At the beginning of the 20th century, most of the territory that we call the Middle East- including Syria, Iraq, Israel and Turkey- were part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman alliance w/ Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I provided Britain and France w/ the opportunity to divide the once-great empire into many states based on European imperial ambitions. In this episode Bob and Ben speak w/ Eugene Rogan to learn more about why the Ottoman Empire was divided, how that process shaped the Middle East, and how this history helps us understand the world today.
Dr. Eugene Rogan is a Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is author of The Arabs: A History (Penguin, 2009, 3rd edition 2018), which has been translated in 18 languages and was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. His new book, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920, was published in February 2015.
We’d also like to say a special thanks to the family of Roscoe L. Strickland Jr. for providing the support that brought Dr. Rogan to MTSU as part of the Strickland Scholars Program. Additional thanks goes to Dr. Susan Myers-Shirk for her work in arranging for MTSU’s Strickland Scholars to appear on our podcast.
This is a rebroadcast of episode 112 which originally aired on November 19th, 2018. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, Golf developed a reputation as a sport for wealthy white men who gathered at their exclusive country clubs to make business deals over 18 holes of golf, all the while smoking expensive cigars and drinking martinis (you know, like in CaddyShack?). But then, seemingly from out of nowhere, Tiger Woods burst onto the scene, changing the look and style of the sport forever.
It turns out that most Americans’ perception of the sport is does not quite fit the reality. The truth behind golf’s history is much more complicated and a bit more noble. And today, Golf raises more money for charity than all other major sports combined. For example, since 1970 the FedEx St Jude Classic Golf tournament has raised over $79 million dollars for the hospital (That number was $33 million when this episode originally aired in 2017). In this episode of the Road to Now we get the story straight in our conversation on the history of golf with Dr. Tony Parker of the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum.
This episode originally aired as RTN #51 on April 3, 2017. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Ben & Bob took a trip to the home of Andrew Jackson, so they took the opportunity to record an episode on their impressions of the Hermitage and why Bob doubts they’ll ever have a copy of America’s Founding Son in the bookstore. They also talk about Cuba’s place in American history and other current events.
Make sure to check out the upcoming AVTT/PTTN tour dates and plan to catch a show if you can!
This episode was recorded in Ben’s pickup truck. It was ‘edited’ by Ben Sawyer and produced by the bumpy roads of Middle Tennessee.
Did you know that the Boston Tea Party was sparked by a corporate tax cut? Or that during the explosive post-WWII economic boom, the highest tax bracket in the US was about 90%? Or that the more democratic a country is, the more taxes its citizens tend to pay?
In this episode, Vanessa S. Williamson joins us for a conversation about her new book, The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History (Basic Books, 2025), the misunderstandings that shape both liberal and conservative attitudes toward tax policy, and the reasons she thinks that taxation and democracy are inseparable in US history.
Dr. Vanessa S. Williamson is Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute and Senior Fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.