The Clio Dialogues

Historians Sergio M. González and Lloyd D. Barba join Jennifer Robin Terry on The Clio Dialogues to discuss their book, Sanctuary in America: How Activists Defied the Government and Defended Immigrants—And Why It Still Matters. They explore how an ancient tradition of sacred refuge became a modern movement challenging state power. 

In 1982, congregations began opening their doors to Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing political violence, even as the U.S. government denied them asylum. Facing a stark choice between federal immigration law and a higher moral obligation, communities listened to refugee testimonios—firsthand accounts of state violence and persecution—transforming acts of hospitality into nationwide civil disobedience. González and Barba trace how activists drew on "usable sacred histories," from biblical cities of refuge to the Underground Railroad, and examine the movement's evolution into the secular realm of sanctuary cities and the 21st-century defense of undocumented long-term residents.

In This Episode

• Sanctuary as a Challenge to State Power: How sanctuary functions as a physical place of safe harbor, a moral ethic, and a direct challenge to state immigration policies.
• The Dual Origins of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement: The parallel declarations of sanctuary on March 24, 1982, by Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona, and University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, California. 
• "Usable Sacred Histories": How movement activists drew upon scripture, the Underground Railroad, and past resistance movements to legitimate their civil disobedience as a core American and religious duty. 
• The Power of Testimonios: How personal accounts of horrific civil war violence served as "conversion experiences" and consciousness-raising for American Christians.
• The Political Context of the 1980s: How the Reagan administration categorized Central Americans as economic migrants rather than political refugees, thus denying them asylum despite U.S. foreign policy involvement in Central America. 
• The 21st-Century "New Sanctuary Movement": The shift post-9/11 toward protecting undocumented immigrants who have built careers, families, and long-term roots in U.S. communities. 
• Sanctuary Cities vs. Sacred Sanctuary: The emergence of secular sanctuary jurisdictions and how they differ from church-based physical refuge. 
• Political Rhetoric and Misinformation: How modern political figures distort sanctuary policies to frame sanctuary jurisdictions as lawless or crime-ridden, and the use of political stunts like migrant transports.

Featured Guests

Sergio M. González is an Associate Professor of History at Marquette University. He is a historian of 20th-century U.S. immigration, labor, and religion.

Lloyd D. Barba is an Associate Professor of Latinx and Latin American Studies, and Religion at Amherst College. He is a historian of religion in the Americas with training in Latinx history; American race, ethnicity, and immigration; and the American West/Mexico borderlands. 

Together, they hosted the seven-episode podcast series, 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘖𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦.

Buy the Book

Lloyd D. Barba and Sergio M. González, Sanctuary in America: How Activists Defied the Government and Defended Immigrants—And Why It Still Matters

Bookshop.org    

Amazon

BONUS: Use my Bookshop.org links to buy the book and you get instant literary cred, while the author, this podcast, and local indie bookshops get actual financial support. It’s the closest thing to ethically justified shopping you’ll do all week.

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If you enjoyed this episode…

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Leave a review here. Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences. 

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

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Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. My, or my guests opinions may deviate from each other or from yours --  and that's okay! 

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  

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One of Hollywood’s most enduring symbols of worker activism came about when actress Sally Field stood alone on a factory table, handwritten "UNION" sign held high above her head.  That table moment really happened. But as labor historian Dr. Aimee Loiselle reveals, the true story behind the 1979 Academy Award film Norma Rae was a multi-racial, collective movement—not a lone white hero's crusade. 

In this episode of The Clio Dialogues history podcast, host Jennifer Robin Terry speaks with Aimee Loiselle, author of Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class. Together, they look past Hollywood’s cinematic edits to uncover the vital role of Black textile workers, Puerto Rican garment workers, and "pushy" women organizers whose work reframes who truly built the American labor movement. 

Their conversation spans the line between Hollywood mythmaking and historical reality: how studio executives traded collective history for romantic tension, how Puerto Rico’s colonial status shaped garment sweatshops, how employers weaponize immigration status against unionizing, and why pop culture dictates who gets recognized as part of the American working class today. 

