How to Invent a Country
Kanaal Besonderhede
How to Invent a Country
Misha Glenny investigates the borders, the histories and the people that make different nations what they are.
Onlangse Episodes
113 episodes
The Balkans: The Birth and Death of Yugoslavia
Misha Glenny returns to the Balkans to report on the birth and death of Yugoslavia.
With contributions from Lea Ypi, Radina Vucetic, Ivan Veyvod...
The birth and death of Yugoslavia
Misha Glenny talks to contributors from Bosnia and Belgrade, and Albania too, about the history of Yugoslavia from 1918 via Tito until now.
Reco...
The Balkans: Episode 2
Churchill may have said that the Balkans produce more history than it can consume, but in this episode Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head out to discov...
More history than you can consume!
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde take a journey through the Balkans. Was Churchill's quote true?
The Balkans: What Are the Balkans?
June 28 1914 - a young Bosnian on a street corner in Sarajevo fired a shot that triggered World War One. Why is this region so unstable, and what less...
What are the Balkans?
June 28, 1914: a young Bosnian in Sarajevo fired the shot that triggered World War One. Why is this region so unstable? Misha Glenny returns to a regi...
Hungary: Two World Wars and One Failed Revolution
It's easy to forget how entwined Hungary has been in some of the worst events of the last 100 years – losers in the first world war, the country initi...
Two World Wars, One Failed Revolution
Misha Glenny asks how the losers of two world wars, which drastically reshaped Hungary's borders, tried to fight off Soviet tanks on Budapest's street...
Hungary: The Butcher and the Poet
"Brussels is abusing its power," said Victor Orban, "just as Vienna once did." The date, March 15 2025 - this year - but the reference was to March 18...
The Butcher And The Poet
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head to a rally in Budapest where Viktor Orban compares the EU to the Habsburgs, forgetting it was tsarist Russia that cr...
Hungary: Hungary and Mohacs 500
Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde travel from Vienna to Budapest and beyond to find out how Hungarian hardman Viktor Orban stays in power. With an...
Hungary and Mohacs 500
McMafia author Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel from Vienna to Budapest to find out how Hungarian hardman Viktor Orban uses history beginning with...
Taiwan
At the beginning of this year the president of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping, claimed that people living on both sides of the Taiwan Strai...
Taiwan
At the beginning of 2024 the president of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping, claimed people living on both sides of the Taiwan Straits should...
China: The Life and Times of Chairman Mao
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from.
"Twentieth century China is the most ex...
China: The Life and Times of Chairman Mao
The Long March, the Civil War, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution
China: Imperial Collapse
"You could do a whole programme on why you shouldn't build a capital in Beijing. It's a Mongolian camel camp." Paul French
Beijing means capital...
China: imperial collapse
The end of the Qing and the troubled birth of the republic under Dr Sun Yat-sen
China: To Kowtow or Not Kowtow
Britain was late in its contacts with China and the Qing dynasty - the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish had all headed east long before Lord McCa...
China - to kowtow or not to kowtow
Find out how the world's greatest civilisation found itself dragged into two opium wars
China: The First Emperor
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from.
"The empire long united must divide, lo...
China - the first emperor
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head east to find out what is China and where it came from?
Turkey - Ottoman or Turk
A bonus episode with Hannah Lucinda Smith, Christopher de Bellaigue and Misha Glenny.
Turkey: A Balancing Act
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde take a ride over the Bosphorus to see the old Hyderpasha railway station - the Asian bulkhead of the Berlin to Baghdad ra...
Turkey: The Military
On September 12 1683, an army led by Kara Mustafa Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman empire, lined up on a hill just outside Vienna. The Ottomans had...
Turkey: The Ottomans: East or West
When Mehmet the Conqueror arrived in Constantinople, now Istanbul, he turned the main cathedral into a mosque and threatened to move much further west...
Turkey - A Delicate Balancing Act
Ep 3 - How the republic of Turkey emerged from the ruins of World War One
Turkey - The Military and Decline
EP 2 - The Invention of Turkey and slow decline of the empire from the siege of Vienna
Turkey - The Ottomans: East or West
Ep1 - Istanbul and Mehmet the Conqueror. Misha Glenny on the birth of the Ottoman empire
Russia: A Tale of Two Ivans
Countries look so cohesive on the map - sturdy borders, familiar shapes. Don't be misled; they didn't always look like this. This is the story of Rus...
Russia: The Empire Strikes Back
Russia's empire was not like that of Britain or France. It was built by expanding across the land, so much more like the United States of America. Pre...
Russia: Catherine the Great and the Question of Europe
The extraordinary tale of how a small fortressed city became the centre of the largest contiguous landmass in the world, presented by Misha Glenny. It...
Russia: The Sacred Song of War
Misha Glenny's final programme on Russia looks at the country's attitude to war, and in particular the great patriotic wars against Adolf Hitler and N...
Russia - A Tale of Two Ivans
Ep 1 The Invention of Russia ... told from a time when it was still very small
Russia - the Empire Strikes Back
Ep 2 - The Invention of Russia and the expansion east to Siberia, west into Ukraine
Russia - the bear moves west
Ep 3 - The Invention of Russia and Catherine the Great, presented by Misha Glenny
Russia - the sacred song of war
Ep 4 - The Invention of Russia, presented by Misha Glenny and produced by Miles Warde
Poland: Stalin on One Side, Hitler From the Left
Misha Glenny on the extraordinary history of Poland - includes the Miracle on the Vistula in 1920, the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and how Solidarity set in...
Poland - Stalin on one side, Hitler to the left
Ep 3 - Poland reborn and invaded again. Misha Glenny presents, Miles Warde holds the mic.