Virginia Postrel joins us to talk about the international commerce built around silk, cotton, dyes and other materials that tied together people across the globe.
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How Black Women Became An American Political Force
Johns Hopkins University historian Martha S. Jones joins us to talk about the women who lead the charge for Black women’s suffrage, working to dismantle systemic racism and have their voices heard.
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American Populism, Post Trump
MIT professor Daron Acemoglu joins us to make the case that the American political landscape is deeply fractured, and that the nation’s unequal social classes add fuel to that fire.
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Education Inequality Starts Outside The Classroom
Ohio State professor Douglas B. Downey joins us to explain why academics are approaching closing equity gaps for student achievement all wrong.
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The Modern Day Hunt For Buried Treasure
Benjamin Wallace joins us to talk about the people who endlessly try to decode puzzles to solve where someone has buried the loot — sometimes upending their lives to find it.
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A Better Way To Spend Those Education Dollars
Brandon L. Wright, editorial director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, joins us to talk about public education funding challenges and how in the aftermath of the pandemic we must find smarter ways to spend those dollars.
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How One White House Hands Off The Baton To The Next
Anita Kumar, White House correspondent and associate editor at Politico, joins us to discuss the complicated issues of presidential transitions, from national security to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what happens when they don’t run smoothly.
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The Invention Of Altruism
Michael McCullough, professor of psychology at the University of California San Diego, joins us to talk about how our collective experiences have taught us to care for one another.
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Manifest Destiny And America’s Genocide
Jeffrey Ostler, Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History at the University of Oregon, joins guest host John McCaa to talk about how America was built in part on relentless violence and Native American dispossession.
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The Female Abolitionists Of San Francisco’s Chinatown
Julia Flynn Siler joins guest host John McCaa to tell the story of a group of female abolitionists who dedicated their lives to rescuing slaves in San Francisco.
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Tearing Down Racist Statues Doesn’t Mean We’ve Torn Down Racism
Connor Towne O’Neill, journalist, producer on the NPR podcast White Lies, teacher at Auburn University and with the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, joins us to talk about how the battle over monuments reveals racism is baked into the very mold of America.
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The Evolution Of The Tattoo
Filmmaker Alan Govenar joins us to talk about the history of tattooing, from Biblical times to today.
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