The Future in Context

The Future in Context

By e.Republic EditorialGovernmentHistory
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The Future in Context episodes

  • Living the American Miracle: VA AG Jason Miyares (Ep. 37)
    As a six-year-old, Jason Miyares helped his mother to learn the Pledge of Allegiance for her upcoming naturalization ceremony, an event that deeply affected both of their lives. More than a half century later, on January 15 of this year, he become the first Hispanic-American to hold statewide office in the Commonwealth of Virginia when he was sworn in as Attorney General. Since his swearing in, which his mother witnessed in person, Miyares has signalled an activist stance as the state's self described "new sheriff" – firing 30 attorneys in his first week, including the entire staff of the civil rights division; urging the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, writing that the decision should be made by the states; and, seeking the dismissal of a school mask mandate in the Commonwealth. It has been a busy start.
    25 min
  • Greener Acres: Betting The Farm (Ep. 36)

    Three years ago, Beth Hoffman left her career as a college professor and journalist in San Francisco for the life of farming. She and her husband, John Hogeland, headed to Iowa with $19,000 of savings and a vague and ambiguous plan to take over as the fifth generation on his family’s 530-acre farm. The simple life, however, turned out to be not so simple. “Instead of a romantic life of growing tomatoes and raising happy cows,” she writes, “farm life is actually a job full of spreadsheets, receipts, and file folders.” The public, she eventually realized, is similarly confused and uninformed about the realities of farming. Moreover, our existing agrarian myths serve mostly to pit farmers against each other while trapping them in endless cycles of debt and self-exploitation.

    25 min
  • The Long Memory of Wounded Knee (Ep. 35)
    With rare exceptions, Indigenous history remains largely marginalized and its lessons go unlearned. Our resident humanities scholar and his adult daughter took a road trip recently to mark the 131st anniversary of a tragedy on the great plains that remains indelibly stamped on a community’s memory.
    18 min
  • Democratizing Great Books (Ep. 34)
    A liberal arts education is about more than preparing students with skills in demand in the marketplace. Author Roosevelt Montás explains how four authors and their works change lives and matter more than ever.
    17 min
  • H.W. Brands on the Revolutionary War (Ep. 33)
    The Tricky Politics of America's War for Independence. Historian H.W. Brands new book draws out the complexities of the country’s original great struggle and what it can tell us about where we are today. Working to shine light on overlooked complexities, Brands’ probes the intersections of individual lives and narratives - what he calls “little history” - with the overarching accounts of “big history” - in his latest book, Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution, was published by Doubleday in November.
    26 min
  • Can Political Parties Reform Themselves To Guide Country Forward? (Ep. 32)

    Author and historian Jay Cost says this is not the time to get rid of parties but have them rise to the challenge and help make a more perfect union.

    In a wide-ranging interview with Governing Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson, Cost shared his ideas on parties, primaries, the American presidency, and how the country has lost touch with some of the things - wisdom, virtue, competence - that make self-government work.

    31 min
  • White Too Long with Robert P. Jones (Ep. 30)
    Can The White American Church Find Its Way From Its Segregationist Past To A Diverse Future?  Author Robert P. Jones says systemic racism is in the DNA of American Christianity and the community it helped shape but holds out hope for redemption. The opportunity lies in telling a truer story about the founding of the church. He discusses his most recent book, White Too Long, with Clay Jenkinson.
    25 min
  • Science Moms: Save the Planet, Raise a Kid. (Ep. 29)
    As world leaders gather for the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow next week, a group of scientists who are also mothers are fighting to preserve the climate for their children here at home. Our resident humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson spoke with Professor Joellen Russell is a Science Mom – an oceanographer at the University of Arizona, chair of the NOAA Science Advisory Board Climate Working Group – and mother of two.
    29 min

About The Future in Context

From the publisher's feed

TFIC takes you deeper into the stories that are shaping our future. Seeing around corners or making sense of the collision of technology and society is hard. Context can help. Our writers and editors…