History As It Happens

On this 78th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France, military historian Cathal Nolan discusses the chaos and confusion that prevailed over the early hours of the largest amphibious assault in history. Yet despite mishaps and setbacks that are unavoidable in major combat, the Allied forces captured the five beaches along the Normandy coast by the end of June 6, 1944. The Germans missed their chance to repel the invaders, but was it a decisive battle on the road to victory in the Second World War? Nolan argues decisive battles are almost always a mirage.

With the midterm elections approaching and Democrats expecting to be drubbed, it's time to ask whether the party has made any progress fixing its white working-class voter problem. But something that took decades to develop, caused in part by massive structural changes in the global economy, cannot be undone in a few short years. In this episode, Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin, author of "What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party," discusses the rise and fall of the Democrats' working-class dominance from the triumphs of the New Deal to emergence of Trumpism.

The U.S. Supreme Court, one of our bedrock judicial institutions, has been on the wrong side of history time and again. But as the arbiter of the Constitution, the Supreme Court is indispensable to the functioning of democracy. In this episode, esteemed constitutional scholar Akhil Amar discusses some of the court's most notorious rulings, starting with Dred Scott in 1857. And as the current court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Amar draws parallels between Roe and Dred Scott that explain why the robed justices have never been beyond the reach of criticism for, in the eyes of the critics, botching the Constitution.

Take a look at a map of the NATO countries today and compare it to one from 1989. It's a remarkable change. And what once seemed far-fetched is now close to becoming reality. That is, almost all of Europe will belong to NATO right up to Russia's borders. But Finland's and Sweden's applications to join the alliance, prompted by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, may be blocked by NATO's only Asian member, Turkey. In this episode, historians Timothy Sayle and Howard Eissenstat break down Europe's changing geopolitics. Learn why Sweden and Finland are shedding decades of non-alignment and why Turkey, one of NATO's earliest members, is moving closer to the Kremlin.

Replacement theory -- the racist ideology that claims elites are abetting immigrants to disempower or eliminate native white people -- has been around in one form or another for a long time. The current iteration has gone mainstream, leading to widespread condemnation of some Republican politicians and conservative commentators who have embraced the theory's central premises. Fear and suspicion of foreigners underpins nativism, and America's first nativist movement took hold in the 1850s. Who were the Know Nothings? They weren't around for long but they left their mark.

Long before Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right to an abortion -- indeed, centuries before abortion became one of the most divisive issues in American society -- ending a pregnancy before "quickening" was commonplace in the colonial era and not very controversial, either. That began to change in the mid-nineteenth century when some medical professionals joined a campaign to criminalize all abortions, led by Dr. Horatio Storer. In this episode, historians Anna Peterson and Eric Foner discuss the history of abortion before Roe and the origins, purposes, and legacy of the Fourteenth Amendment, which laid the foundation for Roe v. Wade a century after it was ratified in the wake of the Civil War.

This is the fourth installment in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the American founding. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he invoked the historic struggle to make America a more equal society. The civil rights movement to which Johnson referred did not begin, however, in the twentieth or even the nineteenth century. The first civil rights activists emerged from the radical impulses of the American Revolution, and they employed the language in the Constitution to make their case in newspapers, courtrooms, and state houses for equal rights and full citizenship for Black people. Historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kate Masur, author of "Until Justice Be Done," tells us about the achievements and setbacks that marked the fight for civil rights in the antebellum U.S.

Elon Musk's anticipated acquisition of Twitter sent a major ripple across America's endless debates over free expression. The fact is, the question of who gets to say what and where has always been thorny in American society. Not until the twentieth century did the Supreme Court embrace our current, expansive view of the First Amendment. Today the battle is being fought in the cultural space, where social media platforms -- all private companies with their own First Amendment right to moderate posts -- are under pressure to remove "offensive" content and mis- and disinformation. In this episode, Lynn Greenky, author of "When Freedom Speaks," discusses why Americans are fighting one another over this precious freedom.