In this episode

• The Real Crystal Lee Sutton: Separating historical facts from Hollywood’s creative business decisions. 
• Myth of the Lone Hero: Why film producers erased Black textile workers and years of pre-existing union organizing. 
• The Famous Table Scene: What actually happened the night Crystal Lee Sutton (the real Norma Rae) held up her union sign. 
• Colonial Sweatshops & Textile Mills: How U.S. expansion into Puerto Rico created a parallel, segregated labor market. 
• Union Activist Gloria Maldonado: The "pushy and loudmouth" organizer who challenged both factory bosses and media narratives. 
• Immigration as Union Busting: How employers use legal status and deportation threats to suppress workplace organizing. 
• From Norma Rae to Bad Bunny: Culture, citizenship, and who gets perceived as a "real" American. 
• Hard Hats & Nostalgia: Why pop culture’s narrow image of the working class impacts modern policy and politics. 

Featured Guest

Dr. Aimee Loiselle is Associate Professor and the Stuart and Joyce Robbins Distinguished Chair of History at West Virginia University. Her research sits at the intersection of labor history, gender, race, and popular culture. In 2023, she won the Peter C. Rollins Book Prize for Beyond Norma Rae. 

Buy the Book

Aimee Loiselle, Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class

Bookshop.org                             

Amazon

BONUS: Use my Bookshop.org links to buy the book and you get instant literary cred, while the author, this podcast, and local indie bookshops get actual financial support. It’s the closest thing to ethically justified shopping you’ll do all week!

***************

If you enjoyed this episode…

Subscribe on YouTube

Follow on Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky

Leave a review here. Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. My, or my guests opinions may deviate from each other or from yours' --  and that's okay! 

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  

Send us Fan Mail

Historian Megan Kate Nelson joins Jennifer Robin Terry to discuss The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier and how the complicated lives of the people who inhabited the American West challenge one of the nation’s most enduring myths.

The popular story of the American West is deceptively simple: white settlers in wagons moving steadily toward the Pacific. The historical reality, however, was a vast network of competing ambitions, shared spaces, and multi-directional journeys. 

Drawing from her multi-perspective history, Nelson replaces the tidy, one-way (east to west) highway of Manifest Destiny with a map of crisscrossing journeys—showing people moving north, south, east, and west across open borders and changing empires. White American pioneers share the stage with Indigenous, Mexican, Chinese, Canadian immigrant, and Black Westerners. 

Jennifer and Megan talk about why the frontier myth has been so hard to dislodge, what popular culture has done to keep it alive, and why a more inclusive history doesn't mean simply swapping one set of uncomplicated heroes for another. They also consider something history sometimes loses amid wars, politics, conquest, and injustice: that most people spend most of their lives simply living them.

Ultimately, The Westerners asks us to think about more than who has been left out of the traditional story of the West. It asks - what is at stake when some people are left out of the national story altogether.

In this episode:

• What the frontier myth is and why it endures as one of America's most durable stories
• Why “Westerner” tells us something that “pioneer” cannot
• Migration patterns that look more like a spiderweb than a straight line
• Seven lives that complicate familiar categories of who built the West
• Why ordinary lives deserve to be remembered
• What gets lost when complicated history is simplified
• Who gets to belong in the American story

Featured Guest

Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and award-winning author whose work explores the American West, the Civil War, and the ways Americans construct and remember the past. She is the author of several books, including The Three-Cornered War, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, Saving Yellowstone, and The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier. Known for bringing rigorous scholarship together with immersive storytelling, Nelson writes about the complicated people and contested landscapes that have shaped American history.

Buy the Book

Megan Kate Nelson, The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier

Bookshop.org      

Amazon 

Also mentioned: 

Megan Kate Nelson, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West

Bookshop.org

Amazon

BONUS: BONUS: Use my Bookshop.org links to buy the book and you get instant literary cred, while the author, this podcast, and local indie bookshops get actual financial support. It’s the closest thing to ethically justified shopping you’ll do all week.

