History Unplugged Podcast

The "Madman Theory" was Richard Nixon's foreign policy strategy during the Vietnam War era, where he deliberately cultivated an image of being unpredictable and irrational—hinting he might escalate to nuclear extremes—to intimidate adversaries like North Vietnam and the Soviet Union into concessions. Nixon instructed aides like Henry Kissinger to spread rumors that he was volatile enough to "go crazy" and use drastic measures, hoping fear of his supposed madness would deter aggression and force negotiations without actual escalation. Nixon's Madman Theory was relatively ineffective in coercing North Vietnam because Hanoi correctly gambled that the U.S. would not use nuclear force against a non-nuclear state—like North Vietnam—due to the massive domestic and international backlash, the high risk of Soviet/Chinese escalation, and the global nuclear taboo. But what if Nixon had used it against an actual nuclear power? That could have happened if history had only played out a little differently. JFK won his presidential election in 1960 against Nixon by a few thousand votes in key counties, and many suspected voter fraud. What if Nixon had won? And what if he used the Madman Doctrine against the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis? In today’s episode, were’ joined by Harvy Simon, who wrote a book of alternate history called “The Madman Theory” that imagines exactly that scenario. The book focuses on how President Nixon handles the Cuban Missile Crisis. True to the "Madman" strategy, Nixon maneuvers the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the world to the brink of nuclear war, believing his reputation for unpredictability will force Nikita Khrushchev to back down. We explore the dangers of deliberately appearing irrational and unstable to an adversary—especially in the nuclear age—significantly increases the risk of miscalculation, accidental escalation, or the adversary failing to understand the bluff, thereby triggering an actual catastrophic conflict. Harvey Simon --- I’m the author of The Madman Theory, which posits that Richard Nixon won the 1960 election against Kennedy. In particular, it focuses on the Cuban missile crisis, and what would have happened differently with Nixon as president.My book is being reissued with a newly added foreword examining how Nixon’s madman theory has been taken up by President Trump.If you'd be interested in a show about what would likely have happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis if Kennedy hadn't won--some scholars doubt the outcome was legitimate--I'd be happy to talk with you about my analysis, and, more generally, how counterfactuals can improve our understanding of history.I'm a former national security analyst with Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and have also worked as a journalist. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The famous street artist Banksy shocked the art world in 2018 when his painting, Girl with Balloon, partially shredded itself moments after selling it for over a million dollars. at a Sotheby's auction in London. Banksy had secretly built a mechanical shredder into the painting's ornate frame, turning the destruction into a piece of performance art which was later authenticated and renamed Love Is in the Bin. He did this to make a statement about the art market's hyper-commercialization. One of the most famous and influential philosophers of the ancient world enjoyed doing similar types of shocking stunts to make his point in the most memorable way possible. Diogenes the Cynic had a reputation for eccentricity. He lived in a large clay wine jar and owned almost nothing, a demonstration that true freedom and happiness come from self-sufficiency. He defecated in public, and when criticized, he asked why it was acceptable to eat there but not to perform other natural acts, illustrating that social shame is arbitrary and not rooted in nature or reason. Since his death in 323 BC, devoted followers made him and his ideas famous the world over. But some modern philosophers like Friedrich Hegel thought of him as just a shock jock. To him, Diogenes had a way of life based on simple, isolated maxims and provocative anecdotes—like those of a folk figure—rather than a fully developed, systematic philosophical system that truly captured the evolving spirit of reason in history. Today’s guest is Inger Kuin, author of “Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic.“ We look at this iconoclastic philosopher whose brash and free-thinking vision of life ended up inspiring the philosophy of Stoicism. His philosophy stresses the importance of living here and now and not concerning ourselves with things out of our control. Diogenes also stands apart as history’s first recorded critic of slavery, a lone voice of his time that powerfully influenced future thinkers, from Epictetus to future abolitionists.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessing free, reliable ocean winds to propel large cargo loads over vast distances without needing fuel or frequent stops. It also powered windmills, the factories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Windmills allowed for abundant bread by milling flour by turning heavy grindstones with wind-driven sails. They also powered trip hammers to forge iron and steel by lifting and dropping massive weights. We can credit them as well for pumped water, sawed timber, and processed oils, spices, and paper. Wind is one of most elemental yet overlooked forces shaping our world today, and it is at the center of the human story. Many times it changed history – such as “Protestant Wind” saving England from the Spanish Armada, kamikaze winds halting the Mongol invasions of Japan, and easterlies carrying Chernobyl’s fallout. Wind also powers massive turbines today, but there was a forgotten moment in the 1880s when we could’ve chosen wind power over fossil fuels. It even creates certain types of civilizations. Some historians believe the cleverest and most civilized people lived in places where weather was varied and posed constant challenges. Today’s guest is Simon Winchester, author of “The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind.” We look at how wind—life‐giving and destructive, chaotic and harnessable — has shaped civilization from antiquity to today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellite data, resulting in continents that were too large, too small, or entirely misplaced. All of those problems have been solved thanks to new technology, but now there are new ones. Even though we know the exact dimensions of Earth, our maps are still "wrong" because we force a three-dimensional globe onto a flat surface, leading to mathematical distortions like the Mercator projection, which wildly exaggerates the size of landmasses near the poles. One map that tries to correct the Mercator projection's distortion of landmass sizes is the Gall-Peters projection, but to achieve this size accuracy, it severely stretches and distorts shapes, particularly near the poles, making Alaska look like a whirlpool or expanding pinwheel. To make it even more confusing, there are maps that were deliberately tweaked to hide government secrets or those drawn with junk data just to trick an enemy into giving up territory. But for today’s guests, Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, they enjoy these sort of cartographic oddities. They are the authors of “This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong and Why it Matters.” We discuss all sorts of maps that went wrong—from the infamous Mountains of Kong—a completely made-up mountain range that ran East-West across the entire African continent--to colonial maps with mathematically impossible borders and US states with fake cities. We also discuss The frequent omissions of New Zealand on maps that use the Mercator projection Maps that will land you in prison depending on which countries claim certain territories Cold War-era Soviet paranoia that falsified virtually all maps for decades on the direct orders of secret police See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. It was clearly understandable in a way that abstract fields like philosophy weren’t, and it was on its way to solving humanity’s problems. Mathematical work on electromagnetism made modern electrical engineering and power systems possible. New research in algebra created the logical basis for future computer science and digital circuits. But then new problems appeared. In the early 20th century, mathematicians made discoveries that showed them enough to know how little they really knew. Bertrand Russell showed that at its edges, math fell apart. It couldn’t fully define itself on its own terms without becoming logically inconsistent. He gave the analogy of a small-town barber who shaves everyone who doesn't shave himself; the question is, who shaves the barber—if he shaves himself, he breaks the rule, but if he doesn't shave himself, he must, by the rule, shave himself? In today’s episode, I’m speaking to Jason Bardi, author of The Great Math War: How Three Brilliant Minds Fought for the Foundations of Mathematics and we explore the story of three competing efforts by mathematicians to resolve this crisis. What do you do if math, the most logical of all sciences, becomes illogical at a certain point? Bertrand Russell thought the problem could be solved with even more logic, we just hadn’t tried hard enough. David Hilbert thought redemption lay in accepting mathematics as a formal game of arbitrary rules, no different from the moves and pieces in chess. And L. E. J. Brouwer argued math is entirely rooted in human intuition—and that math is not based on logic but rather logic is based on math. Set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods of European history (from the late 19th century through World War I, the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the early days of World War II), we look at what happens when rock-solid truths don’t seem so rock solid anymore.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.