Chinese president Xi Jinping, the country's most powerful leader since Mao, is inflexibly pursuing a policy to eliminate the transmission of COVID-19. Shanghai, population 26 million, is locked down. People are virtual prisoners in their own homes and the lockdowns are crushing the economy. But world health experts say it is impossible to eradicate the highly contagious coronavirus. The Mercatus Center's Weifeng Zhong, who analyzes reams of Chinese state propaganda to discern policy shifts, explains what's behind Xi's fanatical campaign to achieve the impossible.

History teaches us that the war in Ukraine will most likely end in a negotiated settlement. The Second World War was an anomaly insofar the Allies demanded unconditional surrender from their enemies, and then conquered Germany and Japan in total victory. Most wars fought since 1945 dragged on for years in indecisive fighting until some kind of settlement was reached, often unsatisfactory to all involved. In this episode, Texas Tech military historian Ron Milam, who is a Vietnam combat veteran, talks about the deal that ended U.S. involvement in the war he fought, as well as where the war in Ukraine may be going.

The Biden administration's efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran are on the brink of collapse, leading experts to fear the two countries could enter a new era of suspicion and even outright conflict. Since 1979 the U.S. and Iran have had no formal diplomatic ties, their relationship marked by distrust and hostility. The ongoing animosity has created a self-fulfilling prophecy where Iran is now closer to having enough enriched uranium to build a bomb than it had before the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 deal. In this episode, historian John Ghazvinian and foreign policy expert Trita Parsi discuss the potential consequences for the world if the latest negotiations end in failure.

Vladimir Putin's version of history is the foundation of his war in Ukraine. According to Russia's dictator, an independent Ukrainian state is a mistake of history and the notion of Ukrainian nationhood, with a distinct culture and language, is a fiction. In this episode, Anna Reid, a former Kyiv-based journalist and expert in Ukrainian history, takes us through Putin's distortions covering a thousand years, from the reign of Volodymyr the Great to the October Revolution and the killing fields of the Second World War. Ukraine may have achieved true statehood for the first time in 1991, but the Ukrainian nation goes back centuries.

During the Cold War, the fear of nuclear war suffused the culture in hundreds of books and movies, in classroom "duck and cover" drills and in debates on college campuses, and in the arena of international relations. But that cultural awareness has faded over the past 30 years -- until now. As Russia's war in Ukraine grinds on, the possibility, however remote, of a nuclear exchange is more front of mind that it has been in decades. In this episode, national security expert Joe Cirincione, who has spent 40 years working on non-proliferation, discusses why the world may be closer to a nuclear crisis now than at any time since the Cold War. Calling Dr. Strangelove!

The odds are against anyone being brought to justice for atrocities committed in Ukraine. Despite mounting evidence that Russian forces executed civilians and targeted residential neighborhoods for bombardment, a successful prosecution of the perpetrators -- from military commanders in the field all the way up to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin -- before an international tribunal will be difficult. In the 76 years since the Nuremberg trials, which set the standard for punishing individuals for crimes against humanity, war crimes investigators have faced many obstacles. In this episode, former International Criminal Court prosecutor Alex Whiting explains the challenges confronting those seeking justice for victims of wars of aggression and atrocities.

History is full of what-ifs. What if in 1999 Russia's fading president Boris Yeltsin had handpicked someone other than Vladimir Putin to be his successor? What we do know is that Putin and his ruling circle steered Russia toward autocracy, and 22 years later the former KBG lieutenant colonel still rules with dictatorial powers. In this episode Julie Newton, an expert on Russian history and politics at Oxford University, discusses the set of circumstances that led Yeltsin to make his fateful choice, and the many reasons why the renewal of authoritarianism under a powerful state -- at odds with liberal Western traditions -- was not inevitable.

Is Ukraine the front line in a global struggle pitting democracy versus autocracy, liberalism versus illiberal nationalism? Political scientist Francis Fukuyama, author of the famous "The End of History and the Last Man," says liberal democracy is in recession across the globe, ceding the historic gains of the post-Cold War period. His view is meant to rebuke the arguments of the foreign policy realists, who contend that Ukraine's fate is not a vital U.S. national security interest. But Fukuyama says democratic states need one another, so what happens in Ukraine matters at home.

