We Have Ways of Making You Talk

Achtung! Achtung! Comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland discuss all matters Second World War. We Have Ways of Making You Talk is a weekly show exploring the war in close up. James and Al have a stunning knowledge of their subject, but don’t expect a linear narrative. The boys love a tangent and a forgotten tale. We Have Ways of Making You Talk roams down forgotten front lines, casts new villains and makes the case for unlikely heroes. Send questions to James and Al via Twitter using #WeHaveWays or by email to wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com Battle stations!

Book cover of War of Empires, A: Japan, India, Burma & Britain: 1941–45 by Robert Lyman

A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma & Britain: 1941–45

In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. But change was coming. New commanders were appointed, significant training together with restructuring took place, and new tactics were developed. A War of Empires by acclaimed historian Robert Lyman expertly retells these coordinated efforts and describes how a new volunteer Indian Army, rising from the ashes of defeat, would ferociously fight to turn the tide of war. […Learn More]

Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE

The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France

Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known—Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan—others have had their stories largely overlooked. […Learn More]

Snow and Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944 – 1945

Between December 16, 1944 and January 15, 1945, American forces found themselves entrenched in the heavily forested Ardennes region of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg defending against an advancing German army amid freezing temperatures, deep snow, and dense fog. Operation Herbstnebel–Autumn Mist–was a massive German counter-offensive that stunned the Allies in its scope and intensity. In the end, the 40-day long Battle of the Bulge, as it has come to be called, was the bloodiest battle fought by U.S. forces in World War II, and indeed the largest land battle in American history. […Learn More]

Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War

“An eye-opening narrative that makes for exciting but at times uncomfortable reading as one reflects on possible lessons for the present.”—Antonia Fraser, author of Mary Queen of Scots

On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepped off an airplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory. It was, he later assured the crowd in Downing Street, “peace for our time.” Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. […Learn More]

Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World

From a master of popular history, the lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II as it’s never been told before

BERLIN’S FATE WAS SEALED AT THE 1945 YALTA CONFERENCE: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up among the victorious powers― the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their prewar hostility toward―and suspicion of―one another. […Learn More]