the conflict invoke the memory of the Nazis and the Holocaust. The new Netflix documentary "Ordinary Men" -- based on the 1992 book of the same title by historian Christopher Browning -- may help place this use (or misuse) of history in its proper perspective. "Ordinary Men" confonts us with unsettling questions concerning humans' capacity to inflict cruelty on others. In this episode, historian Thomas Kuehne discusses the psychological aspects of mass murder and the difficulty in drawing comparisons between, for instance, Hamas and the Nazis.

Urban warfare, an appalling civilian death toll, and international outcry: Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza shares parallels with its failed invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was also meant to destroy a terrorist enemy (guerrilla units of the PLO) on the other side of the border. Whatever similarities and differences that exist between the two wars separated by 41 years, Middle East experts contend that both wars prove that there is no military solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. On the contrary, today's war is likely to end in disaster for all involved, just as the 1982 invasion did. In this episode, Middle East Institute president Paul Salem, who was in Lebanon in 1982, discusses the unsettling parallels.

The death of Henry Kissinger at 100 reignited the debate over the foreign policy record of a man who embodied U.S. power and influence. Revered or despised, the former Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford was one of the most impactful statesman of the American century, maintaining influence as a private consultant and informal presidential counselor up until his death. While in government, Kissinger backed dictators and was a central figure in the secret bombing of Cambodia. He helped open the door to Mao's China, re-establishing the U.S. relationship with the world's most populous country. In this episode, historian and Kissinger biographer Jeremi Suri examines the ideas behind the policies that shaped world history.

This is the second episode in an occasional series examining major counterfactual scenarios in history. The first, published in September, asked whether President Kennedy would have withdrawn the U.S. from Vietnam had he lived to serve a second term. The destruction of human chattel slavery in the United States was a process of world historical importance. It took a terrible civil war and the passage of a constitutional amendment to bring about its complete demise. Could slavery have been ended peacefully? If so, how long would it have taken, had the Civil War not broken out in 1861? In this episode, historian Jim Oakes, an expert on slavery and antebellum U.S. politics, takes on this counter-factual question.