Stay ConnectedBob Crawford (The Avett Brothers) & Dr. Ben Sawyer (MTSU History) share conversations with great thinkers from a variety of backgrounds – historians, artists, legal scholars, political figures and more –who help us uncover the many roads that run between past and present.
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Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 marked the end of the American Civil War, but it was just one of many times that officers and soldiers faced the reality of surrender. Throughout the four years of the war, approximately one in four soldiers surrendered to the opposing army. In this episode, David Silkenat explains how looking at surrender as both an experience and a set of codes offers a new and insightful perspective on the Civil War and those who lived through it.
Dr. David Silkenat is Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Edinburgh and author of four books, including Waving the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War (UNC Press, 2019). He is also the cohost of The Whiskey Rebellion podcast alongside Frank Cogliano. You can follow David on twitter at @davidsilkenat.
This episode is a rebroadcast of RTN #135, which originally aired on July 8th 2019.
This episode was originally edited by Gary Fletcher. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Jenna Spinelle joins Ben & Bob for a discussion about her new podcast, When the People Decide, which traces the origins of ballot initiatives in the United States and their impact on American politics in recent years.
Jenna Spinelle is the Communications Specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, where she also teaches classes in the college of communications. You can follow her on twitter at @JennaSpinelle.
To learn more about the differences between initiatives and popular referenda and which states allow citizens to directly propose laws, visit The National Conference of State Legislatures' guide to the Initiative and Referendum Processes.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
One episode. Two historians/podcasters. Four stories from American history that you've probably never heard. And an unknown number of listeners that we hope will find these stories as fascinating and surprising as we do.
Greg Jackson is the creator of History That Doesn't Suck and a Professor at Utah Valley University. Ben Sawyer hosts this podcast and has been teaching history at the university level for over a decade and a half. You might think that at this point they've heard it all, but when you keep digging into history, it just keeps surprising you. In this episode, Greg and Ben each share two stories that they discovered in the last year that they found to be the most fascinating. Enjoy!
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Since 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located in Cleveland, Ohio has worked to engage, inspire and teach people about the power of Rock music and the musicians. During a recent Avett Brothers tour stop in Cleveland, Bob dropped by the RRHF and spoke with Rock Hall director of guest experience John Goehrke about the history of hall and the broad definition of the term "Rock and Roll" the hall uses in the induction process.
If you enjoy this episode, check out our patron-only bonus episode!: Bob and Avett Brother's tour manager, Dane Honeycutt, get a tour of the Hall of Fame's vault from Joe Wickens, Rock Hall's collections and exhibits manager. Get the episode (and more) while supporting our work at Patreon.com/TheRoadToNow.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
George Carlin had a comedy career that spanned half a century, and his take on the US remains relevant more than a decade after his death in 2008. The new HBO documentary George Carlin's American Dream tells Carlin's story as he evolved from a clean-cut comic in the 1950s into the edgy critic who remains one of the most influential comedians of all time. In this episode, Michael Bonfiglio, who directed the film (along with Judd Apatow) and Kliph Nesteroff, a historian of comedy who is featured in the film, join Bob & Ben for a conversation about the life and times of George Carlin.
If you enjoy this episode, check out our previous conversation w/ Michael in episode #174 Direction w/ Michael Bonfiglio.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Long-time friend of RTN Doug Heye returns to share his take on the state of politics in the US. Doug has served as communications director for the Republican National Committee, chief-of-staff to House majority leader Eric Cantor and has been active in national politics since the 1990s. Our conversation covers the recent primary elections, the prospects for the midterm elections this fall and, in a transition that's increasingly easy to make, professional wrestling.
You can follow Doug on twitter at @DougHeye. This is Doug's fifth appearance on RTN, and if you haven't heard our episode w/ Doug, Rufus Edmiston & Molly Worthen recorded live at Cat's Cradle in January 2022 (RTN #158), we highly recommend you check that one out!
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
On August 15, 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the United States to say farewell to the country whose independence he helped secure more than four decades earlier. Over the next 15 months, Lafayette visited all 24 states, meeting with old friends and attending celebrations hosted by Americans who flocked to see the last-living Major General of the Revolutionary War whose close friendships with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson shaped both the American and French Revolutions.
Since 2017, Julien Icher has been working to document the 5,000 mile journey that Lafayette took during his farewell visit. Icher, himself a Frenchman, has a remarkable skill set that combines the best of primary source-based research with the technical knowledge required for digital mapping. The result is The Lafayette Trail– a publicly accessible map that allows users to see Lafayette's physical route, as well as the people, places and events he encountered along the way.
In this episode, Julien joins Ben to talk about Lafayette's contribution to American Independence, his life after returning to France, and the farewell tour that inspired Julien to create The Lafayette Trail. We also speak about the history of Franco-American friendship and why both countries are better when we work together.
For more on The Lafayette Trail, check out their YouTube channel. Since April 2021, Julien has been posting episodes of his travels in the series "Follow the Frenchman." You can also follow the project on twitter at @LafayetteTrail.
This is a rebroadcast of RTN #132, which originally aired on June 9, 2019. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Heather Cox Richardson returns to the show to talk history, politics, and life in general. Heather shares her thoughts on what history has to teach us about navigating division and finding unity, the sources she thinks are critical in following US policy, and why she remains optimistic despite increasing polarization in American society. She also discusses what she's learned from her public engagement work on facebook and from "Letters From an American," where she has published her thoughts daily for over two years now.
Dr. Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College and co-host of the Now & Then podcast (w/ Joanne Freeman). She is also the author of multiple books including West From Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (Yale Univ. Press, 2008) and, most recently, How the South Won the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2000). You can follow her on twitter at @HC_Richardson.
If you enjoy this episode, check out our previous conversations w/ Heather Cox Richardson in RTN episode #177 How the South Won the Civil War and #38 The History of the Republican Party.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Brian Rosenwald joins Bob and Ben to talk about the state of American political media, its impact on the divide between Democrats & Republicans, and how the party primary election process in most states exacerbates the problem. Brian also discusses his book Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took over a Political Party that Took Over the United States, (Harvard University Press, 2019) and how his conclusions are holding up three years after publication.
Dr. Brian Rosenwald is scholar in Residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Media Administration and Leadership Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and senior editor of Made By History, a Washington Post history section. You can follow him on twitter at @brianros1.
If you enjoy this episode, check out Brian's previous appearances on the Road to Now in episodes #30 The Origins of Conservative Talk Radio and #142 How Talk Radio Took Over the Republican Party.
This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Hidetaka Hirota joins Bob and Ben for a conversation about the history of immigration law in the United States and the ways that government officials have decided who could and could not enter the United States. Hidetaka discusses the creation of Federal immigration law and the ways that looking at state immigration policies in the early to mid-19th century can help us understand the Immigration and Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882.
Dr. Hidetaka Hirota is Associate Professor of History at the University of California Berkeley who specializes in the history of US immigration. His book Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) has won multiple awards.
Want to support The Road to Now and get extra episodes and other content? Join us on Patreon!
This is a rebroadcast of RTN #126 which originally aired on April 8, 2019. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
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