Author: Angelo Cioeta, Marco De Cave
To fully understand populism, it is important to learn about history, and the mechanisms which lead to a certain thing to happen, certain leaders to be in charge, and so on. Then, why not try to listen to marvellous podcasts on history guided by the best world educational experts? It is a way to counter the attempt to manipulate key historical events, an element that has recently increased with fake news or alternative truths.
Especially, the birth of the European dream – the European Union – is under continuous attacks which aim to redesign the main events and main interpretations around the Nazi-Fascist historical period. In fact, all the current attempts are aimed at softening the responsibilities of certain historical ideologies, to create the myth of order and safety, of discipline, the dream of making countries greater and greater.
Nowadays more and more political movements do this. For example, Vox party refers to the franquismo as a political model to follow, and other nationalist movements (Brothers of Italy, Orban’s party in Hungary, PiS in Poland etc.) blink the eye to fascist nostalgia, but without explicitly mentioning fascist elements, but adopting the storytelling of a vision of safety, of order, of things that a certain vision can create again.
Such a trend is of great actuality in Europe, as the generation of those who differently resisted the Nazi-Fascist dictatorship and horrible actions is disappearing.
The risk of leaving future generations with a historical void on the memory and storytelling of Second World War facts, forces, political clashes, horrible repressions, human right violation and mass killings is great. There is the concrete danger that it can be filled by those who intend to re-evaluate those totalitarianisms. Therefore, an investment in historical sources and in the stories of those who are still alive, it is necessary, if you want to face and deconstruct the populism of history.
We can recommend some great podcasts to learn about history
Second World War, Fascism and Nazism: http://historyofthesecondworldwar.com/
About Stalinism: https://srbpodcast.org/2022/10/26/working-through-stalinism/
Why not dive into some marvellous Spotify History communities? One that we can definitely recommend is the History Hour of the BBC or The Rest is History, run by two historians which challenge both nowadays history or past history.
Indeed, you can also dig into your national language podcasts, and we are sure that a history podcast a day keeps the populist away!
References:
Second World War, Fascism and Nazism: http://historyofthesecondworldwar.com/
About Stalinism: https://srbpodcast.org/2022/10/26/working-through-stalinism/