Anti-Empire Project Podcast – The Anti-Empire Project

Details of how Ataturk foiled the imperialists’ final plans to partition Anatolia. Once he secured Turkey, he modernized it and it became a model that other Central Asian countries tried to emulate (with varying degrees of success). Here’s why this secular leader is still revered in Turkey a century later.

On November 2, 1917, England’s foreign secretary sent a letter to an English Baron, declaring that the land of Palestine, which was in the process of being taken militarily from the Ottoman Empire by England, would be given to the Jewish people as their homeland. Known to history as the Balfour Declaration, the first draft … Continue reading "Civ 1919 – Treaty of Versailles 10: England gives Palestine to the Zionists"

Carl Zha joins for our occasional Kung Fu Yoga series where we talk about India and China. Trump’s slapped new tariffs on India and given China another break. We go back to the Independence era, talk about Import Substitution Industrialization vs Export-Led Growth, the Chip War, the short India-Pakistan war a few months ago, and … Continue reading "AER 150: Kung Fu Yoga with Carl Zha on the new Trump Tariffs"

Mustafa Kemal foils the Great Powers’ plan to carve up Anatolia, but they do tear up the Arab lands. The fate of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, where local elites’ belief in the Fourteen Points were crushed by the Powers as they set the table for Zionism and neocolonial mandates.

The story of Greece’s negotiator Eleutherios Venizelos, and how his success at negotiating sowed the seeds of future disasters.

Initial reactions to the new war (audio of the regular youtube sit rep).

Japan takes a stand on the principle of racial equality, but it’s a non-starter with the white powers. The Japanese insist, and ultimately yield so they can take a piece of China.

Italy joined the allies late and wanted a lot of Yugoslavia. The dress rehearsal for Mussolini, Gabriele d’Annunzio, gathers Argonauts and makes a big move. Another seed of the next war planted at the conference in Paris 1919.

Frederik Soderholm and Mehmet Ali Arslan interviewed me (Justin) for their Fredshetsarna (Swedish) podcast about nonviolence and military matters in West Asia.

Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary’s fates are decided at the conference in Paris in 1919.

Hamza from Defund the UAE joins to talk about the Sudan war. How did it start? Who are the belligerents? What makes the RSF the greater evil? What is the UAE doing in this war? What can be done from the West to help? Hamza mentions Sudanfunds.com and SudanNewsEnglish on telegram, to start.

The Anglo-Americans blamed the Germans for World War I, and won. Now they would impose terms. But if they sought too high an indemnity, Germany’s economy would collapse and they would never pay. If they helped Germany rebuild, what kind of punishment would that be? In the end, the Allies chose a path that guaranteed … Continue reading "Civ 1919: Treaty of Versailles pt4 – Germany"

The Balkans are where the Great War began; there were two Balkan wars before the Great War and there was a Balkan war in the Great War. In Paris, delegations from the region made their cases, the Great Powers made their dispensations. New countries formed and new borders drawn, which would be changed again in … Continue reading "Civ 1919: Treaty of Versailles pt3 – the Balkans"

The biggest player at the peace conference, Woodrow Wilson, wants a League of Nations, which in the age of imperialism, is a rather underdeveloped idea. The other problem is, how to continue colonialism but with a nicer name? And so were invented the Mandates.

At the end of WW1, the Americans and British went to Paris to decide on the fate of Germany and the future of the world. The Treaty of Versailles and the conference in Paris in 1919 set up the Interwar period and made World War 2 inevitable. Here we begin our short series on the … Continue reading "Civ 1919: The Treaty of Versailles pt1"

Two and a half years. 50 episodes. 100+ hours. When we set out to cover World War I back in September 2022, after our Scramble for Africa and our Civilizations (1400-1900) series, we had a plan for how we were going to go about it. In this debrief, Dave and I talk about what we … Continue reading "World War Civ 51: The Debrief"

We have come to the end of our study of World War I, gone over its causes, events, and costs in great detail. Now it’s time for a plot twist: the idea that the whole war was conceived and extended by a conspiratorial group of race patriots at the heart of the Anglo-American elite. We … Continue reading "Was World War I an Immense Anglo-American Conspiracy?"

From the transformation of all the technologies of war – railways, air travel, wireless, tanks, poison gas – to the changes to the institutions of daily life (notably health care) World War I made many changes into the world we recognize today. Also – my apologies – in the second half, my recurrent audio issue … Continue reading "World War Civ 49: How the war changed how things work"

Counting the costs and losses of World War I. 8.5 million killed on the battlefield, 21 million wounded. 10 million civilian deaths, then a flu epidemic that killed tens of millions more. The global economy transformed beyond recognition. The beginning of the end of the colonial empires. And various measures that are inevitably going to … Continue reading "World War Civ 48: Great War, at what cost?"

Ludendorff’s final gamble has failed, fizzling out like every mass offensive of this war. The war is now unwinnable for Germany. But the Germans won’t admit it, and can’t find anyone to sign an armistice. Eventually someone is found, and the myth of the “stab in the back” begins to be written, a myth that … Continue reading "World War Civ 47: Germany Collapses 1918"