This is the third installment in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the American founding. Was the Constitution pro- or anti-slavery? Maybe that is the wrong question to ask, even though it remains the question at the heart of public discourse about the founding generation. In this episode, Sean Wilentz and James Oakes -- two major scholars of eighteenth and nineteenth century America -- argue the Constitution was a contested document that marked the beginning of a political conflict over the future of slavery and, therefore, the nature of American democracy. They reject race-centered interpretations that elide early political conflicts over enslavement and the hard-fought progress won by Black Americans and their white allies. The American Revolution was an event of world-historical importance, marking a turning point in the history of human enslavement because it gave life to the world's first abolitionist movement.

When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 the Obama administration responded with condemnation and sanctions. But the U.S. president refused to authorize the government sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine (although private arms exports were permitted). Obama viewed Russia as a regional power that could not be stopped from trying to military dominate Ukraine, if it so chose. He was not interested in containing Russia as if the Cold War hadn't ended. Today, some critics say Obama underestimated Vladimir Putin while failing to fully help Ukraine defend itself. In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri, the host of "This is Democracy" podcast, discusses the thorny relationship between foreign policy and domestic pressures. Obama may have misjudged Putin, but was he right about the limits of American power in Eastern Europe?

History provides some examples of what a peace settlement might look like between Russia and Ukraine. Finland's treaty with the Soviet Union in 1948 and the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 established neutrality for Finland and Austria during the Cold War. They would not join NATO or the Warsaw Pact. In this episode, Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft discusses the reasons why geopolitical realism, not idealism about democracy, must carry the day if Russia's war of aggression is to end with an agreement all sides can live with. Ukraine would agree to never join NATO in exchange for a Russian guarantee on its sovereignty.

An overwhelming majority of Americans agree the Supreme Court is an important institution, yet the confirmation process for its lifetime appointments has devolved into all-out partisan warfare and absurd political theater. Less is learned about the SCOTUS nominees than about the politics of the Senate inquisitors and the influence of outside activists. In this episode, political scientist Lawrence Baum, who has been following the high court for nearly 50 years, discusses the effects of hyper-partisanship on the credibility of the court and public perceptions. From Robert Bork in 1987 to Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022, a confirmation process that once rarely rejected nominees now proceeds almost entirely along party lines.

If you meander through the history of the 1930s, you will find any number of possible parallels with today's crisis in Eastern Europe. Aggressive powers, namely Germany and Italy, challenged the existing order by attacking or annexing weaker nations. Today some American politicians are warning that "appeasing" Vladimir Putin -- which is meant to invoke the infamous Munich Conference of 1938 -- will only lead to more war. But such parallels are weak, says historian Ian Kershaw, the author of an unparalleled, two-volume biography of Hitler. If there is anything to learn from the 1930s, it is the importance of not drawing the wrong lessons. Still, some comparisons may work. That is, the inherent weaknesses of democracies, then and now, in facing up to the threats of dictators. And Kershaw stresses the importance of ideological motivations on the part of such figures as Hitler and Putin -- motivations that were overlooked by the West.

Military historian Max Hastings, an acclaimed chronicler of the twentieth century's terrible wars, says Ukraine's defenders are inspiring the world with their courage and resilience in the face of Russia's unprovoked onslaught. But Hastings says Russia remains enormously powerful compared to Ukraine, and therefore may batter its way to something Putin can call victory. In this episode, Hastings discusses the Russian way of war, the prospects for a negotiated settlement, the ideas motivating Putin's revanchism, and the parallels with the previous century's ethno-nationalist conflicts.

