Best Tom Leeman Podcasts (2025)

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EP133: Warren Harding 1:16:22

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6M ago1:16:22

1:16:22

Warren Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving between 1921 and his death from a heart attack in the Summer of 1923. Harding famously proclaimed a "return to normalcy" following a frenetic period defined by severe economic downturn, race riots, anarchist bombings and labour strikes in the aftermath of the First World War. Thoug…

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EP132: Olaf Scholz 1:14:02

6M ago1:14:02

1:14:02

Olaf Scholz has been Chancellor of Germany since December 2021. Following the collapse of his government a few weeks ago, he seems headed for electoral defeat early next year. Where did it all go wrong? As a character, Scholz is muted and impersonal almost to the point of being dreary - famously described as the “personification of boredom in polit…

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EP131: Patrice Lumumba 1:08:01

7M ago1:08:01

1:08:01

Patrice Lumumba was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for just ten weeks in 1960. The brevity of Lumumba's time in charge reflects he difficulties of governing an enormous, ethnically diverse country deliberately underdeveloped by its former Belgian colonial masters. But it was the fomenting rivalry between the US and…

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EP130: Daniel Noboa 1:03:22

7M ago1:03:22

1:03:22

Daniel Noboa has been President of Ecuador since November 2023. The youngest democratically elected state leader in the world, Noboa has had a highly tumultuous introduction to high office. In January this year, violent crime in Ecuador, which had been increasing for nearly a decade, reached a terrible crescendo when two of the country’s gang leade…

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EP129: Robert Fico 1:01:01

7M ago1:01:01

1:01:01

Robert Fico has been the prime minister of Slovakia since 2023, and has served in that position three times since 2006. The thankfully unsuccessful attempt on Fico's life came at a time when the prime minister had become genuinely controversial internationally for the first time. This followed an increasingly erratic approach to the Slovakian media…

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EP128: Nouri al-Maliki 1:06:07

12M ago1:06:07

1:06:07

Nouri al-Maliki was Prime Minister of Iraq between 2006 and 2014, a tenure that makes him easily the country's longest serving post-2003 prime minister. Maliki became Iraq's head of government in the maelstrom of Iraq's sectarian civil war, following the 2003 US-UK invasion of the country. Today’s is a story of the collapse of the Iraqi state, and …

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EP127: Sadyr Japarov 1:09:03

1y ago1:09:03

1:09:03

Sadyr Japarov has been the President of Kyrgyzstan since 2021. Japarov's rise to power came after his country had experienced three revolutions in 15 years, in a part of the World unused to political upheaval. Today's episode investigates whether the three Kyrgyz revolutions, so unusual for Central Asia, have benefited the country's development. On…

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EP126: Jean-Bertrand Aristide 1:08:32

1y ago1:08:32

1:08:32

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was President of Haiti three times between 1991 and 2004. A lightning rod for hope and democracy on his election in 1990, the overall course and tone of Aristide's political career was set remarkably early on in 1991, when after just eight months in power, Aristide was removed in a coup. As you’re about to hear, Aristide’s re…

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EP125: Keir Starmer 51:47

1y ago51:47

51:47

Keir Starmer has been the leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020. This makes him Leader of the Opposition, and - if the polls are to be believed - Britain's next prime minister. Amid a revolving door of prime ministers, Brexit, and the pandemic, Starmer’s rise from leader of the weakest Labour Party since the Second World War to being in poll pos…

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EP124: Afonso Dhlakama 1:02:26

1y ago1:02:26

1:02:26

Afonso Dhlakama was the leader of RENAMO, Mozambique's main opposition movement, for over forty years until his death in 2018. Dhlakama’s story, and the Mozambican Civil War at large, are notable for two reasons. First is the regional and international dimension of the war. Mozambique's FRELIMO government courted support from communist powers such …

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EP123: J.R. Jayewardene 1:23:03

1y ago1:23:03

1:23:03

J.R. Jayewardene served as prime minister and then president of Sri Lanka between 1977 and 1989. Sri Lankan history, politics and society is dominated by tensions between two ethnic groups. Ethnic divisions are intrinsic to countless countries, including many covered on this podcast before. The key question the Sri Lankan experience raises though i…

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EP122: The Houthis (Part 2) 1:17:04

1y ago1:17:04

1:17:04

The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association in people's minds with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistance", their true motives are poorly understood. This is the second half of a two-part conversation seeking …

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EP121: The Houthis (Part 1) 48:16

1y ago48:16

48:16

The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistance", their origins in the turbulent Yemeni politics of the 1990s and 2000s are not widely understood. This is the first half…

