Can't Make This Up

Hamilton. Madison. Jefferson. Adams. Henry. Hancock. The Founding Fathers of the United States are many. But the two names that loom large above the rest are Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. 

Countless biographies have been written about the two "indispensable men," but my guest today has extensively studied the thirty-year relationship between them. Edward J. Larson holds a PhD in the history of science and is currently a professor of history and law at Pepperdine University. He has written several books on American scientific history as well as the American Revolution and Early Republic.

Edward's latest book Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership explores how the Pennsylvania printer and Virginia planter first met during the French and Indian War, how they became integral to the success of American Independence, and why the new nation turned to them when it came time to draft the Constitution.

Check out the massive selection of comics, books, toys, and games available at Things from Another World!

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One downfall of living in the Internet age with access to all the world's knowledge is that we also live with access to all the world's advice. Whether an opinion is based on science, tradition, or personal experience, there are countless blogs and experts ready to tell us how to live. This chaos is only compounded when you have children. Those of us who are dads can certainly relate to this, but I think we can agree that moms bare the brunt of it even before their baby is born. Natural birth or epidural? Breastfeeding or formula? Cry-it-out or attachment parenting? Co-sleeping or crib? On today's show, my guest and I talk about the history behind mothering expertise and how this flood of advice has always been the case to some degree.

Bethany Johnson is a doctoral student focusing on the history of science, technology, and the environment and is part of the research faculty at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She studies how ideas in science, medical technology, and public health have been communicated historically. Bethany is co-author of the book You're Doing It Wrong! Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise along with Dr. Margaret Quinlan who studies communication within the healthcare system. In You're Doing It Wrong!, Bethany and Margaret describe the changing care mothers and their children have received since the 1800s as well as the medical and parental advice women throughout history have received from the medical profession and the media. 

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Thank you to everyone who has made Season 2 of the podcast a fantastic success! With this being our last episode of 2019, I have stepped aside and let the show's Patreon Patrons decide who I should invite on the podcast, and they made an excellent choice. 

My guest today is New York Times bestselling author and journalist Julia Flynn Siler. A graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Julia has two decades worth of experience reporting the news from dozens of countries across North America and Europe. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times, and she has been a guest commentator on NPR, CBS, and the BBC.

Julia kindly joins me from the West Coast via Skype to discuss her newest book, The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown. In our time together, Julia and I discuss the reasons for the mass migration of Chinese immigrants to California in the 1800s, the slave trade that arose between China and San Francisco's Chinatown long after slavery was officially abolished in the United States, and the women who ran the Occidental Mission Home that rescued and housed thousands of former slave girls who had been brought into the United States for forced prostitution and domestic servitude. 

To learn more about Julia Flynn Siler, visit www.juliaflynnsiler.com.  

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Harry Houdini. Nearly a century after his death, he remains a household name that is synonymous with magic. In fact, Houdini has become a verb in our common vernacular meaning "to vanish, or escape a difficult situation quickly."

Today, I am joined by bestselling author Joe Posnanski to discuss his new book, "The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini," which looks at the remarkable career of the world's most recognizable magician and tries to untangle some of the myths surrounding Houdini's life that have even baffled some of his many biographers over the years.

Joe is an award-winning sports journalist and bestselling author whose prior biography on Joe Paterno reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In our conversation, Joe and I discuss how an immigrant named Erich Weiss transformed himself into a legend named Harry Houdini, how he pushed the envelope of danger to become the world's leading escape artist, and what continued to drive Houdini even at the height of his fame and success.

To learn more about Joe Posnanski, visit www.joeposnanski.com.

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Today on Alternate Histories, I am joined by Caroline Scott, who "is a freelance writer and historian specializing in WWI and women's history, with a PhD from Durham University. Born in the UK, Caroline currently resides in France. She has published two nonfiction books on WWI." 

"The Poppy Wives," Caroline's first novel, is set in 1921 and follows "survivors of the Great War who are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis is still missing. Francis is presumed to have been killed in action, but Edie knows he is alive.

Harry, Francis’s brother, was there the day Francis went missing in Ypres. And like Edie, he’s hopeful Francis is living somewhere in France, lost and confused. Hired by grieving families in need of closure, Harry returns to the Western Front to photograph soldiers’ graves. As he travels through France gathering news for British wives and mothers, he searches for evidence his own brother is still alive.

When Edie receives a mysterious photograph that she believes was taken by Francis, she is more certain than ever he isn’t dead. Edie embarks on her own journey in the hope of finding some trace of her husband. Is he truly gone, or could he still be alive? And if he is, why hasn’t he come home?

