About the Show
Welcome to 20th Century Revolutions! Happy to have you have you here :-)
20th Century Revolutions is a podcast that will trace some of the most consequential revolutions, political and social, that took place across the globe during the 20th century.
As a podcast about revolutions, the narrative naturally picks up where the great Mike Duncan left off in his wonderful Revolutions podcast. This show is similarly broken up into seasons each covering different revolutions with episodes that are released weekly and that are around 25-40 minutes long.
As a podcast about the 20th century, I will also be attempting to make some sense of how the dramatic events of the 20th century have shaped our world today. One of my hopes is that the framework of political and social revolutions will allow for new understandings of the 20th century.
We are currently on: Season 1 - "Revolutions of the Ottoman Collapse." We’ll be exploring the many revolutions that exploded as the Ottoman Empire gradually fell apart and then very suddenly collapsed during World War I.
We’ll begin with the revolutions in the Balkans (Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria etc.) as well as in the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Syria, Arabia etc.). Then, the story will dive into the Young Turks and finally culminate with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s creation of modern Turkey.
Revolutions I hope to cover in future seasons: Chinese Revolution; Cuban Revolution; Irish Revolution; Iranian Revolution; Spanish Civil War; Egyptian Revolutions; Algerian Revolution; Indian Revolutions; Czech Velvet Revolution... I may also one day try to cover events not typically considered "revolutions" but were nonetheless very revolutionary like the fight against Apartheid in South Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the US. (…maybe they were revolutions??)
If you have any suggestions for future seasons, notice any serious blunders I have made in my facts or pronunciation, or just want to say hi, please email me at twentiethcenturyrevolutions@gmail.com.
Now On:
Revolutions of the Ottoman Collapse
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to a chaotic struggle within Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, for territory, resources, people, and international recognition. This season looks at the many revolutions that grew out of this collapse:
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🇷🇸 The Serbian Revolution (yeah, 19th cent...)
🇬🇷 The Greek Revolution (full mini series!)
🇷🇴 🇧🇬 🇲🇪 Great Eastern Crisis -> Balkan Wars
🇦🇲 The Armenian Resistance
🇲🇰🇧🇬🇬🇷🇷🇸 The Macedonian Struggle
🇹🇷 The Young Turks
🇵🇸 The Arab Revolt (is that you, Lawrence?)
🇪🇬 The Egyptian Revolution (the first one)
🇹🇷 Ataturk's Revolution
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By closely examining the rise of revolutionary nationalism within the collapsing Ottoman Empire, we can better understand the formation of the modern Middle East, Balkans, and North Africa. And, maybe we can also finally understand why Europe would devour itself (and the rest of the world) when a Serbian revolutionary nationalist assassinated an Austrian archduke in the Balkans in 1914. But you know, probably not...