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If you enjoyed this episode…

Follow on Instagram: @cliodialogues

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Leave a review here or at: https://www.cliodialogues.com/reviews/new/

Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. My, or my guests opinions may deviate from each other or from yours' --  and that's okay! 

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  

Send us Fan Mail

Acclaimed historian Mary Beth Norton joins host Jennifer Robin Terry to discuss her book, I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer: Letters on Love & Marriage from the World's First Personal Advice Column, and the surprisingly modern history of relationship advice, courtship, heartbreak, and ghosting.

In 1691, London printer John Dunton launched the Athenian Mercury—a broadsheet originally intended as a 17th-century version of "Google" or "Wikipedia" for coffeehouse patrons. But before long, readers began submitting intimate questions Dunton never anticipated. What started as a general Q&A project rapidly evolved into the world's first personal advice column.

In this conversation, Norton reveals how women broke into a conversation meant for male coffeehouse patrons, how anonymous readers sought counsel on scandal and heartbreak, and why marriage in the 1690s was far more ambiguous than we imagine.

In this episode:

• The "Google" of the 17th Century: How a broadsheet for coffeehouse intellectuals shifted into a legendary advice project.
• Women Enter the Conversation: How female readers claimed space in a male-dominated publication. 
• Slighting & Ghosting: Why romantic rejection in the 1690s mirrors has in commion with modern dating. 
• "Fungible" Marriages: The chaotic era before 1753 when people weren't sure if they were legally wed. 
• Confessions to Strangers: Why advice-seekers prefer the counsel of an anonymous expert over friends and family. 

About the Guest

Dr. Mary Beth Norton is a distinguished historian of early American history and a pioneer in the field of women's history. In 1971, she became the first woman hired in Cornell University's History Department, where she taught for nearly five decades. Throughout her career, she has been a leading champion and trailblazer for women's history, serving as president of both the American Historical Association and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Her landmark publications include Liberty's Daughters—a foundational text in colonial women's history—Founding Mothers & Fathers, In the Devil's Snare, and 1774: The Long Year of Revolution. In I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer, Norton translates 17th-century letters and answers from the Athenian Mercury into accessible prose for modern readers. 

Buy the Book

Mary Beth Norton, I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer: Letters on Love & Marriage from the World's First Personal Advice Column (Princeton University Press).

Bookshop.org

Amazon

Also mentioned: Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 

Bookshop.org

Amazon

BONUS: Use my Bookshop.org links above to buy the book and you get instant literary cred, while the author, this podcast, and local indie bookshops get actual financial support. It’s the closest thing to ethically justified shopping you’ll do all week.

Read Clio’s Book Reviews

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If you enjoyed this episode…

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ClioDialogues

Follow on Instagram: @cliodialogues

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Leave a review here or at: https://www.cliodialogues.com/reviews/new/

Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. 

My opinions are entirely my own, not influenced by affiliates or guests. 

My guests’ opinions are entirely their own and may deviate from mine or yours ~ and that’s okay. :-)

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  I will not recommend products I do not believe in.

Send us Fan Mail

Description

What does the rise of authoritarianism look like while it is happening in real time? Historian Pamela Toler, author of The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany, joins The Clio Dialogues to tell the remarkable story of Sigrid Schultz, the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau chief who reported on the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Toler and host Jennifer Robin Terry discuss how economic and political instability contributed to the collapse of German democracy, what Schultz recognized about Hitler and the Nazi movement before they came to power, and why warnings that appear unmistakable in hindsight can be much harder to recognize in real time. They also explore Schultz’s extraordinary relationship with Hermann Göring.

At its heart, The Dragon from Chicago is the story of a pioneering woman foreign correspondent, as well as that of journalism under authoritarianism, the fragility of democracy, and the importance of a free and engaged press.