As Harry and Edie’s paths converge, they get closer to the truth about Francis and, as they do, are soon faced with the life-changing impact of the answers they discover.

An incredibly moving account of an often-forgotten moment in history—those years after the war that were filled with the unknown—The Poppy Wife tells the story of the thousands of soldiers who were lost amid the chaos and ruins in battle-scarred France; and the even greater number of men and women hoping to find them again."

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We are discussing true crime on the podcast today. My guest for this episode is the historian and author Simon Baatz. Simon is a New York Times best-selling author and currently teaches American legal history at John Jay College, City University of New York He joins me via Skype to discuss his latest book "The Girl in the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century" about the 1906 murder of a prominent New York architect at the hands of a millionaire playboy in front of hundreds in a theater at Madison Square Garden. At the center of the murder and the sensational trial that followed was a young Broadway chorus girl named Evelyn Nesbit.

NOTE TO PARENTS: This episode does deal with the grown-up theme of sexual assault and may not be suitable for listening in the presence of little ears.    

To learn more about Simon Baatz, visit www.simonbaatz.com.

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If I asked you to name some of your favorite movies from the 1990s, odds are several of those were made in 1999. That year was bombarded with films like The Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, American Pie, and The Blair Witch Project that have ingrained themselves in our culture. 

My guest today is Brian Raftery, who has had a long career of writing on culture and entertainment for such publications as Wired, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly. Brian is the author of the fascinating book Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen and he joins me to discuss how movies like The Matrix, Office Space, and Fight Club have become cornerstones of our popular culture twenty years later. 

For more information on Brian and his work, visit www.brianraftery.com.

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Welcome the the premiere episode of Alternate Histories! In this series, I will be interviewing novelists about their latest work and how they blend their stories with the historical record. 

My guest today is Talia Carner. She is "is formerly the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine and a lecturer at international women’s economic forums. An award-winning author of five novels and numerous stories, essays, and articles, she is also a committed supporter of global human rights. Carner has spearheaded ground-breaking projects centered on female plight and women’s activism." For more information on Talia's work, visit www.taliacarner.com. 

Today, Talia joins me to discuss her most recent novel "The Third Daughter" which is "a frightening journey into the New World of the late 1800s, told by a trusting young woman lured from Russia and forced into prostitution in Buenos Aires. As she finds courage in the face of danger and hope in hours of despair, Batya struggles to free herself from bondage while bringing down the powerful pimps’ union."

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Happy Halloween!

My guest today is novelist and author J.W. Ocker whose book "A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts" documents his experience moving to "Witch City, USA" for the month of October. Salem is, of course, the site of the famous Witch Trials of 1692, and Ocker tells us about the tragedy that occurred over 300 years ago and how the city handles and embraces that legacy today. From its vibrant month-long celebration of Halloween called Haunted Happenings to its vibrant Wicca community of real life witches, Salem has become synonymous with witchcraft. Ocker is a travel writer with a passion for the strange and weird. He runs a very active blog at OddThingsIveSeen.com and he also hosts his own podcast of the same name. 

For this Halloween episode, I am also joined by a very special guest co-host, Jennifer, who hosts Haunted Happenstance, a creepy serial podcast set in a historic apartment full of unusual and spooky coincidences.

When you are done listening here, be sure to add both of their shows to your queue!

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Hello and welcome to our first ever Patrons' Pick episode!

Four times a year, as a thank you for their support, I am handing over the programming reins to patrons of the show on Patreon where they can vote on who should come on the podcast. Over the summer, supporters of the podcast selected today's guest, Gerri Chanel, and her book "Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and Its Treasures from the Nazis." We have another poll up for our next Patrons' Pick episode in December. The candidates to invite to the show are: Mark Simmons, author of "Ian Fleming and Operation Golden Eye: Keeping Spain Out of World War II," Julia Flynn Siler, author of "The White Devil's Daughters: The Woman Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown," and Brian Jay Jones, author of "Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination." 

Well I put out the call to the show's supporters this summer and they selected today's guest, Gerri Chanel, and her book, "Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and Its Treasures from the Nazis" to be featured on the show. Gerri is a prize-winning freelance journalist who spent years in Paris researching the tale of how a band of brave museum curators painstakingly evacuated the world's largest art museum ahead of the German Blitzkrieg and then kept Europe's most prized artwork, including the Mona Lisa, out of the hands of Hitler and the Nazis. Gerri joins me from New York via Skype to discuss her book, "Saving Mona Lisa."

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