Spilt
-
President Trump announces yet another D.C. construction project — a renovation to the Lincoln Memorial dubbed "The Trump Promenade" — as well as the nominations of his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche for Attorney General and shitposter-turned-FHA Administrator Bill Pulte for acting Director of National Intelligence. Alex Wagner joins Jon Favreau to discuss the latest, including California's torturously slow primary tallies, new allegations against presumptive Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner, and Scott Pelley's dramatic last stand at CBS's "60 Minutes." Then, Jon reveals how he was accidentally invited to the UFC fight on the White House lawn.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date
-
After Gallipoli has descended into a bloodbath, why do the British pour in more troops? Does Churchill finally understand his fateful error? How do the allies escape the total mess they find themselves in? And, why has this failed campaign become the foundational moment of Anzac identity?
Join Dominic and Tom as they bring an end to this disastrous Gallipoli campaign and the bloody year of 1915.
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
_______
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com
To read our new newsletter, sign up at:
therestishistory.com/newsletters
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Welcome to Origin Story, the show about why we are where we are. This week we begin the story of evangelical Christianity and its influence on politics.
Starting in the 1730s, Protestants in colonial America replaced the dour strictures of the Puritans with an ecstatic, empowering new creed that promised salvation through conversion: the word evangelical means spreading the good news. Over the next 150 years it swept the country through waves of revivalism, as star preachers like Charles Finney and Dwight Moody professionalised the business of soul-saving. The movement changed Britain, too.
Evangelicalism cut across all the major Protestant denominations but believers disagreed over the timing of the prophesied Millennium and therefore whether they should focus on converting individuals or reforming society. Activist followers of the Social Gospel were at the forefront of the fight to end evils like slavery and child labour. It was slavery that caused the formation of a more conservative Southern church.
By the early twentieth century, factional conflicts were piling up: over social reform, Biblical scholarship, the theory of evolution. Some evangelicals felt that there were effectively two religions, with liberals (or modernists) pitted against conservatives (or fundamentalists). The fundamentalists were gathering force until 1925, when Tennessee prosecuted a teacher named John Scopes for teaching Darwinism. A national media event, the trial made fundamentalism appear intolerant, ignorant and absurd, leading to decades of retreat and quiet rebuilding.
America’s post-war evangelical megastar was Billy Graham, whose canny big-tent messaging and horror of controversy chimed with President Eisenhower’s tolerant civic religion. But through radio, television and bestselling books, the new fundamentalists were laying the ground for a culture war. A string of controversies in the 1970s revealed a much more militant and aggressive form of Christianity that was determined to transform not just evangelicalism but all of America.
Why did evangelicalism become the dominant American religion and what part did British thinkers play? Who were the charismatic men and women who spread the word? Why did the battle between modernists and fundamentalists become so bitter, and how did the fundamentalists recover from the humiliation of the Scopes trial? How does the ambition to reform society complicate the task of conversion? And how did Martin Luther King inadvertently inspire the fundamentalists to finally become a political force?
• Support Origin Story on Patreon
• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory
• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube
Reading list
• Robert Ajemian – ‘Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word’, Time (2 September 1985)
• Anonymous – ‘Billy Graham: A New Kind of Evangelist’, Time (25 October 1954)
• D.W. Bebbington – Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to
the 1980s (1989)
• Paul S. Boyer – When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (1992)
• Peter J. Boyer – ‘The Big Tent’, New Yorker (15 August 2005)
• Isaac Chotiner – ‘How Donald Trump Is Teaching Christians to Abandon Empathy’, New Yorker (1 April 2025)
• Whitney Cross – The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York 1800-1850 (1950)
• Jerry Falwell – Listen, America!: The Conservative Blueprint for America’s Moral Rebirth (1980)
• ‘The Gospel According to Ralph Reed’, Time (15 May 1995)
• Frances Fitzgerald – The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (2017)
• Harry Emerson Fosdick – ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’ (21 May 1922)
• Richard Hofstadter – Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963)
• Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth (1970)
• Michael Luo – ‘How Billy Graham’s Movement Lost Its Way’, New Yorker (21 February 2018)
• Michael Luo – ‘The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind’, New Yorker (4 March 2021)
• Michael Luo – ‘How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again’, New Yorker (29 July 2024)
• Dorian Lynskey – Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (2024)
• George M. Marsden – Fundamentalism and American Culture: Second Edition (2006)
• Pat Robertson – The New World Order (1991)
• Damian Thompson – The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium (1996)
• Kenneth L. Woodward, John Barnes and Laurie Lisle – ‘Born Again: The Year of the Evangelicals’, Newsweek (25 October 1976)
Films and podcasts
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (2000)
... Reading list continues on Patreon
Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
www.podmasters.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why was the Battle of Gallipoli, starting in February 1915, in Turkey, so disastrous for the Allies, and in particular, Winston Churchill? How has it become such a foundational moment in the national identity of New Zealand and Australia? And, how did it transform the destiny of Turkey?
