In keeping with a Historiansplaining holiday tradition, we try to make sense of the various struggles and conflicts of this yearby uncovering their deeper historical contexts, including: --the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire; --the precedents for the bitter House Speakership struggle; --the gradual realignment in the international balance of power, instantiated in the expansion of BRICS; --the geopolitical stakes of the fight over Nagorno-Karabakh; and --the histories of labor militancy that lie behind the strikes in Hollywood and Detroit See my appearance on the Katie Halper show to discuss the travails of Zionism and Palestine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL_EzoyY17A Corrections: I wrote my article for Yale Journal of Law and Humanities (“In the American Tempest”) in 2022, not 2021; The Screen Writers Guild, the precursor of the WGA, was founded in 1920, not the 1930s. Image: Palestinians harvesting wheat, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 2020, by Rizek Abdeljawad / Xinhua Please sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures and to help keep this podcast coming: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632