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EP120: Jens Stoltenberg 1:10:17

1y ago1:10:17

1:10:17

Jens Stoltenberg has been Secretary General of NATO since 2014, and prior to that served twice as Prime Minister of Norway. Looking at him is interesting because, at least in the early part of his premiership, many commentators, buoyed by the end of the Cold War and the third wave of democratisation, genuinely believed that the world was converging…

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EP119: John Magufuli 1:12:15

1y ago1:12:15

1:12:15

John Magufuli was the President of Tanzania between 2015 and 2021. He was the sixth in a long line of presidents drawn from the same political party, the CCM, which has ruled Tanzania since its independence in 1961. CCM presidents came and went, standing down after two terms in office, just as American presidents do. But in the 2000s, the CCM start…

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EP118: Mary Lou McDonald 1:03:52

1+ y ago1:03:52

1:03:52

Mary Lou McDonald has been the Leader of the Opposition to the Irish Government since 2020. She is also the leader of centre-left political party Sinn Fein, currently the second largest party in the Irish parliament (Dail). Since 2000, Sinn Fein has gone from being an extra-parliamentary party to being the most popular party in the Irish Republic, …

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EP117: Nayib Bukele 1:13:17

1+ y ago1:13:17

1:13:17

Nayib Bukele has been the President of El Salvador since 2019. He has transformed the country from the nation with the world's highest murder rate to that with the world's highest incarceration rate, having arrested more than 70,000 people (1% of the population) in less than two years. His programme presents complicated trade offs and moral dilemma…

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EP116: Hezbollah 1:12:27

1+ y ago1:12:27

1:12:27

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group and political party, established in 1985. Hezbollah has a reputation as one of the Middle East’s great agitators, having engaged Israel in conflict twice, once in the 1980s and again in 2006. Their financing by and allegiance to the Iranian ayatollah, the West’s bogeyman in the region, underpins …

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EP115: Kim Yo Jong 1:06:38

1+ y ago1:06:38

1:06:38

Kim Yo Jong is the younger sister of the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. Since Jong Un’s accession to power in 2011, he has placed his sister into positions of increasing importance domestically and increasing prominence internationally. The question is: is Jong Un following the advice of Michael Corleone, keeping his friends close but …

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EP114: Hafiz al-Assad 44:21

1+ y ago44:21

44:21

Hafiz al-Assad was the President of Syria between 1970 and 2000. Father of present Syrian leader Bashar, Hafiz inherited a country in disarray, beset by political and religious division at home, and subject to interference from regional powers. Displaying extraordinary brutality, Hafiz imposed order on Syria’s diverse population and also turned his…

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EP113: Alex Salmond 1:02:59

1+ y ago1:02:59

1:02:59

Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland between 2007 and 2014, during which time he led the unsuccessful referendum campaign for Scottish independence. Salmond was a ruthless political operator, who was difficult to pin down on the political spectrum. This made him the perfect candidate to spearhead the independence campaign, as he meant differ…

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EP112: Islam Karimov 1:01:45

1+ y ago1:01:45

1:01:45

Islam Karimov was the 1st President of Uzbekistan from 1991 until his death in 2016. Terrified by the economic devastation which gripped Russia in the 1990s, Karimov decided that he would rather close the door firmly on market economics if the transition towards it risked even slightly going the same way as Uzbekistan's former masters. And so, Uzbe…

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EP111: Geert Wilders 52:12

1+ y ago52:12

52:12

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician and longtime leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), now the Netherlands' largest political party, following a surprise victory in the country's November election. Wilders has made a name for himself across Europe as the continent’s most outspoken anti-Islam politician. Marine Le Pen might be more powerful and mor…

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EP110: Hun Sen 1:08:05

1+ y ago1:08:05

1:08:05

Hun Sen is the longest-serving prime minister in Cambodian history, having led the country from 1998 until August this year. Hun has a complex legacy; he has ruled with a rod of iron, showing little mercy towards his political opponents. But as my guest today says, he is also the man who has taken Cambodia from the years of Pol Pot to the ambiguous…

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EP109: Vytautas Landsbergis 1:02:07

1+ y ago1:02:07

1:02:07

Vytautas Landsbergis led the modern Lithuanian independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Lithuania became the first of the fifteen Soviet Republics to declare independence from Moscow. This was a remarkably plucky move from such a small nation, but it changed the course of world history; two years later, Lithuania was an independent …

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EP108: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi 1:25:35