Join Dominic and Tom as they launch into one of the worst military catastrophes of the First World War.
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
_______
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com
_______
To read our new newsletter, sign up at:
therestishistory.com/newsletters
_______
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Jon sits down with our own Ben Rhodes to talk about how American leaders tell the story of who we are — and who they think we should be — through the speeches they give. The two go through the seminal speeches Ben selected for his new book "All We Say," discussing their power for good (Frederic Douglass on human rights) and evil (Alexander Stephenson on the "moral truth" of white supremacy), and their own memories of writing presidential addresses for Barack Obama when the stakes were highest.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
-
After Ken Paxton's victory in the Texas Senate Republican primary runoff, the MAGA faithful set their sights on James Talarico, attempting to disqualify him for being too much of a beta male for Texas. Will it stick? The White House is on the verge of getting Iran to the table to negotiate, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismisses concerns that the U.S. economy is heading toward stagflation, and Trump accelerates his quest to stamp his image on Washington, covering statues in gold and attempting to create a $250 bill with his own face on it. On the presidential family front: ProPublica reports that the administration funneled millions to a company owned in part by Donald Trump Jr., while Dr. Jill Biden finally speaks candidly about her reaction to her husband's infamous 2024 debate performance. Then, Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for Mississippi's U.S. Senate seat, stops by the studio to talk to Jon about why he believes the deep-red state is in play.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
-
Why did the British nurse, Edith Cavell, become a key player in the Belgian Resistance to German occupation? How did she carry out her mission? And, why was she ultimately executed, so controversially?
Join Dominic and Tom as they unfold the life of the remarkable Edith Cavell, her time as a nurse, her espionage, and ultimately her tragic fate, amidst the death and destruction of the First World War.
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
_______
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com
_______
To read our new newsletter, sign up at:
therestishistory.com/newsletters
_______
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Welcome back to Origin Story and part two of the story of J.K. Rowling. In this episode we turn away from her life story towards her public statements and the information she is consuming.
In 2020, Rowling publishes her first full-length statement about her gender-critical beliefs and it becomes her defining issue. We unpack some of the phrases she uses and the books she is reading and we explore what the science says about key issues: safety in trans-inclusive spaces, trans women (and women with Differences in Sex Development) in sports, and healthcare provision for gender-questioning youth.
Since 2018 trans people in the UK have faced an enormous backlash: rising prejudice, restricted healthcare, political abandonment and obsessive media hostility. And Rowling has put herself in the forefront. Her tone has become more aggressive and her activism more overt, accelerated by Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. So when HBO announced its ambitious new Harry Potter TV series last year, in the midst of the Trump administration’s war on trans Americans and the UK Supreme Court’s explosive ruling on gender identity, it became a battleground. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist when supporting the art means funding the artist’s activism.
How did Rowling move from the appearance of moderation to explicit militancy and how does that align with her professed values? Are her arguments supported by the research? How did anti-trans sentiment go mainstream so quickly? What are the ethics of continuing to consume Rowling’s work? And is the viciousness of right-wing transphobia causing some people to think twice about the consequences of their beliefs?