In this episode

• Sigrid Schultz and the Chicago Tribune
• the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism
• Schultz’s 1931 interview with Adolf Hitler 
• the collapse of German democracy
• Hermann Göring and “The Dragon from Chicago”
• the Reichstag fire
• Nazi censorship and surveillance
• freedom of the press under authoritarianism
• foreign correspondents in Nazi Germany
• journalism, democracy, and recognizing authoritarian warning signs

Featured Guest

Pamela D. Toler is the author of ten works of historical non-fiction, for both adults and children, including, most recently, The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of An American Reporter in Nazi Germany. Toler holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. You can find out more about her books and her ideas about history, writing, and writing about history at www.pameladtoler.com.

Buy the Book

The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of An American Reporter in Nazi Germany

Bookshop.org 

Amazon

BONUS: If you order through my Bookshop.org link ~ not only will you get a fascinating book, but you'll also be supporting the author, this podcast, and local independent bookstores. A win for all! 

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If you enjoyed this episode…

• Hit that Follow button
• Read Clio’s Book Reviews 
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• Leave a review here or on The Clio Dialogues website 

**Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

*************** 

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

 Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. 

My opinions are entirely my own, not influenced by affiliates or guests. 

My guests’ opinions are entirely their own and may deviate from mine or yours ~ and that’s okay. :-)

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  I will not recommend products I do not believe in.

Send us Fan Mail

History only looks inevitable because we already know the ending.

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, it is easy to look backward and see a straight road to 1776. In Contested Continent, historian Peter C. Mancall shows just how uncertain that road actually was. He joins Jennifer Robin Terry to explore a North America shaped by competing peoples, incompatible ambitions, and consequential choices. The result is a different, more comprehensive origin story, one that recovers the possibilities obscured when we read the past backward.

In This Episode

• How hindsight can distort our understanding of history 
• Why the origins of the United States cannot be reduced to the history of the thirteen British colonies 
• How traditional U.S. history surveys race through centuries of Indigenous and colonial history to reach 1776 
• Why Europeans were only part of an enormous ensemble cast shaping North America 
• How Indigenous peoples determined whether many European expeditions and settlements survived or failed 
• Why Jamestown's survival was itself an unlikely historical outcome 
• How colonial self-government and enslavement developed alongside one another in Virginia 
• Opechancanough’s backstory 
• How the 1622 Powhatan uprising and English retaliation marked an escalation in colonial violence 
• Why 1619 matters, but does not by itself explain the development of racial slavery in English America 
• How economic and political decisions transformed English attitudes toward slavery over the seventeenth century 
• King Philip's War, Bacon's Rebellion, and the Pueblo Revolt as reminders of how precarious colonial power remained 
• The origins of an extractive approach to the natural world 
• Indigenous resistance and a broader history of religious freedom 
• Why contingency, agency, and individual choices matter to understanding history 

About the Guest

Peter C. Mancall is Distinguished Professor; Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities; Professor of History, Anthropology, and Economics at the University of Southern California; and the Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. His scholarship focuses on early America and the peoples, environments, and encounters that shaped North America before the creation of the United States. 

Buy the Book:

Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000–1680 

Bookshop.org or Amazon 

Also mentioned:

Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

Bookshop.org or Amazon 

Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

Bookshop.org or Amazon 

James Horn, A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America

Bookshop.org or Amazon 

If you enjoyed this episode…

Subscribe on YouTube

Follow on Instagram , Facebook , or Bluesky

Watch, Listen, Review, and stay up to date: www.cliodialogues.com

Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

BONUS: If you order through my Bookshop.org link ~ not only will you get fascinating books, but you'll also be supporting the author, this podcast, and local independent bookstores. A win for all!

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. 

My opinions are entirely my own and are never influenced by affiliate or guest relationships. 

My guests’ opinions are entirely their own and may deviate from mine or yours, and that’s okay. 

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  I will not recommend products I do not believe in.

Send us Fan Mail

Today, our hair is often a means of self-expression. But what if you had no control over what your hair expressed? And I’m not just talking about a bad hair day! In nineteenth-century America, hair conveyed something very different than what it does today. 

