Creating History

Summitry: End of the Evil Empire part 1

In the first of a double episode charting the end of the Cold War, we go behind the scenes of the dramatic 1985 Geneva Summit, where Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev - ideological archenemies - met and glimpsed humanity in one another. 
How did a single meeting ignite a chain reaction that dismantled decades of nuclear brinkmanship, tore down the Berlin Wall, and dissolved Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe - all without a shot fired? The episode unravels the paradox: Reagan, the anti-communist 'hawk', and Gorbachev, the 'reformist' Soviet, defied expectations by finding common ground in their distrust of nuclear deterrence… and their surprising personal chemistry.
Discover how whispered jokes, shared frustrations and a flicker of mutual respect between these leaders helped to thaw a frozen conflict.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Summitry: Cabin Diplomacy

Thirteen days. Three leaders. One impossible goal.
In 1978, Jimmy Carter corralled Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin at Camp David, demanding an end to 30 years of Middle East war. Tempers flared, talks collapsed, and Sadat nearly stormed out - until Carter brokered a fragile truce: Israel would return the Sinai, Egypt would recognize its enemy, and both sides ignored the Palestinian question entirely. The agreements reshaped alliances, won Nobel Prizes and lit a slow-burning fuse for future conflict.
In this episode, David and Russell tell the story of a peace made… and peace postponed.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Summitry: Nixon Dances

In this episode of Creating History, we unravel the paradox of Richard Nixon’s 1972 summits in Beijing and Moscow, where his political cunning and outsider ambition inspired America’s most daring Cold War diplomacy and reshaped global power dynamics. How did such a flawed US president, often so consumed by paranoia and insecurity, broker historic détente with Mao’s China and Brezhnev’s Soviet Union?
 
We dissect Nixon’s legacy: a leader whose strategic brilliance thawed decades of icy relations, even as Watergate’s shadow loomed. From secret backchannel negotiations to televised handshakes with Communist adversaries, discover how Nixon’s “perpetual outsider” psyche drove him to gamble on international diplomacy.
 
Join us as we explore the dance of power, personality and paradox that drove Nixon’s quest for a legacy greater than his personal demons.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk
 

Summitry: Nutcracker

Step into the pressure cooker of Cold War diplomacy as we dissect the explosive 1961 Vienna Summit - a face-off between John F. Kennedy, America’s untested young president, and Nikita Khrushchev, the coarse and caustic Soviet leader hardened by years in Stalin’s shadow. These two leaders collided in a high-stakes game of brinkmanship. Kennedy sought to project strength; Khrushchev aimed to dominate. But beneath their polished façades lurked brittle egos, domestic pressures and fatal miscalculations.
Over two fraught days, their clash of personalities spiralled into a diplomatic disaster, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis and America’s plunge into Vietnam. This wasn’t just a summit - it was a tinderbox.
Why did talking nearly ignite a war? How did ego and insecurity rewrite the course of history? “Nutcracker” unpacks the perilous dance of power, revealing how the wrong words, at the wrong time, can push the world to the edge.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Summitry: Big Three

In this episode: we dissect the Tehran and Yalta summits between the so-called 'Big Three' of Allied leaders in World War Two, American President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. At Tehran in late November 1943, the Allies hammered out their strategy for defeating Nazi Germany. At Yalta in February 1945, they attempted to lay the groundwork of a post-war world as the war entered its final months. So these were the most consequential summits of World War II, arguably of the 20th century. They resolved some key disagreements among the Allies, but they also exposed deep tensions that would go on to shape the Cold War and the entire post-war order.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Summitry: Peace for Our Time part 2

In this second episode dissecting the tense negotiations of September 1938, when Neville Chamberlain raced against time to prevent a war with Hitler's Germany over Czechoslovakia, historian David Reynolds and producer Russell Barnes unpack the dramatic backstory of the Munich Agreement. While Munich is often remembered as a capitulation to Nazi aggression, the reality was messier - a labyrinth of diplomacy, desperation, self-delusion and high-stakes brinkmanship. Discover the zigzagging drama behind the infamous pact and why its legacy remains so fiercely debated. Was it a surrender... a product of hubris ... or a strategic bid to buy time for rearmament?  
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Summitry: Peace for Our Time part 1

