The Trauma of World War I

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The British public assumes that under no circumstances will Britain go to war over this question. And when there are public opinion soundings, everyone is both anti-Italian aggression and anti-war. This is Columbia University history professor and expert on the League of Nations, Susan Peterson. She says it's impossible to overstate the lasting ongoing trauma Europe was still experiencing from WWI.

An authoritarian ruler moves to invade a smaller country and take it for himself. People around the world rally to that country’s defense. European and American leaders grapple with how to stop the invasion and prevent a wider war. But this isn’t Russia and Ukraine in 2022. It’s Italy and Ethiopia in 1935. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson explore what we can learn from the very different choices made decades ago, when the world faced a similar challenge.

Featuring:

Deborah Cohen, the Richard W. Leopold Professor of History at Northwestern University, and author of Last Call At The Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War.

Susan Pedersen, the Gouverneur Morris Professor of History at Columbia University, and author of The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire.

Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism.