Show Notes
Hey everyone, it’s good to be back with all of you. I’ve just finished a lengthy writing session for grad school—my final semester of classes!—as well as some family issues that needed my immediate attention during most of March. But I’m back with a new special, historiography-focused episode of History Impossible. It was actually not one I was planning to do, but after my lengthy and productive conversation with the host of the Crackpot History podcast, and after the incredibly positive reception I received from that interview, I decided it was probably a good idea to get deep into the historiographic weeds with the recent tumult that continues regarding Darryl Cooper’s Martyr Made podcast and its own attempt at revising World War II and Third Reich history.
When it comes down to it, trying to be a revisionist about World War II is probably like trying to be a revisionist about something like Star Wars. You can certainly try and do it, and you might even be good at it, but you’re always going to encounter people who know more (or at least truly believe they know more) than you ever will. That honestly has always interested me less when it comes to Darryl’s work on this subject; I have always been much more interested in specifically where he gets his information since, frankly, that is what he has always been the most cagey about. While his admission of using David Irving is well-enough known, there is much more to this story of where the premise of “Enemy: The Germans’ War” actually seems to be coming from (at least, as of its current releases).
Because I cannot leave well enough alone, this is an exploration through the archives of where such ideas as those we’ve been hearing about from Darryl Cooper and many of those in his historiographic wheelhouse have their origin.
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More from History Impossible
Hey everyone. No preamble here. Just a nice bonus as a thank you for your continued support. As the title suggests, this is an audio adaptation of an essay I wrote about the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and how it led me to reflect on my generation, that is millennials, seems to believe about itself regarding trauma, adversity, and the future.
We often hear about how the Second World War was more morally nuanced and complex than we have been led to believe. This is, to a certain extent, very true. The Axis powers meted out a level of genocidal destruction and suffering upon tens of millions of people across the world, decimating generations in places as far flung as Poland and the Philippines, and Croatia and China. To call their actions existential by their very nature is to arguably undersell the threat they posed. The Allies realized these were the stakes and were eventually faced with a very real question: what would it take to stop such a threat? It required what many have come to believe was the unthinkable: meeting destruction with destruction. And in meeting the Axis violence with more violence did indeed bring the war to its ultimate end.
In this newest episode of History Impossible we’re joined a second time by Richard Lim, host of the This American President podcast, who last appeared on this program a couple years ago to discuss the insane, contentious election of 1876. He is also the author of a new book, Refusing a Crown: How George Washington Changed the World, which releases on October 13, 2026, and covers the most significant aspect of America’s first president: his restraint from seizing power that almost certainly would have remained his.
“Because remember: Russia is a religious experience.” Those are the oft-repeated and well-said words by the host of The Eastern Border podcast, my good friend Kristaps Andrejsons. They are well-said because there are very few alternatives for explaining Russian actions, rhetoric, and political culture over the past near half-decade in its World War I-style conflict with Ukraine. The Russian religious experience, made emblematic by Kristaps’ and my favorite shared punching bag Aleksandr Dugin, is a phenomenon best understood as a more formalized and colossal version of what ISIS was ten years ago, and it helps explain why Kristaps believes the spiral of the Russian state as we currently know it is beginning in 2026.
Antizionism, as it has become, has been having a bit of a moment for going on three years. It is a tough nut to crack, given its various claims of varying legitimacy and, as we have covered more than once on History Impossible, its increasing tendency to veer into outright antisemitism, especially by those looking for a supposedly intellectual and moral veneer for their racial and geopolitical fixations. Part of the reason for this confusion is the complex intellectual history of the position, which, after 1948, became more complicated than the relatively straightforward debate over Jewish statehood before, during, and after the Holocaust.