Before Kamala, There Was Shyamala

Episode 59: A conversation with Clara Bingham about American feminism and Bingham’s new book, The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America 1963–1973

Before Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, there was Hillary Clinton—also, Jeannette Rankin, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Geraldine Ferraro, Patsy Mink, Margaret Chase Smith, Nikki Haley, Carol Mosely Braun, and dozens of other women “firsts” in politics. Most importantly, there was a woman who never ran for office, who most of us ...
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Before Kamala, There Was Shyamala

When Politicians Make Nice

A conversation with sociologist Julia Sonnevend about her new book, Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics

When United States president Joe Biden stumbled on the debate stage on June 27, 2024, it wasn’t that he just seemed old, it was that a man who had charmed voters for half a century with his bright smile, kindness, and folksy quips seemed to have vanished. ...

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When Politicians Make Nice

Picturing Asian America

Episode 58: Historian Mae Ngai on Corky Lee’s photographs of Asian American life

On July 23, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris reached the threshold of Democratic National Convention delegates that she needed to become the party’s de facto presidential nominee. In the two days since President Joe Biden had ceded the nomination, a diverse party had become re-energized around the 2024 race and ...
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Picturing Asian America

The Ten-Dollar Founding Father

Episode 55: Historian William Hogeland on Alexander Hamilton, debt, taxes, visionaries, and his new book, The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding

There is so much in William Hogeland's book, whether you are a Hamilton fan, love the complexity of Early America, or (and I know some of you are out there) whether you are just a finance nerd and think nonstop about the national debt....

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The Ten-Dollar Founding Father

Typewriter Combat

Episode 54: A conversation with historian Ronnie Grinberg about her new book, Write Like A Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals

A conversation with historian Ronnie Grinberg about her new book, "Write Like A Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals"...

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Typewriter Combat

Nobody Else Has My Eyes

Episode 53: A conversation with Nell Irvin Painter about her new book, I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays

Episode 53: A conversation with Nell Irvin Painter about her new book, I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays...

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Nobody Else Has My Eyes

Goodbye, Beaver Cleaver

Episode 52: A conversation with historian Becky Nicolaides about The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles after 1945

A conversation with historian Becky Nicolaides about her new book, The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles after 1945...

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Goodbye, Beaver Cleaver

MAGA Is the Newest, and Oldest, American Myth

Episode 51: A conversation with American Studies scholar Richard Slotkin about his new book, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America

Slotkin examines the history of the two Americas that exist side-by-side today, with their clashing and common myths, two American cultures that will meet at the ballot box in November 2024 to decide the fate of American democracy....

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MAGA Is the Newest, and Oldest, American Myth

Who Do You Love?

Episode 50: A conversation with Neil J. Young about Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right

Battling detractors on their left and homophobia to their right, gay Republicans have nevertheless played power politics for over 80 years....

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Who Do You Love?

Without Mothers, There Is No War

A conversation with political scientist Cynthia Enloe about her book Twelve Feminist Lessons of War

50 years of feminist scholarship also demonstrates that war does not occur without sexual assault, just as it cannot be prosecuted without civilian casualties. The idea that you can have war without rape, on all sides, is historically implausible....

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Without Mothers, There Is No War

The Bright Sunshine of Human Rights

A conversation with journalist and historian James Traub about liberalism and his book True Believer: Hubert Humphrey’s Quest for a More Just America

An interview with James Traub on his new book, True Believer: Hubert Humphrey’s Quest for a More Just America....

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The Bright Sunshine of Human Rights