Step into the high-stakes world of 1938, where peace in Europe hung on a series of summits between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain, culminating in the notorious Munich Agreement of 30th September.
Historian David Reynolds and producer Russell Barnes dissect Neville Chamberlain’s desperate bid to avoid war, 20 years after WW1’s "war to end all wars", and explore the clash of wills between a democratic leader and a dictator hellbent on conflict.
From tense negotiations to the birth of modern summitry, this is diplomacy under a microscope - raw, risky and relentlessly human.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

Inventing Summitry

In episode 1 of Summitry, producer Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds explore the backstory of high-stakes diplomacy on the world stage, from the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520)—where Henry VIII and Francis I staged the ultimate power flex—to the Congress of Berlin (1878), where Europe’s balance of power was redrawn.
Fast forward to today: with seismic shifts in world affairs, the rise of digital diplomacy, and Trump’s dramatic, unpredictable summits, understanding the history of summitry has never been more urgent.
 
From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.
 
This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.
 
When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.
 
Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…
 
Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: info@clearstory.co.uk
 
Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.
 
Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516
 
If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history
 
Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk
 

Creating Churchill: CONCLUSIONS

In the final episode of the series, published on the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill's birth, David and Russell bring together the main themes of the podcast, discussing Churchill's positive and negative character traits as seen through his contemporaries' eyes and responding to questions and comments sent in by listeners.  
 
Creating Churchill offers a fresh perspective on the life and legacy of the soldier, writer, and war leader Winston Churchill. As we approach the 150th anniversary of his birth on 30th November, 2024, this podcast invites listeners to look beyond the now familiar bulldog image and rediscover the real Churchill, his strengths and his weaknesses, through the eyes of contemporaries he collaborated or clashed with.
 
Join Cambridge University historian David Reynolds and documentary producer Russell Barnes as they explore how Churchill’s extraordinary career and personality were shaped by relationships with the key figures in his life: friends, rivals, enemies and family.
 
Creating Churchill draws on David Reynolds’ book
Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him,
published by HarperCollins in the UK:
https://williamcollinsbooks.co.uk/products/mirrors-of-greatness-churchill-and-the-leaders-who-shaped-him-david-reynolds-9780008439910/
 
And Basic Books in the USA:
 
https://hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-reynolds/mirrors-of-greatness/9781541620209/ 
 
 
Produced and edited by Russell Barnes.
Music by Rich Farnsworth.
Digital marketing by Lee Mann.
Sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.
Hosted by Podbean.
 
Creating Churchill is a ClearStory ‘Creating History’ production.
www.clearstory.co.uk
 
Follow the show on X or Instagram at @Creating_Hist
 
Send your comments, voice notes and questions to info@clearstory.co.uk
 

Creating Churchill: DEVOTED CRITIC

In this episode, we come to the person who knew Winston Churchill better than any other, and for the longest time - his wife of 56 years, Clementine. Their marriage was a stormy but very successful double act. Through Clemmie's eyes, we see Churchill at his most vulnerable and insufferable…
 
Creating Churchill offers a fresh perspective on the life and legacy of the soldier, writer, and war leader Winston Churchill. As we approach the 150th anniversary of his birth on 30th November, 2024, this podcast invites listeners to look beyond the now familiar bulldog image and rediscover the real Churchill, his strengths and his weaknesses, through the eyes of contemporaries he collaborated or clashed with.
 
Join Cambridge University historian David Reynolds and documentary producer Russell Barnes as they explore how Churchill’s extraordinary career and personality were shaped by relationships with the key figures in his life: friends, rivals, enemies and family.
 
Creating Churchill draws on David Reynolds’ book
Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him,
published by HarperCollins in the UK:
https://williamcollinsbooks.co.uk/products/mirrors-of-greatness-churchill-and-the-leaders-who-shaped-him-david-reynolds-9780008439910/
 
And Basic Books in the USA:
 
https://hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-reynolds/mirrors-of-greatness/9781541620209/ 
 
 
Produced and edited by Russell Barnes.
Music by Rich Farnsworth.
Digital marketing by Lee Mann.
Sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.
Hosted by Podbean.
 
Creating Churchill is a ClearStory ‘Creating History’ production.
www.clearstory.co.uk
 
Follow the show on X or Instagram at @Creating_Hist
 
Send your comments, voice notes and questions to info@clearstory.co.uk