Gladio Free Europe

From Godzilla to Game of Thrones, dragons dominate today's pop culture landscape and play a monstrous role in the modern imagination. But how did this obsession with fire-breathing reptiles begin? For this week's episode, Liam and Russian Sam follow the cultural history of dragons across Europe and Asia...

The Magnet is almost here! The GFE team will be republishing Ramón Sender's legendary book Imán in English for the first time in almost 90 years, and all of you get a front row seat! In this special sneak preview, we present a brief analysis of the Rif War as a catalyst for Spanish fascism and the proto-existentialist bent of the novel, followed by excerpts from the book describing the conditions of the poor peasantry of Spain and the painful realities of war...

We're back in Morocco! We pick up with the reign of Mawlay Muhammad III, often called the "architect of modern Morocco." In addition to building up several new cities, Muhammad reformed the state through a sweeping decentralization of power. Although effective at dealing with the challenges of his own time, Muhammad's reforms would have negative ramifications down the line...

We return to North Africa this week to explore some of the most infamous and intriguing characters of early modern history: the Corsairs of the Barbary Coast. What compelled Dutch sailors and English knights to "turn Turk" and sail under the Ottoman flag? What does Miguel de Cervantes have to do with a famous mosque in Istanbul? And were pirate attacks on Ireland an inside job? We going into all this and more in our episode on the notorious pirates of the Mediterranean...

Hey everyone, Russian Sam came down with a stomach virus so we were unable to record an episode for this week. We didn't want to leave you guys without any content for the week. In lieu of an episode, here is a brief historical introduction to Uzbekistan and the first few chapters of the Uzbek comedic autobiographical novel Shum Bola, or Mischievous Boy. Enjoy, and please do let us know if you would be interested in reading more of the adventures of this boy...

CIA agent Everette Howard Hunt, Jr is notorious for involvement in the 1954 Guatemalan coup, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the break-in at the Watergate hotel. But not many people know about most heinous crime: his decades-long side hustle as a hack writer. In this episode, we try to stomach his paranoid 1972 thriller "The Coven," in which a straight-laced attorney uncovers that Black Panthers are colluding with liberal elites in occult ceremonies in the shadows of Washington, DC...

We’re finally launching our exploration of Moroccan history, the most important country that Americans have hardly heard of. This episode will be a crash course on Moroccan history up until the early modern period. We follow rise of the 'Alawi dynasty that still holds power today, exploring how they came to power, kicked out the conquistadors, and established a massive army of slave-soldiers who helped turn a medieval kingdom into a modern state...

We continue our journey into medieval Sicily by following the rag-tag band of Normans who carved out a tiny foothold on the Italian peninsula. In less than 50 years, these French-speaking adventurers and grandchildren of the Vikings would unite Southern Italy and established themselves as the overlords on the advanced and prosperous island of Sicily...

And we’re back! Liam and Russian Sam return to the early middle ages to explore the unique and unbelievably fascinating history of Medieval Sicily. A true crossroads of civilization, this sun-soaked island has been influenced by cultures from every corner of the Mediterranean and beyond and is an amazing microcosm for the entire history of Europe and the Middle East as well. The first of a two-part series, this episode recounts many incredible stories of Sicily’s Islamic period...

1100 years ago, the power of the Normans stretched from the British Isles to the Mediterranean. They had become one of the most powerful clans in Europe. Yet their recent ancestors were lowly pagan Vikings. In this episode, we go over the swashbuckling history of the Normans to figure how a group of barbarian pirates were able to fight for their seat at the table of European politics and leave their unique mark on world history...