• Support Origin Story on Patreon
• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory
• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube
Reading list
Articles
• O. Rose Broderick – ‘Evidence Undermines “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Claims’, Scientific American (24 August 2023)
• Cass Review: Final Report (2024)• Christina Cauterucci – ‘Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul!’, Slate (16 February 2023)
• Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026)
• Matt Craig – ‘J.K. Rowling is a Billionaire — Again’, Forbes (30 May 2025)
• Laura Dattaro – ‘Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity’, The Transmitter (14 September 2020)
• Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025)
• Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024)
• Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020)
• Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020)
• Amelia Hansford – ‘JK Rowling sets up “women’s fund” to support gender-critical legal cases’, Pink News (26 May 2025)
• Nick Hilton – ‘JK Rowling, Britain’s gloriously nasty novelist’, New Statesman (15 January 2024)
• Katherine J. Igoe – ‘JK Rowling’s Under-the-Radar Book Series Gives a Clear Picture of Her Beliefs’, Marie Claire (5 August 2020)
• Jessica Kant – ‘Anatomy of a Moral Panic’, jessk.org (3 February 2024)
• Jessica Kant – ‘Welcome to the anti-trans outrage factory’, jessk.org (8 February 2026)
• Alice McCool – ‘How the US Christian Right and Anti-Abortion Lobbyists are Reshaping NHS Policy’, Byline Times (2 April 2026)
• Parker Molloy – ‘The IOC’s New Policy Isn’t Really a Trans Story’, The Present Age (26 March 2026)
... Reading list continues on Patreon
Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
www.podmasters.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How worried are Baltic countries about the threat from Russia? Would the US protect its NATO allies from Putin? And what is happening on the Estonian border?
Last weekend, Gordon headed to the annual Lennart Meri security conference in Estonia to speak with experts from across the world about the security challenges the region is currently facing. Listen as he speaks with journalists, former presidents, and former NATO intelligence analysts about what is happening across the Baltics.
-------------------
Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community.
Just go to therestisclassified.com.
-------------------
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @restisclassified
Video Editor: Joe Pettit
Social Producer: Emma Jackson
Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe
Producer: Becki Hills
Head of History: Dom Johnson
Exec Producer: Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Was the Lusitania merely an ocean liner like Titanic, or a formidable battle ship? How and why did a German U-boat fleet manage to bring down this titan of the sea? And, how did the tragedy ignite the United States’ decision to finally join the War in 1917?
Join Dominic and Tom as they launch into one of the most cataclysmic events of the First World War, and a major turning point for America’s intervention….
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com.
To read our new newsletter, sign up at: therestishistory.com/newsletters
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
_______
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Norm Eisen, President Obama's "ethics czar" and founder of Democracy Defenders, talks to Alex Wagner about Trump's latest avalanche of corruption: the $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off Jan. 6 rioters, the IRS immunity announcement, the ballroom, the reflecting pool renovation, the 3,000-plus stock trades placed while in office, and, unfortunately, much more. Together, they unpack how Democrats in Congress — or lawyers outside of it — could stop Trump's slush fund, and what impact this onslaught of self-enrichment, cronyism, and taxpayer abuse may have on the midterm elections.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
-
So much for Trump's iron grip on the party. Just days after Thomas Massie's defeat, Republicans in the Senate and House begin to buck Trump on his top priorities: ballroom funding, the taxpayer-funded slush fund for his allies, and the war in Iran. Could it be that his surprise endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary didn't help matters? Faced with mounting leaks, the DNC finally releases its 2024 autopsy — an incoherent, error-riddled mess that Chairman Ken Martin admits was a failure from the start. The New York Times releases new polling data on what Democrats think the party needs to do to win in 2028. Then, California gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan talks to Tommy about the race and his record as mayor of San Jose.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
-
The bean machine emits most known smells most days as a byproduct of its relentless toil. In a few short moments the aromas belched forth could be resinous, minty, jazzy, agricultural or anything in between. Something it has never spat out, however, is the topic of smells but that’s all changed now thanks to Andrew of Bremen, Dorset. Tune in for a gripping discourse on the difference between Eau de Cologne (water from the city of Cologne) and Odour Cologne (the smell of the city of Cologne which is Eau de Cologne which is water from the city of Cologne) and more!!!
With thanks to our editor Laura Grimshaw.
Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and bonus/video episodes: www.patreon.com/threebeansalad
Merch available here: www.threebeansaladshop.com
Get in touch: [email protected] Insta: threebeansaladpod
Details of Henry's tour here: henrypaker.com
Sponsor John Robins's marathon running here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/johnrobins
-
Was Iraq WMD one of history’s biggest intelligence failures? Why couldn’t Saddam Hussein prove he has destroyed his weapons of mass destruction? And what is the legacy of the Iraq War in the Middle East?
