Frdh Podcast With Michael Goldfarb

The fall of Kabul, journalist Lynne O'Donnell's eyewitness account, is the essence of what journalists mean when we say we are writing the First Rough Draft of History. O'Donnell has been writing the first rough draft of Afghanistan's history for much of the last two decades. Give her a half-hour to give her eyewitness testimony to what happened at the very end and what might happen next.

The Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan has people all over asking how and why did it happen. Afghanistan was America’s forgotten war but now everyone remembers it especially those who have never been there. But for those who have been deeply, emotionally, physically connected to the country and can remember then and now, the promise of the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban and the dieadly decades long disintegration of the possiblities of that moment these days have been unbearable. Sarah chayes is one of them. In this FRDH podcast interview Chayes looks back at what went wrong and frankly assesses whether anything could ever have gone right.

A podcast about how podcasting became the cultural phenomenon of the decade. There are literally millions of podcasts with tens of millions of episodes to listen to. In this FRDh podcast Michael Goldfarb looks at how and why some podcasts have become popular and why the BBC, NPR and the NY Times are all in on podcasting. Give him 15:07 to explain it all to you.

Breaking up is hard to do and in this podcast former BBC news presenter Gavin Esler talks about the how and why of Britain's likely end. In a wide-ranging discussion with FRDH host Michael Goldfarb, Esler talks about the history of the UK and the political missteps of the last 25 years that have brought Britons and Britain to the brink of disintegration. Give us 27:37 to explain.

To mark Midsummer 2021, a meditation on England and being English, then and now. Fifty years ago, FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb thought he had found the key to Englishness. Eventually he moved to the country. This is a meditation on how the country has changed over half a century and what England meant then and now.

In this Bible Study for Atheists host Michael Goldfarb looks at the conflict between Israel, Palestine and asks where is Mercy? Mercy is the holiest and most noble attribute of humanity, at least according to the Bible and the Q'uran. Why is there so little of it to be found in round and after round of clashes between Israel and Hamas

This edition of Bible Study for Atheists looks at how Jews and Christians diverged a long time ago, but not at the time of Jesus when there were Jewish Christians. FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb talks with Anglican priest Giles Fraser about his book Chosen: Lost and Found between Christianity and Judaism, a personal exploration of where God is to be found in the conflict between Judaism and the new religion that emerged from one of Jews" greatest traumas: the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman Empire.

Britain's Tories have become a case study of corruption in modern democracies for a simple reason: they govern what has become a one-party state. In this FRDH podcasthost Michael Goldfarb looks at how the Covid pandemic made it clear that the British political system has created a corrupt one-party state where political donations open the floodgates to government contracts.

An interview with author Elizabeth Becker about her book, You Don't Belong Here," the story of how three women reporters covering the Vietnam War changed how war was reported and so rewrote the way the first rough draft of history was compiled. What did it take for these three women to get to the battlefield, and observe war, something women were not allowed to do by the US military? What was the price they paid?

In the fifth and final episode of his series of Jewish Ghost Stories, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb goes to Vienna, to look not just for the city's famous Jewish ghosts, like Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler, but the much lesser known ones who fought in the revolution of 1848. He also meets people who have been moved by the stories of Jewish ghosts to convert to Judaism.

In the fourth of his series of Jewish Ghost Stories, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb goes to Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg, the largest cemetery in Europe, to look for the ghost of Gabriel Riesser. Lawyer, judge and publisher of the shortlived journal of the 1830s, Der Jude.

In the third of this series of Jewish Ghost Stories, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb tells the tale of Frankfurt and its famous ghetto street, the Judengasse, and the struggle of its brightest young Jews in the decades after they were allowed out of the ghetto. A ghost story of identity.

In this second in a series of five Jewish Ghost Stories told by FRDH host Michael Goldfarb goes to Berlins. He explores the identity crises of some of the city's most famous Jewish ghosts: philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, poet and essayist Heinrich Heine and salonniére extraordinary Rahel Varnhagen

The first in a series of five Jewish Ghost Stories told by FRDH host Michael Goldfarb is set in Amsterdam. He goes looking for the ghost of the city's most famous Jewish son: the 17th century philosopher, Baruch Spinoza.

The Bush administration seduced and abandoned Iraq, could the Pope's visit redeem it? In this podcast, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb plays psychoanalyst to explore how the Iraq War led to American withdrawal from global leadership and explore the impact of the Pope's visit on the people of Iraq.

Rush Limbaugh was the voice of those who led America into Calamity. But he was just a front man. In this podcast, first broadcast on the BBC, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb looks at how American broadcasting got to Limbaugh and his hate-filled, fact challenged propaganda. It places the story in its full historical context. From the beginning people understood broadcasting's unique power to sway and indoctrinate. IN America after World War 2 the Fairness doctrine was put in place to try and restrain unscrupulous political manipulation of the airwaves. It worked for a while then Limbaugh was allowed to use his voice to bring calamity to America. Give FRDH 57 minutes to explain.

Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know - the theory of knowledge. But in the 21st century the objective basis of knowledge has been challenged as never before. In this FRDH special, Baroness Greenfield, Oxofrd University neuroscientist talks to FRDH hos Michael Goldfarb about 21st century epistemology. How can people recognize what is factual truth when bombarded all day long by online falsehoods that seem like facts? What happens when the usual processes by which learning take place are amped up and corrupted by a million lies a minute on Twitter? Take 23 minutes to find out.

What are the historical rules for starting a civil war? What conditions have to be met, how far into irreconcilable hatred must a society fall before fighting becomes inevitable? Is the US close to meeting these conditions? In this FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb looks back at civil wars he has covered and analyzes the current tensions in America against the lessons he learned in places like Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

On January 6, 2021 a mob incited by President Donald Trump broke into the US Capitol building in what has been called a riot, an insurrection, a coup d'État, a revolution. In this FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb tries to find the best word to describe the event and wonders how ti can be stopped from happening again. He draws on his experience covering riots and insurrection in other parts of the world as well as his study of philosophy to find the word that most accurately sums up the riot at the Capitol.

As 2020 comes to an end veteran BBC journalist Robin Lustig talks about how reality was obscured by twitter as we all tried to understand what was happening in the pandemic. In this FRDH podcast, host Michael Goldfarb and Robin Lustig, who have been front line journalists for a combined 75 years, go through a year like no other and its effect on them. You think you know how the world works and then suddenly you find out you haven't a clue. But it's not all doom and gloom, promise. Give us 18 minutes to prove it.