Episodes

  • Episode 385: Golden Years

    Episode 385: Golden Years
    Nov 25 2024
    When did old age in America first begin? That is, when did we first begin to conceive ideas about a stage of life in which older people no longer participated in the labor force, but nevertheless had a meaningful place in the world, deserving of respect, security, and dignity. My guest James Chappel argues that this is an idea that became prominent in the American consciousness at a certain point in time–namely, the 1935 Social Security Act. It was, he believes, one of the key moments in the cultural transformations of how Americans think about old age, and how we treat the aged. These ideas and moments were shaped by activists, practical politicians, medical advancements, and cultural models ranging from Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward to the TV show “The Golden Girls.” James Chappel is the Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center. The author of Catholic Modern, his interests are in the intellectual history of modern Europe and the United States, focusing on themes of religion, gender, and the family. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. His most recent book is The Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, and it is the subject of our conversation today.
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    56 mins
  • Episode 384: Intent to Destroy

    Episode 384: Intent to Destroy
    Nov 22 2024
    Many were shocked in February 2022 by the Russian attempt to seize Kyiv and decapitate the Ukranian regime, thereby ending the war begun in 2014. But this was simply the latest in a long series of Russian attempts to “divide and oppress Ukraine.” Since the 19th century, dominating Ukraine has been a cornerstone of Russia’s national identity. To prevent Ukraine from choosing an alternative, Russian rulers of all ideological varieties have used not only history and cultural destruction as their methods, but executions, deportations, and famine. It is not very surprising, argues my guest Eugene Finkel, that these tools of oppression should be so readily picked up by yet another Russian autocrat. What makes this moment different is that for the first time in its history Ukraine has overcome its internal divisions and united in favor of independence from Russia. Eugene Finkel is Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. The author or coauthor of three previous books, his writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Affairs. He was born in Lviv, Ukraine, and lives in Bologna, Italy. His most recent book is Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine. For Further Investigation Eugene Finkel's previous books include Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017) This conversation is related in some way to a surprising number of previous podcasts. One with Chris Miller on the perennial Russian pivot to Asia that always fails; you can hear a little about the Russian wars against the Turks for Ukraine in Episode 284, when I discussed the career of Russia's greatest general with Alex Mikaberidze; something about Ukrainian grain in my conversation with Scott Nelson about his book Oceans of Grain; a long conversation about Josef Pilsudski, founder of modern Poland; and Episode 348, about the Russian Civil War. And of course my conversation with Michael Kimmage in Episode 354 about the immediate antecedents of the Ukrainian War. Listeners who believe in comparing arguments–and you should all believe in that–ought to listen to Kimmage immediately after digesting this podcast.
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Episode 383: Quaker Founder

    Episode 383: Quaker Founder
    Nov 18 2024
    As today’s guest writes in the introduction of her new book Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson, “For more than two hundred years, John Dickinson has suffered from an image problem that no one in his day would have thought possible." In Signers’ Hall at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the statue of John Dickinson stands alone in a corner, hand pensively on chin, apart from the action of the Federal Convention…Alternatively, they might imagine him in the manner of the musical 1776, strutting across a stage, ever to the right, never to the left, with ruffles aflutter, singing jubilantly about his conservatism. There he at least possesses the virtue of energy. Or they could imagine him as HBO’s pale, sweaty, scowling disbeliever in the American cause, opposite a stalwart John Adams. But none of these images of him is accurate.” That is if we have any images of him in our heads at all–which, to be honest, is highly unlikely. This conversation aims to change that. Jane E. Calvert is Founding Director and Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project, which under her guidance has produced three of a projected 13 volumes of Dickinson’s prolific output. She is the authority on Quaker political thought, which she has delineated in Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson. Penman of the Founding is now the definitive biography of John Dickinson, and hopefully the basis for much more scholarly work.
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Episode 382: Women and the Reformations

    Episode 382: Women and the Reformations
    Nov 8 2024
    A forensic reconstruction of Saint Rose of Lima From the early 16th century, and for over two hundred years after that, a series of convulsions within the Christian church of Western Europe led to its splintering, but also to an incredibly rapid movement of ideas and practices to the four corners of the earth. These convulsions—or reformations—were responsible not only for changes in the practice and beliefs of Christianity, but dramatic social and cultural changes everywhere they occurred. Even though these changes have usually been told as the story of men, women were often at the heart of these reformations. On every continent with the exception of Antarctica—which, to be fair, was undiscovered and therefore unpopulated—women drove forward the transformations of religious life. From royal thrones and the homes of prominent reformers, to the monasteries in Peru and the shores of the southernmost home island of Japan, the stories of how women participated in these reformations gives us not only a fuller picture of these extraordinary events, but a new way of thinking about them and defining them. My guest Merry Wiesner-Hanks is distinguished professor of history and women’s and gender studies emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author or editor of thirty books, the most recent of which is Women and the Reformations: A Global History, which is the subject of our conversation today. For Further Investigation Previous conversations somewhat related to this one are with Ron Rittgers on Luther's reformation; with Tara Nummedal on Anna Ziegelerin and the curious case of the Lion's blood; and with Michael Winship on "the warmer sort of Protestants" "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Herrnhut Jon Sensbach, Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • Episode 381: Philosophy to the People

