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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: September, 2024
Sep 30, 2024

On the surface, the election of 1872 might seem insignificant in US history; Ulysses Grant easily won reelection to the White House and his Republican Party maintained their dominance in both houses of Congress. In the south, however, the violence that followed the election at the state and local level was an ominous sign that the era of Reconstruction might soon be over. And, according to Dana Bash and her co-author David Fischer, nowhere saw more violence than Louisiana.

In this episode, Dana joins Ben & Bob to discuss her new book America’s Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History, and how the violence that followed the 1872 election in Louisiana – including the slaughter of 150 unarmed black Americans in the small town of Colfax – laid the foundation for the restoration of white supremacy in the south.

Dana Bash is chief political correspondent at CNN, where she also anchors Inside Politics and co-anchors State of the Union alongside Jake Tapper.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Sep 23, 2024

In 2021, Neil King Jr. threw a few basic items into a backpack and walked from his home in Washington, DC to New York City. Over the next 26 days/330 miles, he met new people, uncovered forgotten moments of history, and spent many days thinking about America. In this episode, Neil joins Ben and Bob to discuss his book, American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal, and the lessons he learned along the way.

Before walking from his house in DC to New York City, Neil King Jr. worked as a journalist for outlets across the globe, including The Tampa Tribune, The Prague Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

On Sept 17, 2024, Neil King Jr.. passed away at age 65 from complications caused by esophageal cancer. We are reairing this episode to celebrate the excellence of his work and as a reminder that we are surrounded by beauty. We hope that this conversation – which is just one tiny line in Neil’s legacy- will help you to see the common ground we all share and the adventures that surround us if we just take the time to look.

This episode originally aired as RTN #271 on May 1, 2023. The original episode was edited by Gary Fletcher. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Sep 16, 2024

For a long time, it seemed like not much happened in the 1970s. Today it seems like so much of what’s happening can be traced back to those same years.

The 1970s was a pivotal decade in American history. In a ten-year span, the United States admitted defeat in Vietnam, saw a President (and Vice President) resign in shame, and came face to face with its leaders’ abuse of power at home and abroad. At the same time, American citizens directly experienced a score of problems, including “stagflation,” an energy crisis, and the consequences of environmental devastation. Yet in this era of deconstruction and disappointment, the political coalitions than defined the US from the 1980s until (today/recently?) were forged.

In this episode, Jefferson Cowie joins us to talk about his book Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working and what happened in the decade in which everything now seems to have happened.

Dr. Jefferson Cowie is James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University and the author of multiple award-winning books, including Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2023. You can hear him discuss Freedom’s Dominion in episode #255, and check out his multiple appearances on the show by searching You can find out more about Jefferson Cowie and his work at his website by clicking here.

This is a rebroadcast of episode #115, which originally aired on December 18, 2017. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Sep 9, 2024

The debates over school curricula, banned books, and what educators can teach in their classes have become increasingly polarizing in recent years, but they are nothing new in the US. For those who researched, wrote and taught about the Soviet Union under Stalin during the Cold War, following the evidence to a conclusion that challenged America’s established narrative could lead to denunciations and accusations of disloyalty. Despite this challenge, a generation of scholars dedicated their professional life to the study of Soviet history, generating far more in-depth and humane accounts of the past than the black and white narratives offered up by most political scientists and others who presented Soviet society as atomized and powerless.

As one of the most prolific Russian historians of his generation, Lewis Siegelbaum knows this story well. In this episode, he joins us to discuss his new book, Reflections on Stalinism, in which he, co-editor Arch Getty and ten of their peers share their own reflections on how they came to study Soviet history, how the political environment affected their own work, and what they got right (and wrong) in their career. Lewis also shares his story of witnessing the unexpected collapse of the USSR, what we learned when Soviet archives opened in the 1990s, and how current events remain haunted by the simplistic view of Russian history to which many Americans still adhere.

Dr. Lewis Siegelbaum is Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor Emeritus of History at Michigan State University where he taught from 1983 until 2018. He has authored multiple award-winning books on Soviet history, including Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile, and served as doctoral advisor to many aspiring scholars, including Ben Sawyer.

If you’re interested in learning more about Soviet history, we recommend that you check out the website Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, which Lewis cofounded and is the most widely-used online source for teaching and learning about Soviet history.   

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Sep 2, 2024

John Adams’ single term as President has long been cast as a low point in his political career, but Lindsay Chervinsky sees it differently. "George Washington created the Presidency,” she writes in her new book Making the Presidency, “but John Adams defined it.”

In this episode, Lindsay joins us to share why she sees Adams as a crucial figure in transforming an office that had been established for, and created by, George Washington, into a position with the customs and practices that could be passed down through generations. Along the way, Lindsay explains why she thinks we’ve gotten Adams so wrong (hint: both Jefferson and Hamilton disliked his politics), the crucial role he played in establishing a peaceful transition of power, and how the January 6th insurrection might help us all have a greater appreciation for President John Adams.

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky is the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library and author of the new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic, which is out September 5th, 2024 from Oxford University Press. You can find out more about her work at her website: lindsaychervinsky.com

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check out Lindsay Chervinsky's  previous RTN appearances on The Road to Now:

·      #184: The President’s Cabinet

·      #263: Mourning the Presidents

·      #296: The Election of 1824 (Part 1 in our Third Party Elections Series)

 

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher

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