Our guest today is H. Bruce Franklin, author of Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War and a long-time activist opponent of U.S. empire. For this hour, he and Thursday host Allen Ruff look to the past to understand our current moment, including the rise of fascism in 1933 Germany and now, the Red Scare and why Marxism is a “dirty word” again, the Cold War and the attack on liberalism, and Wisconsin’s major role in the upcoming presidential election.

H. Bruce Franklin is a professor emeritus of English and American studies at Rutgers University. His areas of research include the history and literature of the Vietnam War, the cultural significance of science fiction, marine ecology, and American prison writing. He is the author or editor of nineteen books, including his most recent work, Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War (Rutgers University Press, 2018).

Cover photo by Martijn Hendrikx on Unsplash