Posts Tagged ‘Professor Buzzkill’
Understanding the Cuban Missile Crisis: 2024 Encore
Buzzkill Genius Dr. Philip Nash brings us a fabulous (and very relevant) show on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. There’s so much more to those events than the standard “eye-ball-to-eye-ball” story would have us believe. Among many other things, we learn why the Cold War was so cold. You’ll understand so much more after…
Read MorePresidential Primaries and Conventions: Just What is the Deal with Them?
American Presidential primaries and conventions seem excessively complicated, and maybe even outdated. Could they all just be an email, as office workers say nowadays? Fortunately, Professor Philip Nash explains all! We can’t promise that we make primaries and conventions seem logical and sensible. But we do our best! Episode 558.
Read MoreSouthern Violence and White Supremacy in the Civil War Era
Professor James Hill Welborn joins us to discuss the question – how did white Southerners in the nineteenth century reconcile a Christian faith that instructed them to turn the other cheek with a pervasive code of honor that instructed them to do just the opposite—to demand satisfaction for perceived insults? He analyzes the birth of…
Read More“May You Live in Interesting Times” – Ancient Chinese Curse? 2024 Encore
There’s an old Buzzkill curse — may you subscribe to interesting podcasts. If you do, your life will become so gloriously enlightened with new information, presented in such an engaging way, that you’ll forget to feed your cat, you’ll mix your laundry colors, and you’ll neglect taking your medication That reminds me of another “famous”…
Read MoreThe John Birch Society and Its Influence on American Politics
The John Birch Society is one of the most extreme right-wing groups in American history. It has strongly influenced libertarian and Republican politics since its founding in 1958. Dr. Matthew Dallek tells us the story of the Society’s founding, growth, and impact on American life. We discuss his new book, “Birchers: How the John Birch…
Read MoreFelons and the Declaration of Independence
Lordy. A historian’s work is never done. I often talk on this show about how history is contested, and always has been. And for this 4th of July, I had been preparing to do a show on the various myths about the Declaration of Independence. A sort of combined version of all the small myths…
Read MoreLoving Day: 2024 Encore
It’s June 12th! Loving Day! You might think that Loving Day is Valentine’s Day, February 14th, but it’s not, it’s today, June 12th. If you don’t know what Loving Day is, let me tell you a story, a love story, in this brief episode. In the 1950s, a 17-year-old young man named Richard fell in…
Read MoreThe Wild West
“The Wild West” is one of the strongest conceptions in American history. But “where” was the west? How “wild” was it? “Who” settled it? Did settlers build the west with their hands? And how many of the stories about settlers and Native Americans are myths or misconceptions? Professor Edward O’Donnell helps us explain it all,…
Read MoreHenry Kissinger Part 1: Meteoric Rise
Professor Philip Nash joins us for Part 1 of our examination of the life and loves of Henry Kissinger, perhaps the most influential American foreign policy figure of the later Cold War. We look at his origins, his education, his move into governing circles, and his meteoric rise to power in the 1970s. An amazing…
Read MoreForging America: a Continental History
“Forging America” speaks to both the complexities of historical experience and the meanings of the past for our present-day lives. Warning against the assumption of preordained outcomes, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Steve Hahn focuses the reader’s attention on those moments when historical change occurs. He weaves a history that is continental and transnational, a history of the…
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