1+ y ago1:25:35

1:25:35

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been the President of Egypt since 2014. Egypt perennially struggles economically and politically, with high inflation, widespread youth unemployment and military dictatorship. In fact, Egypt has been under military dictatorship for nearly seventy uninterrupted years- nearly, because after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, democ…

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EP107: Joe Biden 53:43

1+ y ago53:43

53:43

Joe Biden has been President of the United States since 2021. However, this episode, unlike most others in this series, isn’t biographical; rather, what my guest and I examine today, are the prospects for Joe Biden’s re-election as US President next year, almost exactly one year out from the 2024 presidential election. On the surface of it, Joe Bid…

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EP106: Alex Jones 1:07:55

1+ y ago1:07:55

1:07:55

Alex Jones is an American political commentator, new media personality, and conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theory- which we will here define as attributing the occurrence of events or phenomena to sinister or secret organisations- infects all parts of the political spectrum and exists across the World. However, to a certain portion of the American…

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EP105: Robert Mueller 1:16:00

1+ y ago1:16:00

1:16:00

Today’s podcast looks at one of the most important and intricate stories in recent American history; the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the run up to, and aftermath of, the 2016 Presidential Election. The episode's subject, Robert Mueller, was the FBI Director before the election, but became infamous for his role as Special Co…

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EP104: Australia's AUKUS Skeptics 1:14:01

1+ y ago1:14:01

1:14:01

At the heart of Australia’s security policy lies a crucial question; should Australia, a country situated thousands of kilometres away from the Asian landmass, defend itself by casting out on the Pacific Ocean and pushing militarily towards Asia? As is often said, attack is the best form of defence… This is certainly the view taken by the signatori…

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EP103: Gabriele D'Annunzio 1:12:19

1+ y ago1:12:19

1:12:19

Gabriele D'Annunzio was an Italian writer, journalist and poet who wrote himself irrevocably into history in 1919. In the chaotic aftermath of World War One, D'Annunzio led a small band of irregular Italian forces to the Free City of Rijeka (Italian name Fiume), and seized it in the name of Italian irredentism. D'Annunzio proclaimed the Free City t…

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EP102: Hugo Chávez 1:17:06

1+ y ago1:17:06

1:17:06

Hugo Chávez was the President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. Despite attempts to harness Venezuela’s enormous oil revenues for the public good, Chávez left behind a country riddled with economic problems and with little to show for the President’s claim to build socialism in the 21st century. Billions of dollars in oil revenues wer…

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EP101: Ariel Sharon 1:09:26

1+ y ago1:09:26

1:09:26

Ariel Sharon served as prime minister of Israel between 2001 and 2006. As a politician and military leader, Sharon always courted controversy. He frequently ignored the orders of his superiors in an attempt to push further into Arab territory and as a politician infamously visited Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, sparking riots and terror attacks. M…

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EP100: Barack Obama 1:04:42

1+ y ago1:04:42

1:04:42

Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States between 2009 and 2017. For early Gen Zers like me, he was the most recognisable politician of our childhood. For those who voted for him, and for many others around the World, his message of Hope and Change was a vessel for their aspirations; aspirations which, amid the fallout from the…

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EP99: Yoon Suk Yeol 1:02:14

1+ y ago1:02:14

1:02:14

Yoon Suk Yeol has been the President of South Korea since May 2022. A public prosecutor until two years ago, Yoon won the Presidency on a knife-edge, having thrown in his lot with the "New Right", a pro-American, capitalist faction which rails against the cultural liberalism espoused by Korean progressives. His election suggests a degree of cultura…

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EP98: Erich Mielke 1:10:43

2y ago1:10:43

1:10:43

Erich Mielke was the head of East Germany's Ministry of State Security- also known as The Stasi- from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Given the Stasi has a reputation as perhaps the most meticulous secret police service in history, Mielke, hardened by the communist underworld of Weimar Germany, the Spanish Civil War and a Second Wor…

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EP97: Mohamed bin Zayed 1:10:41

2y ago1:10:41

1:10:41

Mohamed bin Zayed has been the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 2014, and the federation's President since 2022. Bin Zayed, or MbZ, has presided over a massive centralisation of power into the hands of the Abu Dhabi elite, and particularly his ruling family, the al-Nahyans. This has helped to construct an image of the UAE as …

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EP96: Golda Meir 1:14:02

2y ago1:14:02

1:14:02

Golda Meir served as prime minister of Israel from 1969 until 1974. Taking control of her country during a period of euphoria after the 1967 Six Day War, Meir was a member of Israel's founding generation. However, Israel's sense of infallibility was shattered after a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria, in what became the Yom Kippur War. Though Isra…

