In this conversation, historian Robert Tracy McKenzie reflects on a career spent studying and teaching America’s past, from the Civil War to the broader story of democracy. He shares how his upbringing in Tennessee and the influence of family and mentors shaped his calling as a historian. McKenzie discusses the challenges of writing about divided communities like Knoxville during the Civil War, the importance of resisting presentism, and the misconceptions many Americans still hold about that conflict. Throughout, he emphasizes how history, rightly approached, is less about collecting facts than about cultivating wisdom for the present.

Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren

In early 1861, two men traveled east to become American presidents – Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America. Each was thrown into the fire of crisis. With secessionist fever spreading across the country, plots and conspiracies put the political and military leaders on high alert. Would there be an eleventh-hour proposal for peace? Would violence erupt in Baltimore and Washington? And what would happen to Fort Sumter? Would the tension in Charleston Harbor hold, ease, or tighten to a breaking point?

Recommended Booklist
In addition to all be books from previous episodes, take a look at these… 

Adams, Charles. When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the
Case for Southern Secession. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

Larson, Erik. The Demon of Unrest. New York: Crown Publishing, 2024.

Long, E.B., with Barbara Long. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1965. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.

Mitchell, Elizabeth. Lincoln’s Lie. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2020.

Swanberg, W. A. First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957.

Woodward, C. Vann, ed. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

Season 1 Episode 6 – The Island in the Harbor

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

The election of 1860 would alter the trajectory of the United States. First, the party conventions had to decide which candidates would run for the presidency, and second, Americans would make their choice. Easy, right? Not so fast. What happens when a national convention falls apart? What happens when not two, not three, but when four candidates are running for the highest office? And what does the lame duck President, who is counting the days until he can leave Washington, do when the government might very well unravel and come apart at the seams? While Americans are wondering how they’ll define what “home” truly means, the people of South Carolina decide they know the answer and take matters into their own hands.

Recommended Booklist

In addition to all be books from previous episodes, take a look at these…

Achorn, Edward. The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023.

Dickey, Christopher. Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South. New York: Crown Publishers, 2015.

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War – A Narrative. Volume 1: Secession to Fort Henry. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1998.

Larson, Erik. The Demon of Unrest. New York: Crown Publishing, 2024.

Swanberg, W. A. First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957.

Season 1 Episode 5 – Stars and Banners

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

What happens when a political party implodes? One newspaperman in hindsight said, “The Whig party died of too much respectability and not enough people.” The decade before the Civil War saw politics as figurative and literal mayhem as parties splintered and fistfights broke out in Congress. Kansas became a battleground, the Supreme Court made the worst decision ever, and violence predicted the eve of full-out and open war. Was there a group or a person who could lead the country forward?

Recommended Booklist

In addition to all be books from previous episodes, take a look at these…

Delbanco, Andrew. The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the
Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War. New York: Penguin Press, 2018.

Downey, Arthur T. Civil War
Lawyers: Constitutional Questions, Courtroom Dramas, and the Men Behind Them. Chicago: ABA Publishing, 2010.

Freeman, Joanne B. The
Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

Hay, John & John G. Nicolay. Abraham Lincoln: A History.
10 vols. New York: The Century Company, 1909.

Holt, Michael F. The Rise
and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the
Civil War. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999.

Meacham, Jon. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the
American Struggle. New York:
Random House, 2022.

Season 1 Episode 4 – A Political Free-For-All

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

Why did slavery exist in the United States, and how did it get that way? To better understand America leading up to the Civil War, it’s vital to trace its roots back to its origins and how its British history morphed into the Southern society, politics, and economy. As the US grew, every increase strained against the uneasy tension between the pragmatic and the moral perspectives on the South’s “peculiar institution.” How would the country deal with this tension and the sparks that began to light the path towards war?

Be sure to also listen to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History BLITZ episode “Human Resources.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861?i=1000553133741

Recommended Booklist

Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Boorstin, Daniel J. The Americans: The National Experience. New York: Vintage Books, 1965.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Creation. New York: Vintage Books, 2007.

Johnson, Walter. River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.

Kilmeade, Brian. The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Their Battle to Save America’s Soul. New York: Sentinel, 2021.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. 1854. New York: Penguin, 2013.

Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House, 2020.

Wood, Gordon S. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Season 1 Episode 3 – American Slavery

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

What caused the American Civil War? Better yet, what caused the causes? In order to discover the answers, it’s essential to explore the context of the United States at the time… How had the country changed since its independence in 1776? What foundations had it been built upon? What growing pains affected not just the government but also the citizenry? And how did leaders attempt to deal with the one issue that just couldn’t be swept under the rug? 

Recommended Booklist

Adams, James Truslow. The Rise of the Union. Vol. 1 of The March of Democracy: A History of the United States. 7 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932-1955.

Catton, Bruce. The Coming Fury. New York: Doubleday, 1961.

Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

Hanson, Victor Davis. The Father of Us All. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.

Heidler, David S. & Jeanne T. Henry Clay: The Essential American. New York: Random House, 2010.

Larson, Edward J. A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign. New York: Free Press, 2007.

McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Rasmussen, Dennis C. Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.

Reynolds, David S. Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson. New York: HaperCollins, 2008.

Season 1 Episode 2 – The Father of All

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com

“History never looks like history when you are living through it,” said John W. Gardner, US cabinet secretary. Too often we look at history as names, dates and information, but for those who had to live through it, they had no idea what was going to happen. So let’s consider the American Civil War – without spoilers.

As we begin Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast, let’s consider several questions:
How do we look at the American Civil War?
What inspired the creation of this podcast?
Why is learning from history so important?
What can be expected in episodes to come?

Season 1 Episode 1 – Introduction

Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast is a production of Waveland Creative.
Host: Scott Holmgren
Check out our website at http://www.breakingnation.com