This is the second episode in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the American founding. The first episode with historian Joseph Ellis dropped on Feb. 1. In a sense it may seem odd that Americans continue to argue over what the Constitution says about slavery. After all, the South's "peculiar institution" was forever abolished in 1865. But we know this is not merely an academic issue or legalistic debate. The racism that underpinned human chattel slavery in the antebellum United States persisted in new forms after the Civil War. New interpretations, from The 1619 Project on the left to 1776 Unites on the right, have emerged amid a tumultuous reckoning with the nation's past, forcing us to revisit the morally unresolvable contradictions of the founding generation. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor weighs in on why the Constitution's compromises over (and protections for) slavery often overshadow the importance of abolition in modern discourse.

Cold War historian Mary Elise Sarotte says a new, more dangerous form of that 20th century conflict may descend upon Europe because of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The nuclear weapons are still around, although fewer in number, but gone are the climate of detente, mutual trust, and most of the major arms control treaties that marked the end of the Reagan years and the early 1990s. The author of "Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate," Sarotte argues the way NATO expanded to the east helped ruin U.S.-Russia relations, but it is far from the only explanation for a war launched by Russian revanchists.

What if Russia were a thriving democratic society today? Would there be war in Ukraine? Maybe these are impossible questions to answer at the moment, but important as it is to consider the factor of NATO enlargement after the Cold War, it is equally vital to understand Russian's internal dynamics when assessing the causes of Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. When the USSR left the historical stage, the new Russian state tried to complete the transition from Communist dictatorship and a command economy to democracy and free market capitalism. Well before Vladimir Putin rose to power, this transition, which would have been difficult under the best of circumstances, had already disastrously failed. In this episode Veronica Anghel, an expert on Eastern European politics and security, discusses the critical 1990s in Russia, as well as what the war in Eastern Europe today will mean for "strongman politics" and refugees.

This conversation with Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin was featured on C-SPAN's 'American History TV.' Kazin discusses his new book, "What It Took To Win," which is about the history of the Democratic Party from its 19th century origins to present.

"There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin," former Vice President Mike Pence is said to have told an audience of GOP donors in the days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Why would a major Republican politician need to clarify that? The de facto leader of the party, Donald Trump, had praised Putin in a radio interview, and then at CPAC Trump defended his remarks. Things have gotten so strange that Rep. Liz Cheney, stalwart conservative, says her party now has a "Putin wing." In this episode, The National Review's Charles C. W. Cooke discusses why some figures on the right have taken this illiberal lurch. Most conservatives, Cooke says, disdain Putin for a ruthless tyrant, not someone worthy of admiration.

When Nixon opened doors to China a half century ago, that country was reeling from the cascading disasters of Mao's rule. Today, China is vying to surpass the U.S. position in global leadership. If the American empire is itself in terminal decline, then what of the broader world order established by American power after 1945, an order based on the inviolability of national borders and the principle of universal human rights? In this episode, historian Alfred McCoy argues the world is witnessing a historic shift from the West to the East, and China will soon be the preeminent economic and military power on the Eurasian landmass. But will climate change upend China's ambitions? The science on rising seal levels and warming temperatures is clear: yes.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is "a very dangerous beast," says preeminent military historian Antony Beevor. As war rages in Ukraine, an unpredictable dictator may risk expanding the war to involve NATO members such as the Baltic states. Putin has fallen into the same trap as past Russian and Soviet leaders, obsessed with a perceived encirclement by implacable, hostile powers to the west. In this episode, Sir Antony Beevor explains the deep historical roots of the conflict in Eastern Europe, and the ways in which Putin is trying to turn back the clock to an imperial past.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is raising questions left unresolved in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, when President George Bush hoped to bequeath to his successors a peaceful, stable Europe whose nations would remain part of NATO. Among those questions is whether Russia would integrate with Europe, as the Soviet Union's former republics (such as the Baltic states) and satellite states (such as Poland) joined the Western military alliance. With its unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Russia has turned into a pariah state as President Vladimir Putin attempts to reverse his nation's diminished geopolitical status. In this episode, historian Jeffrey Engel discusses the causes of the first major war in Eastern Europe since 1945. It was not inevitable that relations between the West and the former Soviet Union would deteriorate, but certain problems – such as NATO's enlargement, Ukraine's pro-West revolution in 2014, and Putin's revanchist ideas – helped pave the road to war in 2022.