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EP95: Hafizullah Amin 1:20:35

2y ago1:20:35

1:20:35

Hafizullah Amin was the communist leader of Afghanistan for three ill-fated months in 1979. The end of his time in power- also the end of his life- marked the start of Afghanistan's descent into a forty year war. So disastrous was Amin's time in power that my guest considers him possibly the worst man in modern Afghan history. Amin reveals that mos…

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EP94: Kais Saied 1:10:05

2y ago1:10:05

1:10:05

Kais Saied has been the President of Tunisia since 2019. Just a few short years ago, Saied was a constitutional law professor, and Tunisia was seen as the only success story of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring. Now, Tunisia is slipping back into autocracy. Why didn’t Tunisia’s flirtation with democracy work? Should we be surprised it didn’t w…

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EP93: The Arctic Five 56:59

2y ago56:59

56:59

The Arctic Five are the five countries with coastlines on the Arctic Ocean. They are: Canada, Russia, Norway; through Alaska, The United States; and through Greenland, Denmark. This collection of five countries we will use as a bridge to discussing the geopolitics of one of the world’s least visited, least talked about and least understood regions.…

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Three regimes in a changing World 53:56

2y ago53:56

53:56

In a special episode of the podcast, I speak to three former guests about the divergent fortunes and trajectories of the governments in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia. In Turkey, Erdogan is emboldened following an election victory unexpected in some quarters; in Saudi Arabia, MBS is cautiously reforming the country's domestic and foreign policy in…

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EP92: Rauf Denktash 1:16:23

2y ago1:16:23

1:16:23

Rauf Denktash was the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus from 1983 until 2005. Given its crucial geopolitical position in the Eastern Med, Cyprus has been contested by different powers for centuries. In the modern day, this contestation occurs between Greece and Turkey, something compounded by the fact that Greeks and Turks both l…

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EP91: Khorloogiin Choibalsan 1:08:06

2y ago1:08:06

1:08:06

Khorloogiin Choibalsan was the leader of Communist Mongolia from 1939 until 1952. Known as "The Stalin of the Steppe", his life changed in 1933 when he agreed to become Stalin's lackey under the threat of execution for supposed collusion with Japanese spies. This led Choibalsan to execute three percent of the Mongolian population in Purges commensu…

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EP90: (The Rather Less Horrible) James Callaghan 47:24

2y ago47:24

47:24

James Callaghan was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1976 and 1979. He is also the only person to have held the UK's four Great Offices of State: Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and Prime Minister. This episode is the next in the "Rather Less Horrible" Series, where my guest and I discuss politicians …

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EP89: Metropolitan Amfilohije 1:05:08

2y ago1:05:08

1:05:08

Amfilohije Radović was Metropolitan- a high ranking position in the Orthodox Church- of Montenegro and the Littoral from 1990 until his death in 2020. Amfilohije was a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which also wields considerable influence in Montenegro. Serbia and Montenegro were joined in federation until 2006, when Montenegro voted to be…

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EP88: Muhammadu Buhari 1:05:11

2y ago1:05:11

1:05:11

Muhammadu Buhari served as the President of Nigeria between 2015 and 2023, having left office three weeks ago. Buhari is a longstanding character in Nigerian politics, having run for President five times, and led the country as a military dictator in the 1980s. The administration of Nigeria is made almost impossible by the intertwined issues of eth…

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EP87: Dragan Čović 1:07:41

2y ago1:07:41

1:07:41

Dragan Čović is one of the most powerful politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia's political system, the most complicated anywhere in the World, is designed to give the country's three ethnic groups- Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats- equal representation in government. This sounds reasonable- until one considers that Croats only make up 15% of the …

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EP86: Christopher Hitchens 1:02:09

2y ago1:02:09

1:02:09

Christopher Hitchens was an Anglo-American writer, journalist, literary critic and essayist. Not a thinker who one can characterise easily, the one thing linking all Hitchens’ writing and his utterances- he was a formidable debater- was his opposition to totalitarian thought. This often sparked controversy- especially his views on Islam and his sup…

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EP85: Józef Piłsudski 1:12:25

2y ago1:12:25

1:12:25

Józef Piłsudski was the founding father of modern day Poland, and the country’s most significant political figure from its formation in 1918 until his death in 1935. Initially a committed democrat who wished to see a Poland free for ethnic minorities to live in, Piłsudski eventually decided that his fellow Poles were not enlightened enough to accep…