History As It Happens

Over the centuries, Thanksgiving traditions have changed with political, cultural, and religious winds. The holiday's mythic origins were propagated in the mid-nineteenth century, and soon Americans were all celebrating Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Parades and football games are important pieces of Americana now synonymous with Thanksgiving -- as is the start of the Christmas shopping season. In this episode, historian David Silverman delves into the history of a quintessential American holiday whose development has as much to do with magazine editor Sara Josepha Hale as the Pilgrim Edward Winslow.

Ronald Reagan was the most consequential U.S. president of the second half of the twentieth century. Conservatives once lionized him before the rise of Donald Trump. Yet how Reagan is remembered does not entirely square with his actual record. Although an anti-government, anti-Communist ideologue, Reagan governed like a pragmatist. Moreover, the fortieth president was a terrible manager with a flimsy grasp of policy. His administration was rife with scandal. When he left office, the federal deficit had nearly tripled. Despite it all, Reagan was an effective national leader who inspired Americans to feel proud of their country again. In this episode, historian and biographer Max Boot delves into the life and times of "The Great Communicator" whose Hollywood and television careers prepared him for political success.

Further reading/listening:

Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot

When Reagan Pressured Israel (podcast) with Salim Yaqub 

Election of 1980 (podcast) with Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel

Star Wars (podcast) with Joe Cirincione

Does the historical concept of oblivion offer a way out of our ruptured political life? "For centuries, legislative acts of oblivion were declared in times when betrayal, war, and tyranny had usurped and undermined the very foundations of law; when a household or nation had been torn apart, its citizens pitted against one another; when identifying, investigating, trying, and sentencing every single guilty party threatened to redouble the harm, to further fracture already divided societies," writes the scholar Linda Kinstler. In this episode, Kinstler delves into the history of oblivion as well as its limitations, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the presidency having gotten away with his attempt to subvert democracy on Jan. 6, 2021.

Further reading:

Jan. 6, America's Rupture, and the Strange, Forgotten Power of Oblivion by Linda Kinstler (New York Times)

Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends by Linda Kinstler (2022)

The United States' most-wanted jihadist in Afghanistan is trying to portray himself as a pragmatic diplomat. Washington doesn't seem to be interested. Sirajuddin Haqqani has the blood of many U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians on his hands. While the U.S. views him as an enemy, the CIA once handsomely supported his father Jalaluddin Haqqani in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. The elder Haqqani was close to bin Laden in the years before the Haqqani network would violently resist U.S. invaders -- after the al-Qaeda strikes on 9/11/2001. Ah, Afghanistan, where the past is not even past. In this episode, Adam Weinstein of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft untangles the complexities of a land where the U.S. has been involved for most of the past forty years.

Further reading:

Is Afghanistan's Most-Wanted Militant Now Its Best Hope For Change? by Christina Goldbaum (New York Times)

Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

Taliban by Ahmed Rashid

Donald Trump's election victory probably means Hitler comparisons won't go away, even if they make little sense. Still, there are lessons to learn from the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler was levered into power by conservative elites who wrongly assumed that they could control the "Bohemian corporal." The question is which lessons are the right lessons? In this episode, historian Christian Goeschel of the University of Manchester explains how Hitler achieved power in Germany to avoid facile comparisons to the America of 2024. Our problems today bear little resemblance to the crisis of Weimar democracy.

When it was ratified more than 30 years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement was hailed as a decision "that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment, and a greater possibility of world peace," according to President Bill Clinton. Today, NAFTA is toxic, and populist anger at the multilateral free trade regime of the post-Cold War era is redefining global politics. In this episode, Dan Kaufman, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, tells us how NAFTA destroyed the working class in his home state of Wisconsin, specifically in Milwaukee, once the "machine shop of the world."

Further reading:

How NAFTA Broke American Politics by Dan Kaufman

Further listening:

The Economy, Stupid with historian Nelson Lichtenstein

It's Election Day in America and the survival of liberal democracy is said to be on the ballot. What does this mean? Has the United States ever been a democracy where all enjoy political freedom and economic rights? In this episode, historians Sean Wilentz and James Oakes delve into the history of political conflict in America, the progress and regress of democracy and liberty, a story of liberalism competing and coexisting with illiberalism. 

Recommended reading:

The Rise of American Democracy by Sean Wilentz

Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 by James Oakes

**New episode! History As It Happens has returned!**

This is the eighth and final episode in a monthly series examining influential elections in U.S. history. The most recent episode, Election of 2008, was published on Sept 17.

As the Obama presidency ended, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the obvious frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. As for the Republicans, 17 candidates vied for the top spot. As the election year unfolded, few "informed observers" believed the New York real estate developer-turned-reality TV star Donald Trump had a chance. They were all wrong. Not only did Trump, a man with no government or political experience, take over a major party, but he defeated Clinton in the general election, the most stunning upset in American history. What explains the rise of Trump? Historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel delve into the defining question of the 21st century in the United States. 

This episode was first published on March 4, 2024.

Original show notes:

The embattled incumbent expressed anguish over soulless materialism. The optimistic challenger promised Americans they could overcome any and all problems. The election of 1980 pitted Democrat Jimmy Carter against Republican Ronald Reagan as Americans struggled with stagflation at home and crises abroad. Reagan's victory marked a sea change in U.S. politics, tilting the political landscape to the right. Reagan crusaded against big government and Soviet Communism. If the incumbent looked impotent in the face of these vexing problems, Reagan projected strength -- a timeless lesson of campaigning. In this episode, historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel discuss why this election still matters.

This episode was first published on Feb. 22, 2024 as part of a series marking the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Original show notes:

In every war, there is a battle over its origins. In this episode, historians Michael Kimmage and Mark Galeotti discuss Kimmage's new book, "Collisions," which seeks to explain why the excessive optimism of the early 1990s about Russia's path toward democracy and market economics never materialized. Moreover, Kimmage's narrative explains what led to each major collision between Russia and Ukraine; Russia and Europe; and Russia and the larger "rules-based order" led by the United States. Russia under Putin -- and for a brief period, Dmitry Medvedev -- and the United States under five presidential administrations could not overcome a fundamental dissonance in how each viewed the other's role in the world. Institutions such as NATO and the E.U., seen in the West as bulwarks of democracy, human rights, and economic prosperity, were viewed with hostility by Putin, who believed an independent Ukraine had no right to join them. ((Note: This conversation was recorded before the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka fell to Russian forces))