In this episode of The Clio Dialogues, I am joined by my friend and former classmate (Go Bears!), historian Dr. Sarah Gold McBride to discuss the surprising American cultural history of hair. She explains that by taking seriously something so ordinary as hair, we can learn much about nineteenth-century ideas about race, gender, nationhood, and belonging.

In This Episode

• Why beards surged in popularity in the mid-nineteenth century
• What facial hair had to do with masculinity, citizenship, and political power
• How racial pseudoscience transformed the beard into a symbol of white male authority
• How Frederick Douglass used his photographed image as a challenge to racist ideas about Black bodies
• How nineteenth-century Americans attempted to “read” bodies
• Bearded women, P. T. Barnum, and anti-cross-dressing laws
• Why hair meant something fundamentally different to nineteenth-century Americans than it does to us today

About the Guest

Dr. Sarah Gold McBride is the author of Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America, and a historian and award-winning Lecturer in the American Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley, where her research and teaching focus on the daily lives of ordinary people in the nineteenth-century United States, and the information and objects they found meaningful as they tried to understand race, gender, and national identity. 

Buy the Book 

Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America

Bookshop.org   or Amazon

Pre-order the Paperback (available November 17, 2026)

If you enjoyed this episode…

Subscribe on YouTube

Follow on Instagram

Follow on Facebook

Watch, Listen, Review, and stay up to date: www.cliodialogues.com

Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

BONUS: If you order through my Bookshop.org link ~ not only will you get fascinating books, but you'll also be supporting the author, this podcast, and local independent bookstores. A win for all!

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. 

My opinions are entirely my own and are never influenced by affiliate or guest relationships. 

My guests’ opinions are entirely their own and may deviate from mine or yours, and that’s okay. 

Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and the knowledge is worth having.  I will not recommend products I do not believe in.

Send us Fan Mail

Description

Wine with dinner. A beer after work. A whiskey to seal the deal. These rituals feel timeless, but they are far more recent than most Americans realize.

In this episode of The Clio Dialogues, historian Lisa Jacobson explains how the repeal of Prohibition did not automatically restore alcohol's place in American life. Instead, breweries, wineries, distillers, advertisers, cookbook authors, physicians, government officials, and even Hollywood spent decades reshaping public attitudes toward drinking and creating the modern ideal of the "responsible drinker."

In this episode

• The stigmas attached to wine, beer, and whiskey after Prohibition 
• How advertisers launched massive "consumer re-education" campaigns 
• Why moderation became the new ideal of drinking 
• How World War II transformed America's drinking culture 
• Cookbooks, rationing, and teaching Americans to cook with wine 
• The campaign for the "right to pleasure" and the "right to decent whiskey" 
• What Hollywood films reveal about 

Featured Guest

Lisa Jacobson is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Buy the Book

Intoxicating Pleasures: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey after Prohibition

Bookshop.org               Amazon

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If you enjoyed this episode…

consider following or subscribing to The Clio Dialogues wherever you listen or watch. Reviews and shares make a real difference in helping thoughtful conversations about history reach new audiences. You can also join the conversation on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As a Bookshop.org Affiliate and Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

BONUS: If you order through my Bookshop.org link ~ not only will you get fascinating books, but you'll also be supporting the author, this podcast, and local independent bookstores. A win for all!

Editorial Independence

The Clio Dialogues supports productive, respectful, freedom of expression. 

My opinions are entirely my own and are never influenced by affiliate or guest relationships. My guests’ opinions are entirely their own and may deviate from mine or yours, and that’s okay. Books and products featured on this channel are selected because I believe they are relevant to the conversation and that the knowledge is worth having. I will not recommend products I do not believe in.

Send us Fan Mail

Episode Description

What if one of the world's most influential cultural industries wasn't built by publishers or artists alone?

Today, manga is a global phenomenon. It has inspired blockbuster films, anime, video games, conventions, cosplay, and a multibillion-dollar merchandise industry. But according to historian Andrea Horbinski, manga's remarkable success cannot be understood simply by studying famous creators or bestselling titles. Its history is also the story of ordinary readers who refused to remain passive consumers.