In 1965, after overcoming the threat of a filibuster, large bipartisan majorities in Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act. The act was reauthorized five times from 1970 through 2006 with the support of both Democratic and Republican presidents. But in the America of 2022, Democrats' two major voting rights bills have almost no Republican support. The GOP says the bills amount to a partisan power grab and are unnecessary because voter turnout has been strong. Democrats argue minority voting rights are under threat. How did we get to this point? Historian Peniel Joseph explains why the bipartisan consensus around voting rights has dissolved.

Did you know that since 1860 more than 400 rabbis have delivered the opening prayer or blessing that starts each day of Congress? In a nation founded upon religious toleration, articulated in George Washington's letter to the Jews of Newport in 1790, some remarkable rabbis have prayed at the very center of American democracy. We now know more about this overlooked slice of history because of Howard Mortman, the communications director at C-SPAN. His first book, "When Rabbis Bless Congress," documents the life and times of Jewish leaders who left their mark on the U.S. Capitol.

One year after President Biden pledged to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's offensive capabilities in Yemen's civil war, the war continues with no end in sight, and the U.S. remains just as complicit in one of worst humanitarian crises in the world. In this episode, Dr. Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft guides us through Yemen's recent history to explain what led to the disastrous Saudi intervention in 2015. Yemen is a place most Americans think little about, yet the Biden administration sent more than $1 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia in 2021 alone, so it could continue its deadly air campaign meant to drive Houthi rebels from power in Sana'a.

As U.S. officials issue daily warnings that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, each side in the crisis is claiming history as an ally. For the United States, NATO, and Ukraine, the post-WWII international order allows Kyiv to freely choose which alliances to join, free from Russian interference. For Moscow, old promises that NATO would expand 'not one inch' toward Russia's borders have been broken, needlessly antagonizing Russia in the same way Russian missiles in Canada would threaten the U.S. In this episode, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor and the Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven discuss and debate the reasons why Europe could be on the road to war.

The civilian toll of America's endless wars in the Greater Middle East is receiving fresh scrutiny. Reports detailing systemic weaknesses in the targeting of suspected militants spurred Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to order the Pentagon to improve its protections for the ordinary people who have died by the thousands in U.S. airstrikes since September 11, 2001. A series of reports by the New York Times documented several cases in which military officials covered up the unintentional slaughter of civilians. These tragedies, which are only sporadically noticed by ordinary Americans in the ongoing global war on terrorism, raise a deeper question: why does the public seem so indifferent to the deaths of others? In this episode, historian John Tirman explains the reasons why Americans have mostly ignored, downplayed, or even justified the deaths of civilians in the nation's post-WWII conflicts starting with the Korean War, when the U.S. military carpet bombed North Korea, up to and including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Can a generation gap help explain our problems? Among our seemingly intractable, even existential, dilemmas is the lack of trust among Americans toward our institutions and toward one another. Thanks to internet algorithms and hyper-partisan television channels and radio programs, it is possible to consume information 24/7 that only confirms, rather than challenges, one's political views or conceptions of science. This media landscape did not exist in the 1960s, when a generation gap was at the center of the nation's upheavals, when many Baby Boomers rejected the values of their parent's generation – the age cohort Tom Brokaw in 1989 dubbed the Greatest Generation. In this episode, historian Paul McBride takes us on a trip from the nineteen thirties to the sixties, explaining how events and movements shaped the different attitudes and outlooks of two distinct generations.

In the two years since the first known COVID-related death occurred in the United States, Americans have relentlessly argued about masks, school closings, business restrictions, and vaccinations, with personal politics often determining where one stands. The most important constant, however, has been a virus that pays no heed to political bickering or anti-vaccine fanaticism. Two years into the deadliest pandemic in a century, more than 2,200 Americans are dying daily from COVID-19, giving the United States a sharply higher death rate than other wealthy nations. The overwhelming majority of the deaths were unvaccinated people. In this episode, historian John Barry discusses what Americans, from political leaders to public health authorities and ordinary citizens, got right and what they got wrong about the pandemic, as the spread of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant begins to subside in some parts of the country.

