American Prestige

Danny and Derek welcome David Silverman, professor of Native American, Colonial American, and American racial history at George Washington University, for a discussion of the historical Thanksgiving holiday. They get into the origin and proliferation of the holiday’s myth, the historical Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony, the Wampanoag Indians, their culture, politics, and relationship with the English settlers, who and what the holiday serves in modern America, and more.

Be sure to grab a copy of David’s book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving!

Originally published November 22, 2022

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Danny and Derek update us with what we need to know about Israel's ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.

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Anton Jäger, historian of political thought, returns to the program to speak with Danny about "the big picture" in the wake of the US election. They discuss the crisis of liberalism, the state of the left, where capital is in its own historical cycle, how the reactions to this election compare with that of 2016, hyperpolitics, empire, the view from Europe, and more.

Read Anton's latest piece in New Left Review, "Hyperpolitics in America".

Further reading:

• Adam Tooze, "The Democrats' Defeat", The London Review of Books

Subscribe now and listen to our episode with Anton on hyperpolitics from last year.

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Patrick Wyman, host of the Tides of History podcast and author of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World, is back on the program, this time to talk about Ridley Scott's Gladiator films. In this first part of the conversation, they largely focus on Gladiator II, delving into the actual historical merit of the movie, the figures it depicts, both films' commentary on modern masculinity vs the reality of ancient Rome, the political economy of gladiators, Ridley Scott's Orientalism, beast fights, differences in how the two movies portray ideas of democracy, and more.

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Read Patrick's piece for Slate, "The Case for Gladiator II".

Be warned, this is full of spoilers.

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One more news episode before us Yankees have a holiday. Note: Although we will not have a news roundup next week, we'll have other new content.

This week: In Israel-Palestine, the ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (0:56) and the US vetoes another ceasefire resolution (6:11); US envoy Amos Hochstein is working on a ceasefire in Lebanon (8:50); in Sri Lanka, the leftist coalition wins a parliamentary majority (12:26); in Sudan, the RSF commits new atrocities (14:12) and Russia vetoes a ceasefire (16:33); in Russia-Ukraine, Biden gives Ukraine permission to use long-range US weapons in Russia (18:29), while Reuters reports that Putin is open to peace negotiations (23:19); the US recognizes opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as president of Venezuela (24:55); a new armed group wreaks violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (27:09); and we have a New Cold War update featuring the final Biden-Xi meeting (29:10) and Biden’s last G20 summit (31:06).

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Watch the new documentary from Al-Jazeera's Fault Lines program, "All That Remains", which follows a 13-year-old amputee from Gaza named Leyan as she seeks treatment in the United States.

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Abby Mullen, assistant professor at the US Naval Academy, joins the program to talk about her book To Fix a National Character: The United States in the First Barbary War, 1800–1805. The group explores the conflict, American geopolitics in its infancy, the Barbary States and piracy committed on their behalf at the time, how US naval expeditions in an era without a global network of bases functioned, the myth of the war in "The Marines' Hymn", and more.

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Danny and Derek welcome back to the program Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this time to talk about foreign policy and the election. They discuss the professionalization of the Democrats, the Harris campaign's decision to ally themselves with the likes of the Cheney family, national security FP, Trump as the "peace candidate", how defense spending might exceed $1 trillion going forward, the fate of Ukraine, Israel/Palestine/Lebanon, and more.

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Grab a copy of Stephen's book Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.

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It's another edition of the bi-monthly collaboration between AP and Nonzero Newsletter continues! For the full version of this episode, subscribe now at Supporting Cast, where you'll also get a discounted subscription for Nonzero Newsletter!

Part one video

0:00 Another high-synergy, brilliant collaboration

1:15 Is Elon our first true oligarch? 

9:57 Trump assembles his Justice League of hawks

16:29 Biden’s awful foreign policy team

21:25 Trump’s plan to purge the military 

33:06 Will Trump go full-on authoritarian?

40:21 Left-wing capitalists—and a discount offer

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Your weekly news roundup from two happy warriors. This week: struggles at the UN COP29 climate change conference (1:48), not the least of which is the incoming climate denier president of the US (5:45); in Israel-Palestine, the US shockingly doesn't follow through on its 30-day humanitarian aid deadline (7:57), Trump appointments signal imminent formal annexation of Palestinian territories (12:24), and Qatar withdraws from ceasefire talks (16:48); in Lebanon, Israel is working on a ceasefire as a "gift" for Trump (18:33); Xi and Biden to meet in China (21:35); the Japanese government survives a confirmation vote (23: 45); a new report on horrifying death toll figures in the Sudan war (25:48); in Russia-Ukraine, Russia pushers to retake Kursk (28:01) while Europe and Ukraine show new flexibility to exchange land for a peace deal (30:25); Germany prepares for a snap election in February in the wake of the government coalition collapsing (32:38); in Haiti, the transitional council fires the PM (34:44) while the US bans flights there (36:15); and Trump announces a number of new appointments for his second term (37:35).

Subscribe now at Supporting Cast for more content like our election-related specials:

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Danny and Derek speak with Steven Cohen, PhD candidate in history, working on drug war political economy in the Americas, about what we might see if, as expected, Marco Rubio is named as secretary of state in the new Trump administration.

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