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The Road to Now

Bob Crawford (The Avett Brothers) & Dr. Ben Sawyer (MTSU History) share conversations with great thinkers from a variety of backgrounds – historians, artists, legal scholars, political figures and more –who help us uncover the many roads that run between past and present. For more information, visit TheRoadToNow.com If you'd like to support our work, join us on Patreon: Patreon.com/TheRoadToNow
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Now displaying: Category: general
Sep 12, 2022

The New Deal policies of the 1930s never brought an end to the Great Depression, but by establishing Social Security, ending child labor, and establishing a federal minimum wage, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and their allies in Congress laid the framework for the widespread prosperity of the post-World War II-era. As the gap between the richest and poorest Americans continues to widen at remarkable speed, politicians on the left have called for a return to the New Deal. But it might be better to look elsewhere.

In this episode we speak with Jefferson Cowie about his books Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor, (Cornell University Press, 1999) & The Great Exception: The New Deal & The Limits of American Politics, (Princeton University Press, 2016).

Dr. Jefferson Cowie is James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. You can learn more about him and his work at his website, jeffersoncowie.info.

This episode originally aired on October 17, 2016 as RTN #24 The New Deal and It’s Legacy w/ Jefferson Cowie. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Sep 5, 2022

On August 4, 1789, the National Assembly of France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which asserted the Enlightenment ideals of universal rights and democracy. Though the French Declaration shared a common ideological lineage with the American Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution took a very different path: fifteen years after their founding revolutionary documents, the US had George Washington and France had Napoleon.

In this episode of The Road to Now we talk to Dr. Peter McPhee, an expert on the history of the French Revolution at the University of Melbourne (Australia) to learn how geography, religion, and the French effort to fundamentally redefine society, shaped the complex course of the French Revolution. Peter explains how the French Revolution changed the world and left a legacy that is all around us today. (And for all you Hamilton fans- if you ever wondered what happened to the Marquis de Lafayette after Hamilton died, Dr. McPhee has the answer!)

This is a rebroadcast of episode 78, which originally aired on November 9, 2017. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Aug 29, 2022

Could the structure of elections in the US be feeding the polarization in modern politics? Currently only about twenty percent of voters show up to the polls for what are often closed primaries, meaning that the general election is often a showdown between candidates who have appealed to the most extreme elements of their party’s base. This is far from an optimal outcome in a country where few voters identify with political extremes.

Most voting experts believe that the way to reduce the influence of the most extreme voices in our political system would be through open primaries in which voters can choose any candidate regardless of party affiliation. This system would favor candidates who speak to a broader swath of the American public and give voters a more representative general election ballot.

In this episode, Bob welcomes back to the show his former Political Statistics Professor, Dr. Scott Huffmon, to discuss Rank choice voting and the 2022 election primaries. Dr. Huffmon is a professor of political science as well as the founder and director of the Center for Public Opinion & Policy Research (CPOPR) at Winthrop. Dr. Huffmon also directs the Winthrop Poll initiative, which is the most important poll focusing on the south. You can follow him on twitter at @HuffmonPolitics.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

 

Aug 22, 2022

When Bitcoin launched in January 2009, few people took it seriously and even fewer had the means to mine, buy or spend it. By the end of 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that 16% of Americans had held cryptocurrency and 86% had heard of it. Despite all of this, many of us remain perplexed by the topic, so Ben and Bob invited Yahoo! Finance’s David Hollerith to join us for a conversation about the origins and potential of crypto. We hope this helps!

David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo! Finance who covers cryptocurrency. To keep up on his reporting, make sure to follow him on twitter at @DsHollers. You can check out his suggested reading on the topic at the episode page on our website.

If you enjoy this episode, check out #192 The History of Financial Bubbles w/ William Quinn.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Aug 15, 2022

Political rhetoric has become increasingly divisive in the 21st century, but many of the themes and rhetorical strategies we see today have deep roots in American history. In this episode, Ben and Bruce Carlson (My History Can Beat Up Your Politics) discuss the impact that technology, society and other factors have had on Presidential rhetoric from the 1932 contest between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt to the election of 2020. A lot has changed since the Great Depression, but the similarities between then and now might surprise you.

