The Accidental Tyrant: Kim Il-Sung’s Rise to Power, and How He Kept It, with Fyodor Tertitskiy

In 1945, Kim Il-Sung was a minor figure with no political power in Korea. Within months, he was elevated by Soviet authorities to lead North Korea. Historian Fyodor Tertitskiy joins us to discuss The Accidental Tyrant, his new biography of Kim, and explains how this obscure guerrilla commander became one of the most durable dictators of the 20th century—and the founder of a regime that still rules today long after the Cold War ended.

Joseph Smith was the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known by those outside the church during his life and today as the Mormons. But Joseph Smith was many things besides: the child of a struggling family gradually moving westward in search of opportunity, a day laborer, visionary, seer; treasure hunter; translator; revelator; prophet; elder, banker, prisoner, wrestler, real estate speculator, polygamist, Lieutenant General, Master Mason, Mayor, and martyr.“America,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1844, “is the country of the future…[a] country of beginnings, of projects, of vast designs and expectations.” My guest John Turner observes that Joseph Smith might not have been what Emerson had in mind when he spoke of new beginnings and bold projects. But those were part of his life, in addition to vast designs and great expectations. Indeed, it is not too much to say that few nineteenth century Americans have an enduring legacy that can compare to Joseph Smith’s.Yet John Turner’s new book Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet also describes how this very untypical man was yet absolutely typical of his times. From his religious awakening among the religious revivalism of western New York, to his founding of utopian communities in the midwest, to his dietary concerns, and even to his experience of brutal mob violence that amounted to religious pogroms against his church, Smith’s experiences–and those of his followers–were far from atypical. John G. Turner is professor of religious studies and history at George Mason University. His previous book was They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty, which we talked about in Episode 157.For Further Investigation In Episode 181, Sara Patterson and I discussed the practice of Mormon pilgrimage.For a conversation about a very different but equally charismatic and controversial 19th century American, see my conversation in Episode 198 with Bob Elder about John C. Calhoun, whom Elder describes as the "American heretic"; a nice pairing with an American prophet.The Joseph Smith Papers

In our conversation, Dan Edelstein traces the intellectual history of revolution as an idea—from its origins in classical antiquity to its dramatic transformation during the Enlightenment, to its seeming maturation in the 20th Century

This week’s episode features not one but two conversations—with Aron and Strauss—which, while it may sound like a jazz-age songwriting duo, is in fact a pairing of two distinguished historians: Stephen Aron and Barry Strauss. They join our ongoing series of interviews exploring historians’ early love of the past and the essential role of intellectual humility in historical thinking. First up is Stephen Aron, Professor Emeritus of History at UCLA and President and CEO of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. The Autry is one of the nation’s foremost museums dedicated to the art, history, and cultures of the American West. It weaves together scholarship, public exhibitions, and community engagement to tell stories that cross boundaries—geographic, temporal, and cultural. Aron is a pioneering historian of frontiers, borderlands, and Western American history. In Episode 289, we spoke about all three—while also discussing his long effort to bridge the gap between academic and public history. As both a professor and a museum leader, Aron has spent decades bringing historical thinking into the public square. My second guest this week is Barry Strauss, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University. A scholar of ancient Greece and Rome, Strauss is well known for combining academic rigor with public engagement, writing widely read books on classical antiquity, military history, and leadership. Strauss is no stranger to Historically Thinking—he’s appeared on the podcast several times before, in Episodes 11, 45, and 256, where we’ve discussed the death of Caesar, the intellectual achievement of Thucydides, and the war that made the Roman Empire. He is also a recipient of the 2024 Bradley Prize, awarded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to American intellectual and civic life. The prize honors leaders whose work—whether in education, history, law, or public policy—strengthens the foundations of a free society.  

Robert Bruce Lockhart was at various times in his life a diplomat, a conspirator, an gatherer of intelligence, and a propagandist. He was always a maverick, a charmer, a bit of a cad with a touch of the bounder, and a devotee of the high life when he could afford it, and often when he could not.  In his busy life he ran a Malaya rubber plantation; served as a diplomat in Czarist Russia; and was first an interlocutor with and then a conspirator against the Bolshevik leaders of the early Soviet Union. After imprisonment and expulsion from the Soviet Union, he ricocheted about Europe as a journalist and memoirist, before ending up as head of the shadowy and creative Political Warfare Executive. Throughout his life he seemed to be an escapee from a John Buchan novel like The Thirty-Nine Steps, or Greemantle, albeit one with a much higher sex drive.  With me to talk about Robert Bruce Lockhart is James Crossland, Professor of International History at Liverpool John Moores University, where he is co-director of the Centre for Modern and Contemporary History. His interests are in—among other things—terrorism, propaganda, the International Red Cross and the history of international humanitarian law. He was last on the podcast in Episode 353 to talk about his book The Rise of the Devils: Fear and the Origins of Modern Terrorism. His newest book is Rogue Agent: From Secret Plots to Psychological Warfare, the Untold Story of Robert Bruce Lockhart. Some related podcasts in the archive are Jonathan Schneer on the Lockhart Plot; Anna Reid on the Russian Civil War; and–well, I mentioned it, oddly enough–Ben Jones on the Jedburghs.