Listen as David and Gordon conclude their investigation into Iraq WMD and analyse what has been learnt from the decision to go to war with Iraq.
-------------------
Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community.
Just go to therestisclassified.com.
-------------------
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @restisclassified
Video Editor: Joe Pettit
Social Producer: Emma Jackson
Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe
Producer: Becki Hills
Head of History: Dom Johnson
Exec Producer: Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How did Italy enter the First World War alongside the Allies in 1915? What were they hoping to gain? And, why was their attempt to invade the Austro-Hungarian Empire one of the bloodiest campaigns of the entire war?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss Italy’s entrance into the War, their disastrous efforts to carve out a corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the terrible aftermath of this brutal conflict.
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com.
To read our new newsletter, sign up at: therestishistory.com/newsletters
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
_______
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Hello and welcome to Origin Story. This week we begin the story of J.K. Rowling and how the world’s most beloved author became its most divisive. How did she become obsessed with trans rights and how did her colossal wealth and celebrity shape the backlash?
We’re telling two parallel stories. One is how Joanne Rowling transformed into J.K. Rowling. The first Harry Potter book comes out of dark times: a shattering bereavement, a terrible marriage, relative poverty and a crushing sense of failure. When it is published in 1997, it changes Rowling’s life beyond recognition: the publishing industry’s equivalent of Beatlemania. By 2000, the attention is overwhelming and the religious right is denouncing her for endorsing witchcraft. By the time she moves into fiction for adults in 2012, her life seems guarded but stable. But then she joins Twitter and becomes very interested in online discourse at the birth of “cancel culture”.
The second story is about feminism’s fraught relationship with trans inclusion and the concept of gender identity. This has divided feminists since the second wave in the 1970s but it came to the fore in 2010s as trans visibility reached an all-time high and so-called “gender critical” feminists rallied to oppose the introduction of self-ID legislation. Disparate issues such as prisons, sports and youth healthcare were pulled into a movement that fundamentally denied gender identity. In the US, anti-trans activism was another wedge issue for social conservatives but in the UK it emerged from the centre left — and that’s where Rowling came in.
This is also a story about social media and what happens when a disagreement about civil rights plays out on Twitter. That’s where, in 2017, Rowling begins quietly expressing interest in anti-trans voices. After some initial denials, she breaks cover in 2019 by supporting Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who claims to have lost her job due to her gender critical views. Overnight, this one tweet transforms Rowling’s reputation, mainstreaming the movement while dismaying many Harry Potter fans and horrifying trans people. This is the rupture. There is no turning back.
What can Rowling’s early life tell us about the path she has taken over the last decade? What is her relationship to fame and fandom? Why did the question of trans rights become all-consuming? What do gender critical feminists believe? And why can people not even agree on what words to use? It’s a story of obsession, polarisation, celebrity, Twitter and how people can radically change.
• Support Origin Story on Patreon
• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory
• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube
Reading list
Articles
• Decca Aitkenhead – ‘JK Rowling: ‘The worst that can happen is that everyone says,‘That’s shockingly bad”’, The Guardian (22 September 2012)
• Julie Bindel – ‘Gender benders beware’, The Guardian (31 January 2004)
• Jackson Bird – ‘“Harry Potter” Helped Me Come Out as Trans, But J.K. Rowling Disappointed Me’, New York Times (21 December 2019)
• Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026)
• Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025)
• Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024)
• Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020)
• Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020)
• Simon Hattenstone – ‘Harry, Jessie and Me’, The Guardian (8 July 2000)
• Paris Lees – ‘On Germaine Greer and the Hypocrisy of the “Left”’, Vice (20 November 2015)
• Eve Livingston – ‘How an Online Forum for Moms Became a Toxic Hotbed of Transphobia’, Vice (6 December 2018)
• Dorian Lynskey – ‘The Burchill Ultimatum’, 33 Revolutions Per Minute blog (14 January 2013)
• Ian Parker – ‘Mugglemarch’, New Yorker (24 September 2012)
• Aja Romano – ‘Is J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself.’, Vox (30 May 2025)
• J.K. Rowling – ‘Text of J.K. Rowling’s Speech’, Harvard Gazette (5 June 2008)
• Amia Srinivasan – ‘Who Lost the Sex Wars’, New Yorker (6 September 2021)
Books
• Hannah Barnes – Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children (2023)
• Judith Butler – Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)
• Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice (2021)
• Helen Joyce – Trans: Where Ideology Meets Reality (2021)
• Sean Smith – J.K. Rowling: A Biography (2001)
... reading list continues on Patreon
Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
www.podmasters.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Hello and welcome to the final part of the story of European union, in which we finally see the European Union come to pass — and run into trouble.
