Historic Matters: Conversations on the American Past
34 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago -Historic Matters is a podcast for people fascinated by American history, committed to history in civic life, and eager for good stories about the past well told. The show brings together historians and teachers, authors and public historians to explore broad themes of history and smaller episodes, events, and people of the American past. Good "storytelling" is essential to compelling history, and active civic participation demands an understanding of the past.
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Episodes
History isn’t just for patriots!
December 31, 2020 20:01History isn’t just for patriots We teach students how to understand the U.S., not to love it — or hate it By Daniel Immerwahr December 23, 2020 (Daniel Immerwahr @dimmerwahr teaches history at Northwestern University and is the author of “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.”) Is the United States the world’s greatest country? When asked that question eight years ago, 70 percent of American citizens surveyed said yes. Now, a recent study by the Chicago Cou...
8th Graders Don't Know Much About History, National Exam Shows
May 04, 2020 18:008th Graders Don't Know Much About History, National Exam Shows By Stephen Sawchuk and Sarah D. Sparks Education Week April 23, 2020 Eighth graders’ grasp of key topics in history have plummeted, national test scores released this morning show—an alarming result at a time of deep political polarization, economic uncertainty, and public upheaval in the United States. Except for the very top-performing students, scores fell among nearly all grade 8 students in history on the Natio...
David Rubenstion talks "Patriotic Philanthropy"
April 13, 2020 20:02 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBVol. XVII In an exclusive interview, financier David Rubenstein discusses "patriotic philanthropy," his movement to preserve historic American objects and sites and to advance history education. Documents including the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and the 14th Amendment. Places like Jefferson's Monticello, Madison's Montpelier, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument. "The beginning of philanthropic philanthropy happened by serendipity," explains Rubenstein. "I ...
Adam Hochschild Says Books Can Change the World.
April 08, 2020 21:14(When you need something great to read, just ask a bard. As The New York Times Book Review found reported, this certainly holds true with regard to Adam Hochschild, the author of wonderful nonfiction works including King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998, 2006), a history of the brutal conquest of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II, and Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (2005) about the antislavery m...
Adam Hochschild Says Books Can Change the World. He Has Proof.
April 08, 2020 21:14(When you need something great to read, ask a bard. As The New York Times Book Review found recently, this certainly holds true with regard to Adam Hochschild, the author of wonderful nonfiction works including King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998, 2006), a history of the brutal conquest of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II, and Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (2005) about the antislavery moveme...
Great Storytellers (2): Taylor Branch, H.W. Brands & Jay Winik
March 31, 2020 18:51 - 31 minutes - 21.5 MBXVI. In the second of two episodes from the National Archives, "Patriotic Philanthropist" David Rubenstein interviews three master storytellers who are featured in his book “The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians.” They are: * Taylor Branch, creator of the trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., including “Parting the Waters,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize. * H.W. Brands, history professor at the University of Texas and author of biographies of Andrew...
Master Historians (1): Taylor Branch, H.W. Brands & Jay Winik
March 31, 2020 18:43 - 27 minutes - 19.2 MBXV. In late 2019, the National Archives hosted financier David Rubenstein for a wide-ranging conversation with a group of master historians featured in Rubenstein’s book of interviews entitled “The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians.” We hear from: * Taylor Branch, creator of three volumes that chronicle the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., including “Parting the Waters,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize. * H.W. Brands, a history professor at the University of Texas and a...
Will U.S. Education Remedy A Half-Century Of Neglecting Civics Education?
March 30, 2020 19:50Will U.S. Education Remedy A Half-Century Of Neglecting Civics Education? By Tom Lindsay February 21, 2020 FORBES Civics education in the United States is in a state of crisis, which, if not addressed, will doom our constitutional democracy. If the above assertion sounds unduly apocalyptic, consider these facts: Recent polling of Americans’ civic literacy, conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, should shame all of us involved in education: While 90% of immi...
Truman and Coolidge go up, Jefferson and Jackson go down.
March 16, 2020 17:50(“The past is constantly changing,” states David Shribman, former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Boston Globe Washington bureau chief, and this reality is evident in the uniquely American habit of ranking our elected leaders. (Our impressions of Jefferson and Jackson, and Coolidge and Truman, have shifted with time, as have views of Grant, Lyndon Johnson, Ford, and George H.W. Bush. (“The presidents’ passage -- some from global giants to unremarkable place holders --...
Gerry Warburg and the Uses and Misuses of History
February 09, 2020 19:18 - 25 minutes - 17.4 MBXIV. In the second of two interviews, Gerry Warburg, professor at the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Political Leadership and Public Policy -- and a former U.S. Senate staff member and arms control negotiator -- describes the importance of history in public policy, the book Thinking in Time by Ernest May & Richard Neustadt, the role of nongovernmental organizations in policy, and his personal and family histories.
