The stage is set for a new WWI

The stage is set for a new WWI

From UnHerd with Freddie Sayers by UnHerd

April 30, 2026 · 40 min

About this episode

Freddie Sayers discusses with Odd Arne Westad the parallels between current global tensions and the conditions leading to World War 1.

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks with Odd Arne Westad – Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University – about his new book  The Coming Storm , which argues that rather than entering a new Cold War, we are actually reliving the high-tension multipolarity of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a dangerous era where rapid technological shifts, the collapse of globalisation, and the friction between a rising China and a nervous United States mirror the exact structural conditions that caused the world to sleepwalk into the catastrophe of World War 1. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Freddie Sayers

Guest: Odd Arne Westad

Topics covered

  • geopolitics
  • history
  • China
  • United States
  • Cold War
  • technology
  • globalization

Keywords

  • WWI
  • Cold War
  • China
  • United States
  • geopolitics
  • globalization
  • history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Yale University

Books & works: The Coming Storm

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