{"podcast":{"title":"Explaining History","slug":"explaining-history-524006","podcast_index_feed_id":524006,"rss_url":"https://rss.acast.com/explaininghistory","website_url":"http://www.explaininghistory.org","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/60f6d9ac4a4aff65190f9c27/1767646091904-a5aed489-f452-4f74-af70-c7f8364b8d92.jpeg","author":"Nick Shepley","episode_count":943,"summary":"How do we make sense of the modern world? We find the answers in the history of the 20th Century. For over a decade, The Explaining History Podcast has been the guide for curious minds. Host Nick Shepley and expert guests break down the world wars, the Cold War, and the rise and fall of ideologies into concise, 25-minute episodes. This isn't a dry lecture. It's a critical, narrative-driven conversation that connects the past to your present. Perfect for students, history buffs, and anyone who wants to understand how we got here. Hit subscribe and start exploring. Join us at Explaining History for daily modern history articles and news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-02T06:17:05.993018+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/explaining-history-524006"},"episode":{"title":"Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes – The Golden Age, the Fall of Communism, and the Crisis of Social Democracy","slug":"hobsbawm-s-age-of-extremes-the-golden-age-the-fall-of-communism-and-the-crisis-of-social-democracy","published_at":"2026-05-09T14:28:53+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/explaining-history-524006/hobsbawm-s-age-of-extremes-the-golden-age-the-fall-of-communism-and-the-crisis-of-social-democracy","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/explaining-history-524006","url":"http://explaininghistory.org","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/explaininghistory/e/69ff44a5dcea0196ad8a9983/media.mp3","summary":"**In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Eric Hobsbawm's magisterial overview of the 20th century, *Age of Extremes*, to explore the paradoxes that shaped our world – and the crisis that defines our present.** Hobsbawm argued that the \"short twentieth century\" – from 1914 to 1991 – was defined by the confrontation between capitalism and communism. But the relationship between these two systems was stranger than simple opposition. The victory over Hitler's Germany was essentially won, and could only have been won, by the Red Army. Without the Soviet Union, the Western world would likely consist of a set of variations on authoritarian and fascist themes, not liberal parliamentary ones. Yet the most lasting result of the October Revolution was to save its capitalist antagonists – by providing the incentive of fear to reform itself after the Second World War, and by furnishing it with the popularity of economic planning. The post-war Golden Age (1947–73) – that unprecedented era of rising living standards, mass consumption, generous welfare states, and growing life expectancy – was, in Hobsbawm's word, \"anomalous\". It emerged from specific historical conditions: the need to stave off communist challenge, the availability of cheap energy, and the destruction of old ruling classes. That Golden Age is now long gone. Neoliberalism has de‑industrialised the West, privatised public assets, and replaced productive capitalism with rentier capitalism – where we rent the infrastructure of our own lives back from global capital. Social democratic parties across the Western world have abandoned any commitment to redistribution, embraced managerialism, and collapsed into irrelevance. Right‑wing populists – Trumps, Orbáns, Farages – have rushed into the vac…","meta_description":"**In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we return to Eric Hobsbawm's magisterial overview of the 20th century, *Age of Extremes*, to exp…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1792,"processing_state":"processed","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/explaining-history-524006/episodes/hobsbawm-s-age-of-extremes-the-golden-age-the-fall-of-communism-and-the-crisis-of-social-democracy/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/explaining-history-524006/hobsbawm-s-age-of-extremes-the-golden-age-the-fall-of-communism-and-the-crisis-of-social-democracy.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}