Uses of History in the Classroom and Beyond
February 09, 2020 19:09 - 28 minutes - 19.3 MBXIII. Gerry Warburg, Professor at the Frank Batten School of Political Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, discusses his use in the university classroom of historical analogies and the “placement” of people of institutions in historical perspective. A memoirist, Warburg is also a former U.S. Senate staff member and arms control negotiator.
A "civics moment" for all Americans
February 02, 2020 20:43Here’s how we should teach civics to Florida students Florida must continue to invest and re-invest in the future owners and operators of our great democratic experiment By Ben Diamond and Andy McLeod Tampa Bay Times, January 30, 2020 Miami Herald, February 3, 2020 The impeachment process in Washington – regardless of whether it results in acquittal or guilt for the President -- offers us an unanticipated opportunity: a teachable moment for all Americans, an opportunity to rededic...
The stirrings of a civic education renewal, by Ronald J. Daniels
January 01, 2020 20:23(Johns Hopkins University is one of the world’s great research and teaching institutions. Its Schools of Medicine and Public Health and Johns Hopkins Hospital receive the largest share of federal research grants and are affiliated with more than three dozen Nobel Prize winners. The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Education School, and University Press have long led their fields. (Most recently Johns Hopkins has created, with $150 million, the Agora Institute, “a mu...
Lowell Weicker built his reputation challenging Nixon during Watergate; he says Republicans in Congress are afraid to do the same with Trump
December 05, 2019 18:04(When I served as press secretary to Senator Lowell Weicker, it was not rare that a reporter would call and ask for confirmation of yet another brutally frank observation by the free-wheeling Connecticut solon. Now 88 and the last surviving member of the Senate Watergate Committee, the former Connecticut senator and governor has slowed physically some but is no less penetrating in his commentary. Weicker’s answer to the current ills of American democracy and the Trump presidency? “There i...
What federal funding for civics reveals about American political discourse
November 08, 2019 22:37(Only 40% of Americans can name all three branches of government. About 20% cannot identify one branch. “Very few people in the United States understand the [political] system,” concludes the Center for Civic Education. Regardless of this very worrisome reality, Marketplace reporter Kimberly Adams tells us, Federal funding for civics education is historically low. A number of dedicated citizen organizations — the Annenberg Institute for Civics, Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, ...
Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil
September 16, 2019 21:15The US continues to struggle — in 2019 — with the fundamental realities and implications of the Civil War. According to one survey, as few as one in ten Americans believe slavery to be a cause of the War. So, how extraordinary is our condition of national ignorance and eroded memory? In Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, philosopher Susan Neiman explores so-called "comparative redemption,” contrasting the American long relationship with slavery to Germany’s response ...
Is the study of history becoming, well, history?
September 12, 2019 21:14(Fewer than one in 50 American undergraduates obtains a degree in history. This is a problem for American civic well-being — and for professional fields that require strong literacy, effective communication, and critical thinking. “No entity — corporate, government, nonprofit — can afford not to have a historian at the table,” writes scholar James Grossman of the American Historical Association. “We need more history majors, not fewer.” Andy McLeod, “Historic Matters: Conversations on the ...
Is the Electoral College a "Pro-Slavery Ploy?
May 25, 2019 01:43 - 23 minutes - 54.6 MBXII. Why the Electoral College? What's is its purpose? Where did it come from? What's its future? The US Constitution's provisions on slavery -- including the three-fifths clause, the continued slave trade for 20 years, and the Electoral College -- shaped the nation's history fundamentally through the Civil War and even until our own times. This episode of Historic Matters features a reading of four recent columns -- by Professors Sean Wilentz of Princeton, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law Sc...
Four current opinions on the Electoral College
May 25, 2019 01:24A recent flurry of published opinions on the Electoral College has created a valuable debate on a central issue of the Constitution and of subsequent American history: the Constitution's provisions relating to slavery. In the columns that follow Professors Sean Wilentz of Princeton, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law, and Alan Singer of Hofstra each explore the origins and purposes of the Electoral College, and political analyst John Avlon provides broader historical perspective and details o...
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
May 23, 2019 21:34 - 27 minutes - 63.2 MBXI. Professor Blight, Yale University History Professor, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018). Beginning with a description of the disastrous 1865 meeting between President Andrew Johnson, Douglass and other American black leaders, Blight analyzes the life, autobiographies, vision, and pragmatism of Douglass.
Why Historic Matters? We need more Conversations on the American Past and more Storytelling
May 22, 2019 01:07By Andy McLeod (The initial 2018 broadcast of Historic Matters featured a version of this essay on the purpose of the broadcast.) Historic Matters: Conservations on the American Past and Storytelling is a radio program and podcast on WERA-FM, 96.7, in Arlington County, Virginia, and available online as a podcast. = = = = Historic Matters is an educational and entertainment resource intended for those passionate about the myriad of storylines in the American past, listeners curious a...