In this episode, we explore how children, amateur artists, and devoted fans shaped manga from its earliest decades, helping transform it from political cartoons into one of the world's most influential forms of popular culture. Along the way, we discuss the modern superfan economy, the blurred line between fans and creators, the rise of dōjinshi and Comiket, Osamu Tezuka's revolution in storytelling, and why manga's history offers surprising insights into today's online fandoms and creator communities. 

In this episode

• Why manga's success has always depended on fans, not just creators 
• Why reader demand kept Norakuro alive and transformed the industry 
• How World War II nearly destroyed manga, and why readers brought it back 
• Osamu Tezuka's role in expanding manga beyond comedy into tragedy and complex storytelling 
• The emergence of gekiga and manga for older readers 
• The gendered differentiation of manga in the postwar period 
• The Showa 24 Group, Takemiya Keiko, and the reinvention of shōjo manga 
• The historical roots of fan fiction, shōnen’ai (Boys' Love), and dōjinshi 
• How Comiket revolutionized the relationship between fans and professional creators 

About the guest

Dr. Andrea Horbinski earned her PhD in modern Japanese history with a designated emphasis in new media from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989. She won the 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work.

Buy the Book

Andrea Horbinski, Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 

Also mentioned: Marc Steinberg, Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan

If you enjoyed this episode…

Follow The Clio Dialogues wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a review, and share this episode with someone interested in American history, constitutional law, immigration, or the history behind today's headlines.

**History runs on curiosity…and occasionally, caffeine.**

The Clio Dialogues is independently produced. If you'd like to help support future episodes, consider buying me a coffee. Every cup helps keep new conversations coming.

***************

Affiliate Disclosure

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. In other words, if you purchase a book or other eligible item through one of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. 

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𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Why is one of America's most successful anti-hunger programs suddenly at the center of legal and political controversy?

Recent battles over restrictions on purchases through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation's largest government food assistance program, have reignited debates over nutrition, personal choice, and the proper role of government. But as Christopher Bosso explains, those debates are far older than they appear.

Bosso takes listeners back to the Great Depression, when policymakers faced what journalist Walter Lippmann famously called the "paradox of want amidst plenty": farmers were producing more food than Americans could buy, even as millions struggled with hunger. The solution they ultimately devised would evolve into the Food Stamp Program, and later, SNAP.

Along the way, Bosso explains why early food distribution programs proved unpopular, how food stamps restored dignity and consumer choice, why the program was revived during the War on Poverty, and how an unlikely political alliance between urban and rural lawmakers helped ensure its survival. The conversation also explores recurring debates over who deserves public assistance, why Americans often support food aid even while expressing skepticism about welfare, and why SNAP has remained remarkably resilient through changing political administrations.

Whether you've followed the recent headlines or never given SNAP much thought, this episode reveals how a program created to address the economic challenges of the 1930s continues to shape American life nearly a century later.

𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞:

• Why SNAP has returned to the headlines
• The surprising origins of the Food Stamp Program during the Great Depression
• The "paradox of want amidst plenty"
• Why early government food boxes failed
• How food stamps transformed food assistance through consumer choice
• The role of the New Deal, the War on Poverty, and Richard Nixon in shaping SNAP
• Why debates over nutrition restrictions are nothing new
• How SNAP became one of America's most politically durable social programs
• Why the history of SNAP continues to shape contemporary debates over hunger, poverty, and public policy

𝐆𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭

Dr. Christopher Bosso is Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Politics at Northeastern University. 

𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤:

Why SNAP Works: A Political History--and Defense--of the Food Stamp Program  

Also mentioned:

Framing the Farm Bill: Interests, Ideology, and the Agricultural Act of 2014 

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𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞...

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**𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲... 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐞.**

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𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞

Some links in The Clio Dialogues show notes are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. In other words, if you purchase a book or other eligible item through one of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. 

Those commissions help offset the costs of producing The Clio Dialogues, allowing me to continue bringing historical scholarship to a wider audience. Thank you for your support.

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