    Episode 381: Philosophy to the People
    Nov 4 2024
    His lectures at the College de France were so popular that people arrived at the lecture hall at least an hour in advance. When he finally spoke, it was standing room only, with men literally climbing in the windows. During his first visit to New York, his presence on the Columbia University campus caused one of the earliest recorded traffic jams. And when the French government sought to encourage the United States to enter the war in 1917, they chose him as one of their principal emissaries, given his intellectual heft and worldwide celebrity. This was the philosopher Henri Bergson, and if you are an English speaker you might be forgiven for not knowing about him, or having heard the name once or twice, but not being aware of why. He was in many ways emblematic of the Belle Epoque, and as that era was interred in hastily dug trenches during the autumn of 1914, Bergson’s celebrity and influence seemed to be buried with it. But celebrity was not his goal; philosophy was, and his celebrity often obscured his ideas. With me to discuss the life, ideas, and world of Henri Bergson is Emily Herring. She received her PhD in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Leeds. The focus of our conversation today is her new book Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People, which is the first English-language biography of Bergson. For Further Investigation An earlier philosopher who once lived in Clermont Ferrand Zeno's paradoxes An essay explaining some of the mysteries of French higher education An introductory essay by Emily Herring to Henri Bergson I was ready and waiting for a book on Henri Bergson because of my conversation with Michael Rapport about Paris in Episode 360
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Episode 380: Madrid

    Episode 380: Madrid
    Oct 28 2024
    For nearly five centuries Madrid has been the capital of Spain, and the focus of frequent contempt by foreign visitors, as well as the scorn and hatred of Spaniards. Prime Minister Manuel Azaña Díaz, born just 31 kilometers from Madrid, would write that in “Madrid there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to see. Madrid is a town without history. In Madrid, nothing has happened because in two centuries almost nothing has happened in Spain, and the little that has occurred has done so elsewhere.” But as my guest Luke Steggeman writes, “Madrid is both heart and head [of Spain], as per the custom of medieval manuscripts where countries were sometimes drawn as bodies with heads and hearts and limbs.” Moreover, “The story of Madrid is the story of power: royal, military, religious, and secular, cultural and economic.” It is also the story of power gained, power lost, power regained, power seized, and occasionally power unused. Luke Stegeman is a writer and cultural historian. Unlike any previous guest on this podcast, he is not only a self-described rural Australian, but a boxing referee. His most recent book is Madrid: A Biography, which is the subject of our conversation today. For Further Investigation San Lorenzo de El Escorial Museo Nacional del Prado Captain Alatriste: I don't often link to Wikipedia, but you should read the section "Adaptations", about why Pérez-Reverte wrote this series of historical novels. Benito Pérez Galdós
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Episode 379: Philadelphia

    Episode 379: Philadelphia
    Oct 14 2024
    It is no longer the largest city in America, or the second largest, or even the fifth largest, but there are still those of us who love it. While modern American cities are all racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse, it has always been so, from before it was even a city. Modern American cities, simply because of size, are also stages for a variety of conflicts, and this city has from its beginning enjoyed a good conflict. Modern American cities boil with debates over planning and land use, and such debates have always been a part of its history; as has been a perennial American suspicion towards the very existence of cities. Modern American cities are also places where the past is paved over, and oddly enough, given the depth of its history, this city has also made a habit of forgetting its past. This city is Philadelphia. From before the founding of the city by William Penn, the region that would become Philadelphia was diverse, and also in conflict. Penn famously designed it to be a “green country town”, but that design has gone through many alterations and changes. And while Philadelphia hosts some of the most significant spots in American history, it has also been good at eliminating and forgetting its own history. With me to discuss the history of the city of Philadelphia, what makes it like other American cities, and what makes it different from them, is Paul Kahan. A historian and graduate of Temple University–the most Philadelphian of educational institutions–Paul Kahan is author most recently of Philadelphia: A Narrative History. It is his seventh book.
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Episode 378: Old New World

    Episode 378: Old New World
    Oct 7 2024
    For a few hundred years, the New World of the Americas was thought to be genuinely new. But in the course of the nineteenth century, Americans became increasingly uncertain about the ground beneath their feet. Canal building uncovered strange creatures like enormous crabs; seams of coal were determined to be fossilized forests. And while no living mammoths or mastodons were discovered in the lands west of the Mississippi, their bones were; and so were the bones of still stranger creatures, some of them just a few miles from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. These and many other discoveries led to a still greater discovery, not simply of dinosaurs, or geological ages, or even of evolutionary biology, but a concept that lies beneath all of them, what the writer John McPhee has called “Deep Time.” In her new book How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution, Caroline Winterer roams about the continent, from Haddonfield, New Jersey, to Yosemite, uncovering how Americans began to realize that their continent and world was very, very old indeed. Caroline Winterer is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University, and Professor by courtesy of Classics. She specializes in American history before 1900, especially the history of ideas, political thought, and the history of science. Her previous books include American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason. For Further Investigation I note with pleasure that How the New World Became Old has blurbs from past HT guests Marcia Bjornerud, Suzanne L. Marchand, and Adrienne Mayor Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (1983; repr. 2003). Martin Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial Representations of the Prehistoric World (1992). Stephanie Moser, Ancestral Images: The Iconography of Human Origins (1998). Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico (1987)
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    1 hr and 12 mins