This is the first episode in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the American founding. Each new episode will feature an interview with a different historian whose expertise covers the early Republic. In a sense it may seem odd that Americans continue to argue over what the Constitution says about slavery. After all, the South's "peculiar institution" was forever abolished in 1865. But we know this is not merely an academic issue or legalistic debate. The racism that underpinned human chattel slavery in the antebellum United States persisted in new forms after the Civil War. New interpretations, from The 1619 Project on the left to 1776 Unites on the right, have emerged amid a tumultuous reckoning with the nation's past, forcing us to revisit the morally unresolvable contradictions of the founding generation. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis discusses the deliberately ambiguous manner in which the Constitution was written, so it would reflect a series of compromises over, not an immediate solution to, slavery.

Thomas Hoenig has been worried about the Fed's easy money policies and inflation since the 1970s, the last time rising prices seriously ate into Americans' earnings before now. The former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Hoenig was known for his lone dissenting votes against Ben Bernanke's money-printing policies in 2010. Price inflation -- what you pay for groceries or gasoline -- was not Hoenig's sole concern. All along he has cautioned against fueling asset bubbles -- real estate, stock, houses -- by pumping too much money into the economy in the name of fighting unemployment and increasing demand. Now, as inflation spikes, Hoenig explains how to escape the inflationary disaster.

From the Erie Canal to the intercontinental railroad, from rural electrification projects to the interstate highway system, Americans built the massive infrastructure befitting a modern, wealthy nation. The benefits are undeniable, although dams and highways have complicated legacies of environmental degradation and urban displacement. Moreover, over the past several decades the old infrastructure has absorbed enormous sums just to maintain it, and the nation's new infrastructure plans have shrunk. In this episode, transportation historian Jonathan English discusses why it has become so difficult for American to build big anymore.

Why do serious historians fear American democracy is hanging by a thread, with parallels to the fall of the Weimar Republic? In this episode, Christopher Browning, an expert on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, argues eerie similarities exist between our current problems and the hyper-polarized environment of 1920s-30s Germany. The gravediggers of the Weimar Republic used the levers of power to undermine a system they despised, leading to the rise of Adolph Hitler. The United States today faces no such future, but Browning says Republicans loyal to Donald Trump are attacking the legitimacy of American elections while running for key local and state offices that oversee voting -- a kind of legal revolution to disadvantage their electoral opponents.

Formed by treaty in 1949 to defend Western Europe against the threat, real or perceived, of Soviet aggression, NATO has become the de facto defender of Ukraine's territorial integrity 30 years after the end of the Cold War. In this episode, historian Andrew Bacevich, the president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discusses NATO's strategic drift and the folly of its eastward expansion. The alliance's mission evolved from the containment of the USSR to humanitarian interventions and fighting terrorism, first in the Balkans and then in Afghanistan and Libya. And now, as Russia threatens to invade Ukraine, fundamental questions surround NATO's ultimate purpose. Bacevich says the U.S. should leave the alliance, recognizing that Ukraine's territorial integrity is not a vital national security interest.

After The 1619 Project sparked a scholarly uproar over its provocative reinterpretation of U.S. history, the longtime activist and social conservative Bob Woodson decided it was time for the public to hear from Black scholars, intellectuals, and activists who rejected The New York Times' controversial arguments. So he created the '1776 Unites' initiative. In this episode, Woodson discusses his approaches to activism, the study of history, and navigating America's relentless culture wars and racial antagonisms. Instead of rejecting the nation's founders and its founding principles because they were denied to generations of Americans, Woodson says we must unify around them to battle oppression.

