Creating History presents Summitry, a twelve-episode series about pivotal diplomatic meetings that shaped world events. Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, it examines high-stakes negotiations such as Hitler and Chamberlain, Kennedy and Khrushchev, Bush and Blair, and Trump and Zelenskyy. Each episode goes inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collided, blending human drama with strategic manoeuvring and expert historical analysis. The show explores how these summits altered alliances and why understanding negotiated history remains urgent today.
Episodes
Allied by War: CHURCHILL'S GAMBLE
News of Tobruk’s surrender reaches Churchill while he is meeting Roosevelt in Washington. It seems like the worst possible moment to ask for help. Yet Roosevelt offers it, and Churchill sets about rebuilding Britain’s military fortunes while defending his Mediterranean strategy.
David Reynolds and Russell Barnes follow the appointment of Montgomery, his victory at El Alamein and Operation Torch –
Allied by War: CHURCHILL'S SOFT UNDERBELLY
Churchill is remembered for defying Hitler in 1940. But two years later, Singapore has surrendered, Rommel is threatening Egypt, and critics are asking whether Britain needs a different war leader. Churchillian rhetoric can’t make these defeats disappear.
David Reynolds and Russell Barnes revisit the difficult years between Dunkirk and the desert war’s turning point. Why did Churchill send tanks
Allied by War: STALIN ÜBER ALLIES
By 1943, the Red Army has learned hard lessons. Soviet factories are producing weapons in vast numbers, Allied supplies help keep the army mobile, and Stalin is giving his commanders more freedom. Hitler’s armies are being driven back.
David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace the advance through Operation Bagration, the Warsaw Uprising and the final assault on Berlin. Stalin co-operates with his
Allied by War: STALIN'S FIGHTBACK
Hitler’s invasion brings the Soviet Union close to collapse. Stalin’s response mixes dogged defiance with appalling cruelty, but survival demands something else, something unfamiliar: listening to his generals. From the defence of Moscow to Stalingrad and Kursk, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace the Red Army’s recovery and ask how much credit its dictator deserves.
Allied by War: THE DICTATOR WHO MISREAD HITLER
On 22nd June 1941, Hitler invades the Soviet Union. Stalin has dismissed repeated warnings. How did a man who saw enemies everywhere so disastrously misjudge the threat from Nazi Germany?
In the first of three episodes on Stalin, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace his rise from a Georgian seminary student to the Soviet Union’s absolute ruler. They examine the ruthless manoeuvring that elimi
Allied by War: AN ALLIANCE OF MISTRUST
How did leaders with such different ambitions hold their alliance together long enough to win the Second World War? In this opening episode of Allied by War, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes introduce the private arguments and compromises behind the familiar history. They explore the gap between public image and private character, and ask how the bargains that helped secure victory contributed to
Summitry: Trumpery 2.0 & Conclusions
It's more than 100 days into Donald Trump’s second term as America’s 47th president and the world is holding its breath...
In this conclusion to Creating History’s series on international summitry, we dissect how the “disruptor-in-chief” has returned with a vengeance, turbocharging his “America First” doctrine and turning summitry into something like a high-stakes reality show. Listener question
Summitry: Trumpery 1.0
International diplomacy has been upended since 2017. In the first of a double Creating History episode, we dissect Donald Trump’s unorthodox first-term foreign policy through the lens of historical analysis. How did a reality-TV mogul turned commander-in-chief rewrite the rules of international relations? From his “fire and fury” theatrics with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to the clandestine charm o
Summitry: Bushwhacking
In this episode, we dissect one of the most consequential - and controversial - political partnerships of the 21st century: the alliance between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq War. From their chummy first meeting at Camp David in 2001, through the shock of 9/11, to the high-stakes summits that paved the path to invasion, we unravel h
Summitry: End of the Evil Empire part 2
When history hinges on a handshake... Concluding our double episode on Reagan and Gorbachev’s high-stakes diplomatic dance, Creating History explores a series of summits in the late 1980s that defied the odds and dismantled the nuclear nightmare.
Part 1 left us in Geneva, where a handshake between the former cowboy actor and the Soviet reformer cracked open a door. Now, in Part 2, witness how Rey
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 E
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
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 Unio
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 dominat
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 groundwo
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
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 de
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
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 le
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 leade
Creating Churchill: OPPOSITION
In this episode, we explore Winston Churchill's relationship with his political opponent Clement Attlee: Labour leader, wartime coalition colleague and eventually Churchill's successor as Prime Minister in 1945. Churchill's insults about Attlee have become so familiar now that they're almost cliche. Talking to American President Harry Truman in 1946, Churchill said of Attlee, ‘There is less there
Creating Churchill: NEMESIS
In this episode: Winston Churchill’s spiky relationship with the Indian nationalist, Mohandas Gandhi - a relationship that shows up some of Churchill's blind spots and arguably puts him on the 'wrong side' of history. Churchill notoriously described Gandhi in 1931 as ‘a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a well-known type in the East, striding half naked up the steps of the V
Creating Churchill: THORN
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
Creating Churchill: ALLY
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
Creating Churchill: FRIEND
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
Creating Churchill: ENEMIES
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
Creating Churchill: RIVAL
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
Creating Churchill: MENTOR
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
Creating Churchill: Introduction
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
Creating Churchill: FATHER
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