Albert Einstein died in 1955, the most influential scientist of the 20th century. Yet even in the 21st-century his intellectual presence remains – seven of the noble prizes awarded since 2000 stemmed directly from the work which he did in 1905 and 1915. More even than Isaac Newton’s bewigged and apple-pelted image, Einstein’s pervades popular culture, from that photo with his tongue sticking out to coffee mugs to intellectual exercises for your toddler. He has become so ubiquitous that perhaps we have come to forget that he was a real person, whose life is interconnected with the most important political and intellectual movements of his life, from Zionism to Nazism, from pacifism to nuclear weapons. In their beautifully concise new  biography, Free Creations of the Human Mind: The World of Albert Einstein, Michael Gordin and Diana Kormos Buchwald present an Einstein who is embedded in his historical context, and who has a range of interests, passions, and ideas that are perhaps generally unappreciated. In the process they disentangle controversies, destroy myths, and provide a nuanced account of a remarkable life in turbulent times. Michael D. Gordin is Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University, where he also serves as Dean of the College. Diana Kormos Buchwald, who could not be with us for the recording,  is General Editor and director of the Albert Einstein Papers.

This week I wanted to give you two conversations recorded some time ago, which are part of our recurring series on intellectual humility and historical thinking. The first guest is Alex Mikaberidze, a native of Georgia, the other one, not the one with peaches. He's Professor of History and Ruth Herring Noel Endowed Chair at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Dr. Mika Reja specializes in 18th and 19th century Europe, particularly [00:04:00] the Napoleonic Wars. He has written or edited some two dozen titles, including the critically acclaimed The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History and most recently the critically acclaimed Kutuzov: A Life in War and Peace, both of which we discussed on this podcast (in Episode 14 and again in Episode 155, and in Episode 284). He also talked about the skills of historical research in Episode 241, which means that as this is fifth appearance on the podcast,  I owe him a coffee mug.  My second guest is Scott Eric Nelson, Georgia Athletic Association Professor at the University of Georgia. Scott writes about the 19th century history, including the history of slavery, international finance, the history of science, and of global commodities. His first book was Steel Drivin' Man: The Untold Story of an American Legend, about the black folklore legend John Henry, and it won four national awards. More recently, he authored Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World, about the competition between the United States and the Russian Empire to Feed Europe between 1789 and 1918. It was featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and most importantly on Historically Thinking.    

My guest today is David Staley, associate professor in the Department of History at the Ohio State University, where he teaches courses in digital history and historical methods, and holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Design where he is taught courses in design history and design futures, and the Department of Educational Studies where he has led the forum on the university. This is his fifth appearance on Historically Thinking, which means I owe him a coffee mug. He has previously been on with co-author Dominic Endicott to talk about their book Knowledge Towns;  with Brent Orrell to talk about "The History of the Future"; explaining the beauties of historical context; and, in our very first conversation together, describing some potential Alternative Universities. This time we'll be talking about his book, Visionary Histories out for a few years now, available for free on Apple Books. In it David has written "twenty histories of the future"–originally essays in the Columbus Underground–which range from the future of artificial intelligence, to democracy, capitalism, education, and leisure. So this means that this will be at least the fourth time that David tries to convince me that historians have something to say about the future other than giving a shrug. [Art generated by MS Copilot; not an accurate representation of David Staley, or his dog.]

“For many educated Westerners,” writes today’s guest, “ the idea that religion promotes violence and secularism ameliorates the problem is a settled certainty, a doxa, an unstated premise of right thinking. By no means do I deny that religious energies…can be turned toward destructive ends, especially by unscrupulous politicians in times of crisis and uncertainty… Nonetheless, concentration on or simply assuming religion’s inclination toward violence insouciantly glides past a glaring reality of the twentieth century: namely, that regimes committed to secularism have not infrequently possessed just as much capacity for violence as, and often much more than, those tied to religious identity.” These are some of the observations with which Thomas Albert Howard begins his new book, Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History. It is a survey and a dissection of how certain types of secularism can lead to violence as furious as that of any religious fanatic.  Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard (Ph.D, University of Virginia) is professor of humanities and history and holds the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. His previous books include The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue (Yale University Press, 2021), which was the subject of our conversation in Episode 232 of this podcast. This is his third appearance on Historically Thinking; he also discussed the life and historical project of Jacob Burckhardt long, long ago in Episode 37. (The image is of two Tibetan Buddhists undergoing a "self-criticism session" in Lhasa sometime in 1966; from picryl.com)

In 1845 a water mold named Phytophthora Infestans which afflicts potato and tomato plants began to spread across Europe, killing potatoes from Sweden to Spain. “The potato blight caused crisis everywhere it appeared in Europe,” writes my guest Padraic X. Scanlan; “in Ireland, it caused an apocalypse.” In 1845, a third of the United Kingdom’s population lived in Ireland; an 1841 census had counted a population of 8.2 million. In the next six years, 1 million of them would die from famine related causes; another 1.5 million had emigrated. The 1851 census totaled the Irish population at 6.5 million, and the population of Ireland would continue to decline for another 100 years. “Although the labouring poor ate potatoes throughout northern and western Europe, only Ireland experienced demographic collapse during and after the blight pandemic.” And the consequences of the famine were more than demographic. It frayed or destroyed communal and familial relationships, and must have led to long-lasting psychological trauma. Padraic X. Scanlan is an associate professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. The author of two previous books, his latest is Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine, and it is the subject of our conversation today.