Bruce Carlson is the host of My History Can Beat Up Your Politics. For more on his podcast, follow @myhist on twitter, check out his website here and subscribe to MHCBUYP anywhere you get The Road to Now.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Aug 8, 2022

Partisanship in politics has become increasingly tense in the 21st century, and while many Americans lament this polarization, few seem convinced that a rapprochement is possible. Yet history is full of proclaimed enemies striking mutually beneficial deals even in the toughest conditions. In this episode, NCSL Director Curt Stedron explains how a deep examination of the Christmas truce struck between Entente and Allied powers during World War I can reveal some core lessons for finding common ground in even the most horrific conditions.

Curt Stedron is Director on the Legislative Training Institute at the National Conference of State Legislatures, a non-partisan organization whose mission is “to advance the effectiveness, independence and integrity of legislatures and to foster interstate cooperation.” He is a graduate of West Point and previously served as an Officer in the US Army. This conversation grew out of his talk “Lessons in Trust: The Christmas Truce of 1914,” which he delivered at the 2022 NCSL Legislative Summit and can be viewed via NCSL’s linkedIn page here.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Aug 1, 2022

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.

This is a rebroadcast of episode 112 which originally aired on November 19th, 2018. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Jul 25, 2022

You might know Bushwick Bill as a member of the iconic Houston rap group The Geto Boys, but his contributions to rap music, his role in the debates over free speech in the 1990s, and his overall influence are far more substantial than you probably realize. In this episode, we welcome Charles Hughes back to the show to discuss his new book Why Bushwick Bill Matters (Univ. of Texas Press) and to get a better understanding of the challenges and triumphs that shaped one of rap history’s most influential artists.

Dr. Charles Hughes is the Director of the Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College. His previous books include  Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South which Rolling Stone named one of the Best Music Books of 2015. You can hear our previous conversation with Charles in episode #25 The History of Country and Soul Music in the American South w/ Charles Hughes. You can follow Charles on twitter at @CharlesLHughes2.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jul 18, 2022

Ben tells Bob how Thai food became so prominent in the US and shares the story of the bizarre origins and sudden demolition of the Georgia Guidestones. Ben also gives an update on Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn’s (of 1776 Commission fame) recent comments that teachers come from “the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country” and that he wants to “demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert educate a child because basically anybody can do it” (all of which he said as Tennessee Governor Bill Lee sat quietly next to him.)

Sources and Relevant Material

Phil Williams, “REVEALED: Teachers come from ‘dumbest parts of dumbest colleges,’’ Tenn. Governor’s education advisor tells him.” News Channel 5 Nashville, June 30, 2022.

The Goods from the Woods podcast #337 “Zagnut Factory w/ Ben Sawyer” (July 13, 2022).

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jul 11, 2022

Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 marked the end of the American Civil War, but it was just one of many times that officers and soldiers faced the reality of surrender. Throughout the four years of the war, approximately one in four soldiers surrendered to the opposing army. In this episode, David Silkenat explains how looking at surrender as both an experience and a set of codes offers a new and insightful perspective on the Civil War and those who lived through it.

Dr. David Silkenat is Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Edinburgh and author of four books, including Waving the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War (UNC Press, 2019). He is also the cohost of The Whiskey Rebellion podcast alongside Frank Cogliano. You can follow David on twitter at @davidsilkenat.

This episode is a rebroadcast of RTN #135, which originally aired on July 8th 2019.

This episode was originally edited by Gary Fletcher. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Jul 4, 2022

Jenna Spinelle joins Ben & Bob for a discussion about her new podcast, When the People Decide, which traces the origins of ballot initiatives in the United States and their impact on American politics in recent years.

Jenna Spinelle is the Communications Specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, where she also teaches classes in the college of communications. You can follow her on twitter at @JennaSpinelle.

To learn more about the differences between initiatives and popular referenda and which states allow citizens to directly propose laws, visit The National Conference of State Legislatures’ guide to the Initiative and Referendum Processes.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jun 27, 2022

One episode. Two historians/podcasters. Four stories from American history that you’ve probably never heard. And an unknown number of listeners that we hope will find these stories as fascinating and surprising as we do.

Greg Jackson is the creator of History That Doesn’t Suck and a Professor at Utah Valley University. Ben Sawyer hosts this podcast and has been teaching history at the university level for over a decade and a half. You might think that at this point they’ve heard it all, but when you keep digging into history, it just keeps surprising you. In this episode, Greg and Ben each share two stories that they discovered in the last year that they found to be the most fascinating. Enjoy!

