Axelbank Reports History and Today

On this episode, we talk with longtime writer, journalist and professor Robert Strauss about his new book, "John Marshall: The Final Founder." Strauss argues that America's fourth chief justice, John Marshall, deserves to be on a short list with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as the nation's most important founders. Strauss explains how Marshall made the Federal court...

We are back! Enjoy our first episode of the Fall as we talk with longtime journalist Ken Ellingwood about his new book, "First to Fall: Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery." Lovejoy was an ardent abolitionist who used his mighty pen to demand an end to America's "original sin." Elllingwood's biography brings Lovejoy scholarship into the...

Hello folks - Just letting you know that our show is taking a hiatus until Labor Day. It's for the best possible reason: my family has been blessed with a new baby. I am trying to spend as much time with my wife and daughter as we adjust to our new lives, so our next episode won't go live until September 7th. We already have several tapings scheduled and new books on the way. So hang tig...

What's better than having a beer at a ballpark on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? Check out this episode with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Edward Achorn, as he explains the life of Chris von Der Ahe, the baseball owner who made that feeling possible. Achorn's book, "The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America&ap...

We are all familiar with images of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s: fire hoses, the Edmund Pettus Bridge, of Martin Luther King exclaiming, "I have a dream." Ultimately, that   Civil Rights Movement led to advances like the order to desegregate schools, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. But that was not the first time Black Americans demanded equality. Dr. Kate Masu...

New York is so nice, they named it twice.  So why did Thomas Dyja give the title of his forty-year history of the Big Apple THREE “New Yorks? “ On this episode, he takes us on a journey through the last forty years of NYC's triumphs, troubles, discord and devastation. Starting in the fires of the late 1970s, he explains how Ed Koch's "I love New York" became a mantra the city e...

On this episode, we talk with Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, the author of the wildly popular "Letters from an American: A Newsletter About the History Behind Today's Politics," which is seen by over a million people every night. We not only discuss history, but why it is important to be historically literate as we try to understand what has become a firehose of news. She explains how...

Presidential marriages are subjects of intense fascination. How do they impact political history? Government policy? Is a scandal brewing? When it comes to Abraham Lincoln to Mary Todd, Dr. Michael Burlingame - one of America's most prolific Lincoln scholars - argues their marriage is ripe for answers to all three questions.  Listen as we discuss his new book, "An American Marriage: The...

On this episode, we talk with Dr. Serena Zabin about her groundbreaking book, "The Boston Massacre: A Family History." She explains why we have misunderstood the landmark event in America's founding as a battle between two sides. Rather, she argues, the Boston Massacre was an intimate moment among members of a community. Revolutionary-era Boston was a place where intermingling was u...

Philadelphia is where America made its sacred pledge that "all men are created equal." Though there are many ways that pledge has not been fulfilled, one of the most striking came in Philadelphia, seventy years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Dr. Zachary Schrag's book, "The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of...

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!! Baruch professor Dr. Vincent DiGirolamo is here to talk about his fascinating book, "Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys." He explains how they became an integral part of American life, journalism and of the history of labor. The boys had to be industrious and competitive, eager but wary of those hoping to abuse them. They slept in news...

Martin Luther King Jr. was sitting in jail, and the presidential campaigns of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon had no idea what - if anything - to do about it. Paul and Stephen Kendrick's new book, "Nine Days: The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr's Life and Win the 1960 Election," explains how that moment became a watershed. Black voters in southern states had voted Republican,...

They were "Bonnie and Clyde" before Bonnie and Clyde was a thing. We talk with prolific author Glenn Stout about his new book, "Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid: America's Original Gangster Couple. Richard and Margaret Whittemore came of age as jazz was taking over America, and they set themselves on taking diamonds. Stout explains how pop culture of the Roaring 20s created the Whi...

For this week's episode, we are delighted to welcome one of America's most important scholars, Annette Gordon-Reed. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Hemingses of Monticello," explores the lives of Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and how their secret union defines America. We spoke with the professor about her new book, "On Juneteenth," which is a reflection on h...

In his book, "Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel," Dr. Dov Waxman explains how criticizing Israel is no longer the third rail of being an American Jew. At one time, criticizing Israel was off limits, seen as essential to preserving the nation that was seen as a refuge for a group of people who were perennially under siege. Today, there is no conflict that divi...

Learn about the Civil War from a whole new perspective. Dr. Megan Kate Nelson explains why you can't fully understand America's pivotal moment without grasping the role the West played in both the Union and Confederate sides. Her book, "The Three Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West," explores how the West became critical not onl...

We talk with Jamal Greene about his book, "How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights is Tearing America Apart." He explains how courts have allowed disputes over rights to become zero-sum games that make future compromise impossible. Because of poorly-reasoned court decisions, where the content of the dispute is ignored in favor of literal readings of law, Professor Greene arg...

Obamacare was THE political war of the last generation. Huffington Post reporter and longtime health care journalist Jonathan Cohn explains why that war happened and how it tore our nation apart. His new book, "The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage," explains how then-President Obama decided to go for it, and how the opposition to it coalesced. But...

We talk with Dr. David Head about his book, "A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution." Much like today, Revolutionary America was awash in conspiracy theories. As the War came to an end, fears of a coup rose as soldiers upset over their lack of pay seemed to be on the verge of taking drastic action. Head describes how Washing...

Come on an adventure! We talk with author Julia Cooke about her book, "Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am." She describes the lives of stewardesses - to use the vernacular of the day - as they embark on a career that gave them limitless opportunity to see the world. But they also endure endless sexism and are well aware that their opportunities will be limited t...

We speak with Dr. Eric Rauchway about his book, "Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt and the First Clash Over the New Deal." American history is filled with turning points: Obama to Trump, Clinton to Bush, Carter to Reagan, Eisenhower to Kennedy. But Rauchway argues few compare to the transition from Hoover to FDR. In 1932, America was embroiled in the Great Depression and watching the rise of...

In this episode, we talk with Cathryn Prince, the author of, "Queen of the Mountaineers: The Trailblazing Life of Fanny Bullock Workman." Workman was a record-setting mountain-climber who set records as well as she advocated for women's rights. She became famous for her rivalry with a fellow female climber, and for advocating for the right to vote.  Prince explains how the feminist...

We speak with Dr. Kyle Riismandel about his book, "Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975-2001." Suburbia is billed as the safe, quiet place to raise a family. But the New Jersey Institute of Technology profess argues that during the 70s and 80s, they became rife with social disfunction. Fear was the dominant factor as relatively wealthy neighborhoods wielded...

We speak with Dr. Wendy Lower about her new book, "The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed." She explains how she found the rare photograph of a Jewish family in the act of being killed during the Holocaust, and how she tried to track down everyone and everything captured in the scene. Most don't realize that while photo documentation of what happened in th...

We talk with Dr. William Sturkey about his incredible study, "Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White." His book explores how the history of Hattiesburg, MS, is critical to understanding America's history of racism and white supremacy. He also explains how conflict and reconciliation in Hattiesburg foreshadowed today's battle for racial justice. Hattiesburg was founded...