The transition begins with Jacques Delors, a pragmatic idealist in the mould of Jean Monnet, orchestrating Europe’s great leap forward. As the Berlin Wall comes down (and so does Margaret Thatcher), the balance of power shifts from France to a reunited Germany. In 1992, the 12 member states sign the Maastricht Treaty, which turns the EEC into the EU and sets a timetable for a common currency, the euro.
This is the peak of European confidence and ambition. As the EU takes on the challenges of assimilating Eastern Europe and achieving monetary union, inertia sets in and Euroscepticism emerges as a political force. The failure to agree a constitution is nothing compared to the eurozone crisis beginning in 2009. The crisis is ethical as well as financial, pitting German bankers against the Greek people and making the EU seem, for the first time, cruelly doctrinaire. Delors wails that it is “killing Europe”.
Eurozone drama and anti-immigrant populism make 2016 an ominous year for the UK to vote on whether to remain in the EU. The “Yes!” of 1975 becomes an angry “No!” And yet the chaos of Brexit shows other restive nations what there is to lose. Perhaps it is existential danger, from Trump and Putin’s anti-European nationalism to populism and the pandemic, that makes the project feel essential despite everything. Perhaps the EU is remembering what it stands against, and therefore what it is for.
Did the end of the Cold War actually make life harder for the European project? Why, after 1992, did the EU add members but lose momentum? What weaknesses were exposed by the eurozone crisis? How did the question of membership come to consume and derange British politics? Did it take the shock of Brexit to finally inspire mass Europhilia in Britain? Is Europe rediscovering its purpose in hard times? And why is the remarkable, hard-won achievement of European unity so easy to take for granted?
• Support Origin Story on Patreon
• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory
• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube
Reading list
• Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961)
• Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026)
• Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943)
• W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939)
• House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950)
• Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991)
• Morgan Jones – No Second Chances: The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second EU Referendum (2026)
• Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996)
• Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)
• Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025)
• Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978)
• George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947)
• Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018)
• Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941)
• Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018)
• Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021)
• Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018)
Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
www.podmasters.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Trump's DOJ launches a $1.7 billion fund to make payments to his allies, as Democrats revive the debate about whether to make Trump's declining fitness—even his increasingly discolored hands—a campaign issue. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy weigh the pros and cons and react the rest of the news, including Trump taking revenge on Bill Cassidy and Thomas Massie, his new plotting against Cuba and Greenland, and the latest on negotiations with Iran.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
-
During the First World War, what was it like to live in the trenches on the Western Front in 1915? How did the Germans attempt to knock the Allies out of the war right from the outset? And, what secret weapon did the Germans unleash?
Join Dominic and Tom as they plunge back into the First World War, and carry us through life in the trenches, the horrors of shelling, and the escalation of this totemic conflict.
_______
Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations.
Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com
To read our new newsletter, sign up at:
therestishistory.com/newsletters
Advertise with us: [email protected]
_______
Twitter:
@TheRestHistory
@holland_tom
@dcsandbrook
Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude
Senior Producer: Callum Hill
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Who was “Curveball”? Why did Colin Powell rely so heavily on flawed intelligence in his presentation to the UN? And how did this set the tone for the opposition to war?
As David and Gordon reach the penultimate episode in their series on Iraq WMD, they discuss how things could have gone so badly wrong.
-------------------
Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community.
Just go to therestisclassified.com.
-------------------
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @restisclassified
Video Editor: Joe Pettit
Social Producer: Emma Jackson
Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe
Producer: Becki Hills
Head of History: Dom Johnson
Exec Producer: Tony Pastor
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - Se mer