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jun 20, 2022

Since 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located in Cleveland, Ohio has worked to engage, inspire and teach people about the power of Rock music and the musicians. During a recent Avett Brothers tour stop in Cleveland, Bob dropped by the RRHF and spoke with Rock Hall director of guest experience John Goehrke about the history of hall and the broad definition of the term “Rock and Roll” the hall uses in the induction process.

If you enjoy this episode, check out our patron-only bonus episode!: Bob and Avett Brother’s tour manager, Dane Honeycutt, get a tour of the Hall of Fame’s vault from Joe Wickens, Rock Hall’s collections and exhibits manager. Get the episode (and more) while supporting our work at Patreon.com/TheRoadToNow.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jun 13, 2022

George Carlin had a comedy career that spanned half a century, and his take on the US remains relevant more than a decade after his death in 2008. The new HBO documentary George Carlin’s American Dream tells Carlin’s story as he evolved from a clean-cut comic in the 1950s into the edgy critic who remains one of the most influential comedians of all time. In this episode, Michael Bonfiglio, who directed the film (along with Judd Apatow) and Kliph Nesteroff, a historian of comedy who is featured in the film, join Bob & Ben for a conversation about the life and times of George Carlin.

If you enjoy this episode, check out our previous conversation w/ Michael in episode #174 Direction w/ Michael Bonfiglio.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Jun 6, 2022

Long-time friend of RTN Doug Heye returns to share his take on the state of politics in the US. Doug has served as communications director for the Republican National Committee, chief-of-staff to House majority leader Eric Cantor and has been active in national politics since the 1990s. Our conversation covers the recent primary elections, the prospects for the midterm elections this fall and, in a transition that’s increasingly easy to make, professional wrestling.

You can follow Doug on twitter at @DougHeye. This is Doug’s fifth appearance on RTN, and if you haven’t heard our episode w/ Doug, Rufus Edmiston & Molly Worthen recorded live at Cat’s Cradle in January 2022 (RTN #158), we highly recommend you check that one out!

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

May 30, 2022

On August 15, 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the United States to say farewell to the country whose independence he helped secure more than four decades earlier. Over the next 15 months, Lafayette visited all 24 states, meeting with old friends and attending celebrations hosted by Americans who flocked to see the last-living Major General of the Revolutionary War whose close friendships with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson shaped both the American and French Revolutions.

Since 2017, Julien Icher has been working to document the 5,000 mile journey that Lafayette took during his farewell visit. Icher, himself a Frenchman, has a remarkable skill set that combines the best of primary source-based research with the technical knowledge required for digital mapping. The result is The Lafayette Trail– a publicly accessible map that allows users to see Lafayette’s physical route, as well as the people, places and events he encountered along the way.

In this episode, Julien joins Ben to talk about Lafayette’s contribution to American Independence, his life after returning to France, and the farewell tour that inspired Julien to create The Lafayette Trail. We also speak about the history of Franco-American friendship and why both countries are better when we work together.

For more on The Lafayette Trail, check out their YouTube channel. Since April 2021, Julien has been posting episodes of his travels in the series “Follow the Frenchman.” You can also follow the project on twitter at @LafayetteTrail.

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #132, which originally aired on June 9, 2019. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

May 23, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson returns to the show to talk history, politics, and life in general. Heather shares her thoughts on what history has to teach us about navigating division and finding unity, the sources she thinks are critical in following US policy, and why she remains optimistic despite increasing polarization in American society. She also discusses what she’s learned from her public engagement work on facebook and from “Letters From an American,” where she has published her thoughts daily for over two years now.

Dr. Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College and co-host of the Now & Then podcast (w/ Joanne Freeman). She is also the author of multiple books including West From Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (Yale Univ. Press, 2008) and, most recently, How the South Won the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2000). You can follow her on twitter at @HC_Richardson.

If you enjoy this episode, check out our previous conversations w/ Heather Cox Richardson in RTN episode #177 How the South Won the Civil War and #38 The History of the Republican Party.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

May 19, 2022

Brian Rosenwald joins Bob and Ben to talk about the state of American political media, its impact on the divide between Democrats & Republicans, and how the party primary election process in most states exacerbates the problem. Brian also discusses his book Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took over a Political Party that Took Over the United States, (Harvard University Press, 2019) and how his conclusions are holding up three years after publication.

