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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Bob and Ben talk about some of the incredible resources that are now available electronically and how they have opened up new opportunities for historians. Bob talks about how his research on Monsanto, which he's conducting for his US business history seminar, is adding to his greater project on the history of the Research Triangle Park and Apex, NC. Ben also talks about some of his interesting finds working in Russian archives and how publicly-accessible databases have provided some valuable material for his work.
Brian Rosenwald joins Ben and Bob to discuss his new book Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took Over A Party That Took Over the United States, which traces the emergence of talk radio as a major powerhouse in shaping the Republican Party. Brian explains how conservative talk radio and hosts such as Rush Limbaugh came to have tremendous influence over the GOP's policy agenda, ultimately laying the groundwork for Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 Republican Primary. Brian also discusses how his conclusions have changed since his first appearance on RTN in November 2016.
Dr. Brian Rosenwald is a scholar in residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and an instructor at Penn. He also conducts research for the Slate podcast Whistlestop, and serves as one of the two Editors-In-Chief of Made By History, a Washington Post history section. You can follow him on twitter at @Brianros1.
Want to hear our first conversation with Brian Rosenwald? You can get it and the other first seventy-five episodes of RTN, along with Patereon exclusive episodes and other bonus material, by supporting The Road to Now on Patreon for as little as $5 a month! Click here to find out more.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
The Netflix series The Last Czars and HBO's Chernobyl have (in very different ways) brought Russian & Soviet history to televisions across the world. In this episode, Ben sits down with fellow Russian historians Philippa Hetherington and Jonathan Waterlow to discuss their opinions on the two series, what they think they got right, and ways that producers and scholars might benefit most from collaboration on future projects. Philippa, who is a featured scholar in The Last Czars, shares her experience being interviewed, her impression of the show after seeing it, and her work to correct historical errors that viewers identified after release.
Dr. Philippa Hetherington is a Lecturer in Modern Eurasian History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. Her research focuses on the legal history of imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union in global and transnational context. You can follow Philippa on twitter at @philippahether.
Dr. Jonathan Waterlow is the author of It's Only a Joke Comrade! Humor, Trust and Everyday Life Under Stalin, and cohost of the Voices in the Dark podcast. He received his Doctorate in History from the University of Oxford and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at St. Anthony's College (Oxford) and the University of Toronto. For more on It's Only a Joke Comrade!, check out RTN #107 Laughing at Stalin: The Politics of Humor w/ Jon Waterlow or pick up a copy by clicking here. You can follow Jon on twitter at @JonWaterlow.
The Road to Now is part of The Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Coca-Cola is one of the most well-known products on planet earth, but did you ever wonder how a brown fizzy drink fueled the rise of a corporate juggernaut? The answer, says Ohio State historian Bartow Elmore, has everything to do with its business structure. In this episode, Bart offers his take on how Coke went from Atlanta soda parlors in the late 19th century to markets across the globe in less than a century, all along reaping tremendous benefits from public infrastructure while passing the bulk of its environmental costs on to others. Bart also talks about the difficulties of doing research on powerful corporations, why he thinks we should care about environmental history, and the meaning of what he calls "Coca-Cola Capitalism."
Dr. Bartow Elmore is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University. His book, Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2015) won the Axiom Business Book Award for best business commentary in 2015 and the Council of Graduate Schools 2016 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities. He is currently researching the history of Monsanto. You can follow him on twitter at @BartElmore.
You can get Citizen Coke on audiobook at libro.fm. Click here & enter promo code RTN at checkout to get this book & 3 more for just $15!
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Technology is transforming the production & availability of knowledge. Many experts predict AI & nanotechnology will soon bring about a fundamental change in the ways we work, relate to one another, and are known, while skeptics point to the industrial revolution to dismiss these concerns. In this episode Ben speaks with Roy Wyman, who specializes in healthcare law and the relationship of technology to medicine, to find out how recent innovations are already affecting our lives, and where the future may take us.
Roy Wyman is Partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, where he is co-chair of the firm's Privacy & Security Industry Group and a member of the firm's healthcare regulatory and litigation team. You can read his articles on healthcare, security and technology by clicking here. He also designed and is the lead attorney for HIPAA2Z, an automated HIPAA privacy and security compliance tool offered by Nelson Mullins.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
We make sense of our place in the world through stories. Our history as individuals & communities is always present, but the parts of the story we emphasize, as well as those we forget, are crucial in understanding the world today and in shaping the decisions we make going forward. In this episode, Bob, Ben and professional storyteller Donna Washington speak about the power of story and its potential for helping inspire action in a live forum hosted by National Conference for State Legislatures' Executive Director Tim Storey as part of NCSL's Legislative Summit held in Nashville, TN on August 7, 2019.
A special thanks to Tim Storey and everyone at NCSL for the invitation to participate in the summit, and to Donna Washington for sharing her wisdom with us and the crowd. We're also grateful to all those who attended the panel and took the time to speak with us afterward.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. For more on the podcast, visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com. This episode was recorded by NCSL and edited by Gary Fletcher.
RTN Theology now is now on its own podcast feed! Subscribe anywhere you get The Road to Now for RTN Theology episodes 12-19 and more!
RTN Theology #11 features "America's Best Theologian" (according to Time Magazine), Stanley Hauerwas. Chris Breslin brings an intimate conversation from Dr. Hauerwas' office at Duke Divinity School that touches on the recent passing of his friend, Jean Vanier, the life of the church in the era of Trump, and what it means to become people of virtue and character. Professor and author, Dave Fitch chimes in with some of his favorite Hauerwasisms and the ways that Dr. Hauerwas has shaped his life and work. He also shares his most recent book project, The Church of Us vs. Them. We're also treated to a special reading of a chapter on the virtue of Justice by Stanley Hauerwas from his recent book of letters written to his Godson. Throughout the episode are selections from Deeper Well Music Collective's (Portland, OR) new release, Volume III.
For more on this episode and a full bibliography on the essential Hauerwas, check out our episode page by clicking here.
The Road to Now is Part of the Osiris Podcast Network.
Creating games that are both fun and educational takes a lot of work, but Digitalmill's Ben Sawyer has been doing it successfully for more than two decades. In this episode we speak with Ben about the art of creating serious games and his work on the American Revolution-based game "Revolutionary Choices."
Just to clarify: Yes, there are two Ben Sawyers on this episode. People have confused them before, which is how they met. But we promise you'll be able to tell them apart on this episode.
To find out more about Revolutionary Choices, check out the game's website: www.RevChoicesGame.org.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
When the city of Apex, NC was founded in 1873, it was little more than a railroad stop with a tiny rural population. In the last half-century, however, the development of the Research Triangle Park has thrust the town into the 21st century with tremendous force, with the population increasing more than tenfold in the last three decades. In spite of all this change, Apex has retained its historic beauty and continues to be a highly-desirable place to live. In this episode, Bob talks about his research on Apex, which he conducted as part of his graduate coursework at Arizona State University.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
When the city of Apex, NC was founded in 1873, it was little more than a railroad stop with a tiny rural population. In the last half-century, however, the development of the Research Triangle Park has thrust the town into the 21st century with tremendous force, with the population increasing more than tenfold in the last three decades. In spite of all this change, Apex has retained its historic beauty and continues to be a highly-desirable place to live. In this episode, Bob talks about his research on Apex, which he conducted as part of his graduate coursework at Arizona State University.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
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