News & Views

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray… Can Billy Joel help us disentangle one of the most complex yet relatively unexplored periods in modern history? Investigating the fraught nature of American, Korean and Cuba-Soviet Union relations from 1949 – 1991, We Didn’t Start The Fire (WDSTF) is a new history podcast with a lyrical twist.

Each week a new line from Billy Joel’s seminal song will be used to unravel a different topic at heart of this catalytic moment in time. The start of the series joins the dots between American cinema starlets, the rise of communism in East Asia and the advent of television in homes across the West.

The show is jointly hosted by broadcaster, writer and YouTuber Katie Puckrik, former host of Channel 4’s The Word, and Tom Fordyce, co-host of Crowd Network’s The Joe Marler Show. The pair are assisted by a different guest expert each episode, from specialist academics to pop culture aficionados.

Fordyce commented: “As well as being a cracking song, We Didn’t Start The Fire captured a time when the world seemed to be changing at a rate of knots. Those four decades had major ramifications for our lives today, yet it’s a relatively under-explored period compared to other moments in time. We saw the song as a perfect way to guide podcast listeners through those years, and Katie and I are learning a lot from making the show. Even if you don’t consider yourself a history buff, I think the series will grab your interest.”

Running for potentially 118 episodes, WDSTF can be downloaded on all major podcast platforms.