Dr. Brian Rosenwald is scholar in Residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Media Administration and Leadership Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and senior editor of Made By History, a Washington Post history section. You can follow him on twitter at @brianros1.

If you enjoy this episode, check out Brian’s previous appearances on the Road to Now in episodes #30 The Origins of Conservative Talk Radio and #142 How Talk Radio Took Over the Republican Party.

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

 

 

May 16, 2022

Hidetaka Hirota joins Bob and Ben for a conversation about the history of immigration law in the United States and the ways that government officials have decided who could and could not enter the United States. Hidetaka discusses the creation of Federal immigration law and the ways that looking at state immigration policies in the early to mid-19th century can help us understand the Immigration and Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882.

Dr. Hidetaka Hirota is Associate Professor of History at the University of California Berkeley who specializes in the history of US immigration. His book Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) has won multiple awards.

Want to support The Road to Now and get extra episodes and other content? Join us on Patreon!

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #126 which originally aired on April 8, 2019. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

May 9, 2022

The Road to Now just celebrated its 6 year anniversary, so we invited our old friend (and all-time record holder for most RTN appearances) Matt Negrin to join us for a conversation about what's happening in the world and how to deal with it. Along the way, our Associate Producer, Gary Fletcher drops in for an update, and our friend (and long-time Patron) Fig White gets surprisingly brought into the conversation as well.

Click here to watch the video of this episode on YouTube.

Like a lot of anniversaries, this episode went to some surprising and unplanned places, but we'll be back to business as usual next week!

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

May 2, 2022

Bob and Ben catch up to talk about Jonathan Haidt’s recent article in the May issue of The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” and their take on the problems of social media and the solutions posed by Haidt and others.

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer

Apr 25, 2022

The first amendment right to the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of American liberty, but this broad principle becomes a bit narrower when put into practice. Why, for example, is burning an American flag in protest protected by the first amendment but burning your draft card is not? Lynn Greenky, whose new book When Freedom Speaks: The Boundaries and Boundlessness of our First Amendment Rights joins Ben and Bob to answer these questions and others in a master session on the freedom of speech.

Lynn Greenky is a former lawyer and current teaching professor in Syracuse University’s Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, where she teaches a course on the First Amendment. Her book, When Freedom Speaks, will be available on May 15th from Brandeis University Press and can be pre-ordered from her website, LynnGreenky.com.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Apr 18, 2022

Ron Suny joins Ben for a conversation about the Armenian Genocide. Ron, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of the Armenian genocide, explains why the Ottoman government tunred on its Armenian subjects during World War I and the methods it used to carry out this atrocity. He also explains why, in spite of the evidence, recognizing this as genocide remains a political hotspot both internationally and within modern Turkey, and why it is important to remember tragedies even when doing so makes us uncomfortable.

Dr. Ronald Grigor Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of numerous books, including “They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else:” A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton University Press, 2015).

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #92, which originally aired on April 23, 2018. In 2019, the both houses of US Congress recognized the Armenian Genocide.

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Apr 11, 2022
In this episode, music writer Michaelangelo Matos joins Bob and Ben to break down why he thinks 1984 was a crucial year for the music industry. Michaelangelo also shares why he loves books about a single year.

Check out Michaelangelo Matos' book Can't Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop's Blockbuster Year here.

Apr 4, 2022

It’s difficult to fathom how Benjamin Franklin accomplished so much in a single lifetime. It’s equally difficult to imagine how to take such an incredible life and consolidate it into four hours of documentary film. In this episode, we cover both feats with writer Dayton Duncan and producer David Schmidt, two of the great minds behind Ken Burns’ new documentary on Benjamin Franklin. Dayton and David discuss Franklin’s life, the work that goes into creating a historical documentary film, and their process for deciding the best way to tell an American icon’s story in a pair of two-hour episodes.

Benjamin Franklin: A Film by Ken Burns premieres Monday, April 4th and Tuesday, April 5th on your local PBS station and we highly recommend it!

If you enjoy this episode, check out Ben and Bob's conversation with Ken Burns in episode #191.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

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