Stay ConnectedDiscover how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. History As It Happens features interviews with today’s top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history’s archive.
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President Trump seems helpless. All the bombs and missiles he flings at Iran cannot solve his problems — problems he created by attacking Iran on the magical belief that the Islamic regime would crumble and be replaced by people whom Trump could control. It was a fantasy, and now, as the war enters its sixth month, Iran maintains a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. The situation is in limbo, floating somewhere between war and peace — with little hope that a new nuclear accord with Iran is possible.
Trita Parsi is co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East.
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Was it possible for the leaders of the new American republic to end slavery entirely? Was the violent dispossession of Native peoples inevitable? These questions are integral to the eminent historian Joseph Ellis' new book about what he calls the two major failures of the revolutionary generation, "The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding."
Other questions to consider while listening are whether the Constitution consisted of compromises over slavery or capitulations to Southern slave interests. Also, whether Native Americans' views of land and property could ever be compatible with those of land-hungry white settlers.
Further listening (America250 series):
Episode 1 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky Episode 2 w/ Kate Carté Episode 3 w/ Alan Taylor Episode 4 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky Episode 5 w/ Jim Oakes Episode 6 w/ Sean Wilentz Episode 7 w/ H.W. Brands Episode 8 w/ Alan Taylor
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Is Congress irreparably broken or temporarily stuck as it fails to act as a co-equal branch of government willing to check a rogue executive? And how did it get this way? In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the winds of political change swept young, ambitious reformers into the halls of Congress, and they left an important legislative legacy. But in the decades since, Congress' potential to affect meaningful change — and prevent unnecessary wars — has been whittled away. Maya Kornberg is here to explain why.
Maya Kornberg is a senior research fellow at NYU Law's Brennan Center for Justice, and the author of Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress.
Further listening:
Iran and the Laws of War w/ Adil Haque
Obama and Libya w/ Jeremi Suri
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Have too many liberals and leftists given up on patriotism? Have they forgotten the tradition of social movements striving for equal political and economic rights as expressed in the country's founding ideals? Historian Michael Kazin says these ideals can be used "as both a benchmark against which to measure how far we have fallen short and a means of articulating the Constitution's vision of a more perfect union."
Michael Kazin teaches history at Georgetown University and is the author of "What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party."
Further reading:
The Left Needs to Rediscover its Patriotism by Michael Kazin (The Atlantic)
Howard Zinn's History Lessons by Michael Kazin (Dissent)
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Now well into its fifth year, Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to be a stalemate on the ground while the combatants seek a decisive edge in the air with drones and missiles. Diplomacy to end the war seems to be going nowhere. No one can say with any certainty how or when the war may end. Do the war's origins point toward an exit? Anatol Lieven is our guest.
Anatol Lieven is Director of the Eurasia Program and the Andrew Bacevich chair in American Diplomatic History at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
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Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby-Dick has something to teach us about democracy, citizenship, and the rule of law. A flop when published in the mid-nineteenth century, Moby-Dick has long been considered a quintessential American novel — an epic adventure story layered with allegory. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage revisits the novel with a focus on the character Starbuck, the first mate who clashes with Captain Ahab over his mad pursuit of the white whale.
Recommended reading:
Citizen Starbuck, or Democracy and the Whale by Michael Kimmage (Liberties Journal)
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This is a special episode of History As It Happens.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is dead. His office says Graham died from "a brief and sudden illness" on Saturday night in Washington. He was 71.
Graham was first elected to the U.S. House in 1994 and the Senate in 2002. He was seeking a fifth term in the midterm elections this November. After first condemning Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, the conservative Republican turned into one of Trump's most fawning supporters.
In this episode, University of Texas at Austin historian Jeremi Suri examines Graham's extensive legislative and political legacy. Jeremi Suri writes the Democracy of Hope newsletter on Substack.
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The discourse is drowning in -isms. President Trump is railing against an imaginary resurgence of communism. Many of its critics say the Trump administration is putting the country on the road to fascism. Others are trying to define something called Trumpism.
In this episode, historian Roger Griffin, one of the world's foremost experts on fascism and ideological movements, explains how these ideas developed over time through the prism of his own career.
Recommended reading:
The Nature of Fascism by Roger Griffin
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When the Trump administration attacked Iran in late February, some war backers dreamt that the Iranian people would rise en masse and take control of their country. It proved to be a dangerous fantasy. But then the history of U.S.-Iran relations is full of cruel ironies. More than 70 years ago, a democrat and nationalist named Mohammad Mossadegh galvanized the Iranian people and tried to liberate his country from foreign domination, only to be betrayed by the United States. Historian Roham Alvandi is our guest.
Further listening:
Operation Ajax (podcast w/ Gregory Brew)
Recommended reading:
Patriot of Persia by Christopher de Bellaigue
America and Iran by John Ghazvinian
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This is the eighth episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial.
By the time the delegates at the Continental Congress formally declared independence in July 1776, the armed rebellion had been underway for more than a year. General George Washington had been in the field since the summer of '75. The men of the Continental Army saw little glory throughout a bloody, prolonged conflict during which they were often half-naked and hungry. More men died from disease than from enemy bullets. In this episode, historian Alan Taylor tells us what it was like to be a soldier fighting the British and fellow Americans who stayed loyal to the crown.
Recommended reading:
American Revolutions, A Continental History, 1750-1804 by Alan Taylor
Further listening (America250 series):
Episode 1 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky Episode 2 w/ Kate Carté Episode 3 w/ Alan Taylor Episode 4 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky Episode 5 w/ Jim Oakes Episode 6 w/ Sean Wilentz Episode 7 w/ H.W. Brands
Go to historyasithappens.com to learn more.
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