meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The John Batchelor Show

2/8: In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 by Nick Bunker (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, News, Society & Culture, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary


2/8: In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 by Nick Bunker (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Fear-America-World-1950/dp/1541675541/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

In the Shadow of Fear describes the end of one era and the beginning of another. Joseph Stalin tested his first atomic bomb, Mao's army swept through China, and in America the age of FDR gave way to the beginnings of a new conservatism. An aggressive Republican Party, desperate to regain power, seized on rifts among its opponents, and Truman's program for universal health care and civil rights reform went down to defeat. The young Senator Joe McCarthy ambushed Truman and his party with a style of politics that aroused powerful emotions and deepened division. On the eve of the Korean War, a new mood of anger in the nation left many Americans calling in vain for a return to consensus.

1945 Berlin

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm John Batcher with the historian Nick Bonker. The new book is in the Shadow of Fear, America and the world in 1950.

0:08.8

Joseph Stalin is the absolute authority of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Empire can be thought of its

0:15.3

imperialism. Joseph Stalin has ambitions in Asia. One of those ambitions is the

0:22.0

People's Republic of China.

0:24.0

Mao has very little, no Air Force, no money, no dollars, no cash.

0:28.9

He needs Stalin's sponsorship.

0:31.8

And what that means is he needs to go to Moscow.

0:35.0

Nick, at this point it becomes extremely mysterious to figure out Stalin one more time.

0:43.6

If it was confounding during the Second War, it was tragic during the 1930s.

0:50.0

Stalin and Mao, you present us several scenes of them dealing with each other in Moscow after

0:56.7

Mao is finally gets the invitation and travels there by train.

1:01.1

What can we understand now about what Stalin wanted from now?

1:04.0

Did he see him as a temporary tool?

1:06.0

Did he see him as somebody who was obedient like, say,

1:10.0

the Eastern European leaders? How did he regard him?

1:15.0

Well, fortunately, we know quite a lot about this now because the Soviet archives were opened

1:19.5

during the 1990s. Now, none of the Mr. Putin recently, they appeared to have been largely closed again, but there

1:24.2

was a period when the Soviet archives were available to historians. So a grade has been done and work has been done on

1:28.8

this subject. Now, what marijuana, as you said, was obviously support for his economy, he needed

1:34.4

to support to build an Air Force, he was thinking in this stage for example of possibly

1:37.9

invading Taiwan and he would have required Russian help to do that. There are all kinds of

1:41.8

things that Mao wanted and above all he wanted to be

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.