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Secrets of Statecraft is a bimonthly podcast hosted by Distinguished Visiting Fellow Andrew Roberts that explores the effect that the study of history has had on the careers and decision making of public figures. The podcast also features leading historians discussing the influence that the study of history had on their biographical subjects. The title is taken from Winston Churchill’s reply on Coronation Day 1953 to a young American who had asked him for life advice, to whom he said, “Study history, study history, for therein lie all the secrets of statecraft.”
Episodes

Monday Mar 07, 2022
The View From Next Door: John O’Sullivan on the War in Ukraine
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Monday Mar 07, 2022
John O’Sullivan runs the Danube Institute in Budapest, Hungary. From this vantage point (Hungary shares a common border with Ukraine), he has special insights on the conflict across the border in Ukraine and on the use of statecraft to find a resolution to the conflict.

Thursday Mar 03, 2022
Thursday Mar 03, 2022
A surprising aspect of human nature during warfare is its immutability over the millennia, as classical scholar and Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson shows in our discussion about the Peloponnesian War and the Roman Empire. He illustrates what 5th Century BC Greece can tell us about invasions, charismatic leadership, national honor and courageous resistance today.

Thursday Feb 24, 2022
The Education of General David Petraeus
Thursday Feb 24, 2022
Thursday Feb 24, 2022
An important part of statecraft is learning from the past, and in my first podcast I ask General David Petraeus, who commanded the US-led coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan and was director of the CIA, what he learned about the Vietnam War from his PhD studies at Princeton that helped him in the war against terror.