Washington's Crossing: Whodunit? (Part 3)
May 21, 2019 17:00 - 20 minutes - 45.9 MBX. In the final of three parts, we hear the conclusion of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Hackett Fischer's insightful exploration of the many twists and turns in the interpretation — the historiography -- of George Washington’s remarkable 1776 traversing of the Delaware River and the subsequent surprise attack on the British and Hessians at Trenton and Princeton.
Washington's Crossing: Whodunit? (Part 2)
May 21, 2019 16:44 - 20 minutes - 45.9 MBIX. In the second of three parts, we hear scholar David Hackett Fischer's exploration of the long twists and turns in the widely varying interpretations of Washington’s audacious Christmas 1776 attack on the British. Another ten versions of this major moment in the new nation's struggle for independence follow in Part 3.
Washington’s Crossing: Whodunit? (Part I)
May 20, 2019 23:23 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBVIII. Just six months after the Declaration of Independence was signed by 13 disparate colonies, the nascent American Revolution seemed lost. The powerful British army had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of the opposing capital city of Philadelphia. Yet, General George Washington and his beleaguered troops refused to let their revolt die. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer describes the circumstances and the importa...
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy (Part I)
May 20, 2019 23:05 - 28 minutes - 64.6 MBVII. In the first of two parts, author and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds explores Hemingway’s dalliances with espionage from the Spanish Civil War to World War Two.
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy (Part II)
May 20, 2019 22:58 - 26 minutes - 60.9 MBVI. In the second of two parts, author and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds explores Hemingway’s remarkable experiences with espionage during World War Two, the Cold War, and his years in Cuba.
Max Boot: Americans’ ignorance of history is a national scandal. Is the study of history becoming, well, history?
March 17, 2019 17:37 - 113 KB application/pdfWhen does the US have a “civics” crisis? Columnist Max Boot suggests that perhaps when more Americans can identify Michael Jackson as the composer of ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’ than can identify the Bill of Rights as a body of amendments to the U.S. Constitution! In The Washington Post, Boot writes that “historians need to speak to a larger public … and students need to grasp the importance of studying history, not only for their own future but for the country’s, too.”
Why History Matters
February 15, 2019 22:48(“The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning,” stated W.E.B. Du Bois. Professor Masur concurs and bemoans recent indicators of a decrease in college humanities offerings. Andy McLeod, Historic Matters) Why History Matters: Making a persuasive case By Louis P. Masur For the History News Network (historynewsnetwork.org) January 16, 2019 (Louis P. Masur is a professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University at New Brunswick.) The decisio...
Lowell Weicker: "I was on the Watergate committee. Don't hide Mueller's report from the people."
February 12, 2019 04:02(NOTE: In the 1980s, I had the privilege of serving as press secretary to the irrepressible Senator Lowell Weicker. I have proud scars, important memories, many stories — and an ever fascination with all things Watergate — to prove it. Andy McLeod) “I was on the Watergate committee. Don’t hide Mueller’s report from the people.” By Lowell Weicker The Washington Post, February 7, 2019 (Lowell Weicker, as a Republican, served Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1971 until 1989...
Robert E. Lee's "Lost" Indictment & Civil War Memory
August 06, 2018 16:11 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MBV. Immediately following the surrender at Appomattox, the US indicted 39 former officials and officers of the defeated Confederacy, most notably General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, former Confederate president. But no former Confederate was ever prosecuted for treason against the United States. In The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee, The Case Against an American Icon, author John Reeves contends that the post-war misplacement of the actual document indicting Lee serves as a prope...
History Relevance Campaign (part II) and the American Revolution's first female historian
June 03, 2018 22:57 - 26 minutes - 48.1 MBIV. 1) History Relevance: In the second of two parts, learn more about the enterprising effort by public historians to increase awareness and learning of American history. These experts seek to change the popular perception of history, increase educational roles of museums, historical societies, cultural sites, and others, and to better augment the history that is taught in classrooms. 2) Mercy Otis Warren: Professor Rosemarie Zagarri, author of a biography of Warren, discusses thi...
History Relevance Campaign (Part I) & Watergate Building Book
May 18, 2018 17:26 - 27 minutes - 50.6 MBIII. Part I) What is the History Relevance campaign? An exciting, new collaboration of enterprising public historians around the nation. Three leaders discuss this campaign for greater history teaching and awareness, both inside and outside the classroom. (to be continued) Part II) The first published history of the Watergate Complex. Site of the 1972 break-in AND the spectacular, mixed-use, and once very controversial home of the powerful and private in Washington D...
Simon Winchester: Journeys to the Fall Line & Creation of Two Korean nations
May 03, 2018 15:47 - 26 minutes - 48.6 MBSimon Winchester, author and historian, and selections from his books Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, and Pacific.
Welcome to Historic Matters! David McCullough on "Knowing Who We Are"
April 22, 2018 20:49 - 657 KB application/mswordI. Introduction to "Historic Matters," an exciting new podcast on American history, including: David McCullough, writer of great histories, and his essay "History and Knowing Who We Are" Professor Colin Calloway on George Washington and America's native nations