On December 8, 1953, President Eisenhower laid the groundwork for the international diplomacy that would create Iran's nuclear program. In his "Atoms for Peace" speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Eisenhower said the U.S. should lead the way in helping the poorer nations of the world develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, at a time when the Cold War had many fearing the possibility of nuclear war. Nearly 70 years later, Iran and the U.S. are once again arguing over nuclear power, as the parties to the JCPOA are meeting in Vienna to attempt to restore the 2015 Obama-era accord. In this episode, historian John Ghazvinian explains why the 2015 deal may be dead, and how Atoms for Peace remains at the core of this international dispute.

One year has passed since Donald Trump egged on a mob to attack Congress, the violent culmination of his months-long effort to overturn the presidential election. One year later, the wound still festers. Americans remain divided, living in realities of their own creation. Reconciliation seems out of reach. It is 1860 redux, but instead of civil war, Americans are witnessing a virtual secession from one another. In this episode, historian Paul Quigley of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies discusses the importance of the House Select Committee's investigation into the perpetrators and organizers of the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But although the truth must be known, the search for it may further divide us.

President Joseph Biden is beginning his second year in office facing many of the same foreign policy problems that awaited his arrival in the White House, some with the potential to explode into full-blown conflict despite his efforts to restore calm and confidence among U.S. allies and partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. From China's threats to absorb Taiwan, to Russia's troop buildup on the Ukrainian border, a number of simmering conflicts are testing the strength of the United States' extensive overseas commitments after 20 years fighting a global war on terrorism to little positive effect. In this episode, The Washington Times' national security correspondent Ben Wolfgang discusses the president's approach to these foreign policy dilemmas. The world scene is dramatically different than the one Biden knew when he was elected to the Senate, or even when he served as Barack Obama's vice president. That is, the U.S. is no longer a hegemonic power that can get whatever it wants from whoever it wants, if that were ever the case.

What will work look like in 2022, or 2032? Will your job still exist? Will you ever have to leave your home for the office again? Or will the robots leave you unemployed? The pandemic has fueled any number of utopian or dystopian visions about the American workplace. In this episode, the second part of a two-part series, futurist Brian David Johnson offers a vision grounded in reality and suffused with optimism. Your job may change or even become obsolete, but that does not mean you will be robbed of a livelihood.

As millions of Americans workers join the "Great Resignation," expectations are changing for pay, benefits, on-the-job treatment, work-life balance, and the relationship between capital and labor. The coronavirus pandemic has thrown into relief long-running problems with American capitalism, and many workers are responding, at least for now, by quitting or demanding more from their employers. The pandemic has also accelerated technology-driven changes affecting the very nature of the workplace. Will the future of work look dramatically different than the present? In part one of a two-part series, labor economist Sylvia Allegretto tells us the truth about the "Great Resignation."

Born of revolution in 1917, the Soviet Union dominated Eurasia for more than 70 years until its dramatic, though largely peaceful, collapse in 1991. On Christmas Day that year, Mikhail Gorbachev in a televised address announced his resignation as Soviet president, completing the dissolution of the Soviet state that he had tried to avoid. Also gone was the Communist economic system that failed generations of people in Russia and Eastern Europe. In this episode, Archie Brown discusses the reasons why Soviet Communism which had faced no existential crisis in 1985, the year Gorbachev took power, disintegrated in a matter of years. Hailed as a historic victory in the West, the death of the USSR is lamented by many Russians today because they feel betrayed by their country's experiment with democracy and market economy in the 1990s.

Young activists in the U.K. do not view Winston Churchill as a hero. Older generations revere Churchill as the greatest Englishman of the 20th century because he stood up to Nazism during the darkest days of the Second World War, when the U.K. fought the Axis alone in 1940. But as Black Lives Matter protests roiled American cities in 2020, activists in Britain began defacing Churchill statues. Leftist academics are also questioning whether the Last Lion still deserves reverence given his racist attitudes toward Indian and Africans, epitomized by his failure to respond to the Bengal famine in 1943. In this episode, world-renowned military historian Max Hastings challenges us to embrace a balanced view of Churchill's accomplishments and failures. If we do not need heroes, we might also resist ransacking history to satisfy our present-day political causes.