Civil war

Peasant rebellions, colonial invasions, a man who declared himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ and found millions of people to follow him.

a nationalist revolution that turned into a period of warlords, a civil war that was put on pause only to fight the Japanese invasion.

And that conflict itself merged into the Second World War and a small group of communists rising from just a handful of comrades to pulling off the largest revolution in world history.

In this episode of Do Your Own Research, I'll be taking us through from the Opium War, in which the British imposed the first of many unequal treaties on China, right through to Mao standing on the steps of the Forbidden City and declaring a communist republic in the whole of China.

So that you have an alliance of urban classes for the very first time who begin to contest the global configuration of imperialism, but also the domestic arrangements that made China vulnerable to this kind of concession.

In steps then the newly formed Comintern, the communist international that had been formed in the new, the nascent, the newly established Soviet Union.

out of the Russian Civil War that had called all communist parties and all communist sympathizers to the Soviet Union in order to provide assistance for the new Soviet state.

And the Comintern then has a whole international, it's a Comintern, the Communist International, it has an internationalist wing that sends agents out to various places in order to explore the possibilities of fomenting a communist movement.

It was something that I had thought about before and was aware of.

There is a sort of argument in amongst historians that we should see the civil wars, the 1640s and 50s as a second reformation or either as a continuing reformation, you know, the continuation of unfinished business or a second reformation sort of in of itself.

But I've become utterly convinced by this, actually, in researching this book.

Well, firstly, because the 1530s were really current in the 1640s in the intellectual thought.

I mean, he grew up as a Jacobean gentleman.

He really is a conservative.

And we see this in the Putney debates in 1647 when there are many more radical revolutionary thinkers who emerge on the parliamentarian side during the civil wars.

Men we know about like Thomas Rainsborough and like the Levellers.

Predominantly Muslim and ethnically, culturally distinct from China's Han majority, they made their way to Syria.

Many would become fighters in the Syrian civil war, ultimately helping the rebel forces that overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December twenty twenty-four.

It really is a remarkable story, and one that is surprisingly little known.

In fact, as I prepared for this interview, I asked seven well-informed people what they knew about their role in Syria.

My guest today is Emily Feng.

She's an international correspondent for NPR and the author of the twenty twenty-five book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China.

This new book, Our Hearts Burn for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria's Civil War, takes her reporting from China to Syria, and of course, you can find it at Collected Works right here in Santa Fe or at your independent bookstore.

Emily, great to see you, and congratulations.

This is an area that the centurions obeying Augustus came up against in twenty-four BCE and left with their heads in their hands.

This is a mountainous, extremely savage landscape until it isn't down along the coast, and it's in a civil war of its own, has been for many decades.

And now the attack on Riyadh has shut down the Saudi airports and left everyone ques-questioning whether Saudi Arabia is capable of taking on the Houthis this time.

Annelle, a very good day to you.

The century that lay ahead would test whether it could endure these strains or collapse beneath the weight of its own victories.

Generals and Civil Wars, one hundred forty-four BCE.

By the opening years of the first century BCE, the Republic was already trembling under the weight of its own successes.

The Mediterranean had been made into what Romans called Mare Nostrum, our sea, but the politics inside the city seethed with division.

As he fell at the base of Pompey's statue, his blood pooling beneath the marble, the Republic seemed momentarily avenged.

Yet his death did not restore liberty.

Instead, it unleashed another storm of civil wars as allies and enemies vied for power in the vacuum Caesar left behind.

The Republic, battered for decades, staggered into its final days.

It does.

And when these internal state fractures deepen, they frequently transition into active armed conflicts, which brings us to the shifting territorial lines in ongoing civil wars.

Let's look at Ethiopia first.

The Ethiopian National Defense Forces have successfully recaptured the highly strategic Alula Abanega Airport in Mekelle from Tigray rebels.

Yeah, you're right.

It is called the English Civil War, but there were two English Civil Wars.

There were the Wars of the Roses in the 14th century, sorry, the 15th century.

And the English Civil War was what's called the English Civil War.

I want to fight.

1645 was a turning point in the civil wars that'd so far been a stalemate.

Many in parliament were unhappy that their advantage in resources hadn't translated into victory.

They suspected some commanders of half-hearted leadership.

He was no longer Charles, King of England, on a pedestal.

He was just another man who had caused this appalling bloodshed.

And I think it's always worth remembering that the English Civil Wars that caused the heaviest loss of life percentage of population in this country ever, including the First World War.

And the casualties were even worse in Scotland and considerably worse in Ireland.