Drafting the Past

Dr. Dolly Jørgensen is professor of history at the University of Stavanger in Norway. As you'll hear in this episode, Dolly is one very busy historian. She is the author of three books, including her newest, Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums . She has also co-edited five books and written a truly impressive number of academic articles. She recently ended a term as the editor...

Sign up for the  Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more.  In this episode, Kate welcomes Scott W. Stern and Dr. Charles O'Malley to the show. Scott is a writer and lawyer who is the author of two previous books of narrative nonfiction and has written for many media outlets and scholarly journals. Charlie is a dramaturg and writer who has worked at theaters across the country...

In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Anna O. Law, a political science who retrained herself in historical methods to write her new book, Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship . Anna is a professor of political science and Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights at CUNY Brooklyn College. In her new books, she takes a close look at which parts and levels of government in th...

It's not every day that I find myself so invested in the characters of a history book that I stay up way past my bed time to find out what happens next, but that's exactly what happened when I read the new book by today's guest, Dr. Charlotte Brooks. Charlotte is a professor of history at Baruch College , which is part of the City University of New York, or CUNY, system. She is a scholar of race,...

In this episode, Kate Carpenter is joined by a scholar who can never pass up a good archive, Dr. Gautham Rao. Gautham is a historian of American law and politics and is an associate professor of history at American University in Washington. He's the author of two books: National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State , and his new book, White Power: Policing American Slavery ....

Today's guest, Dr. Tara Mulder, gets real about the challenges of writing while moving between temporary jobs, juggling a ton of teaching, and struggling to find a tenure track position. But also told me why that struggle brought a surprising amount of freedom and led to a much more creative and entertaining book. These days, Tara is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a...

Episode 100! I'm thrilled to welcome historian of science Dr. Jessica Riskin. Jessica is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University . She's the author of three books and has edited two additional collections. She has also written extensively for academic journals and has published some highly entertaining book reviews and essays for the New York Review of Books and t...

Is it possible to write a new history of Lewis and Clark (and get anyone to read it)? If you're Craig Fehrman, the answer is a definite yes! In today's episode, Craig joins Kate Carpenter to talk about his new book, This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark . Craig is a journalist and historian who lives in Indiana, where he focuses on writing and occasional adjunct teaching at Indiana...

David Perry returns to talk with Kate about his new book, The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook . If you've ever been curious about writing essays or op-eds, but are unsure where to get started, David's book should answer pretty much any question you can dream up. I think this book is hugely helpful, and I was glad to hear more from David about why he wrote it—and to get answers to a few more b...

Host Kate Carpenter is joined by drug historian Dr. Emily Dufton to talk about researching and writing Emily's newest book,  Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs . Emily holds a PhD in American studies and works full-time as a writer. Her first book was Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America . Thanks to her expertise in drug h...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Daniel Neep to talk about his new book, Syria: A Modern History . Daniel is a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and is currently senior editor at the Arab Center Washington DC , a think tank focused on the relationship between the Arab world and the US. Previously, he has worked as a faculty...

In this episode, Kate is joined by Dr. John Garrison Marks, whose new book is Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory . This is a fantastic book that takes a careful, and often surprising look, at how generations of Americans have remembered and forgotten George Washington's relationship to slavery and used that memory to bolster their own argument...

In this episode, Kate welcomes back episode 1 guest Dr. Megan Kate Nelson as the very first return guest on Drafting the Past! Megan is a historian and the author of five books, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In our first conversation, we talked about Megan's writing process, favorite writing advice, and more. But in this episode, we're going deeper! While we talk about Megan's new book, The Weste...

Before we get to the episode, I need a favor: Will you take a minute to fill out this survey about Drafting the Past , and let me know what is and isn't working for you about the show? It will help me bring even better episodes to you. Thanks in advance for your help! In this episode, I'm happy to welcome historian of religion Dr. Matthew Avery Sutton. Matt's newest book is called Chosen Land: How...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Rhae Lynn Barnes to talk about book Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment . Rhae Lynn is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University . With meticulous research and piles of evidence, Darkology reveals the widespread and persistent use of amateur blackface minstrelsy across the United States from the Civil War...

Historian and writer Emily Lieb's professional history is a fascinating one, from crafting textbooks for kids to leaving a job as a professor to become a full-time writer. She taught history and urban studies at Seattle University for more than a decade. Now, in addition to her work as a historian, she also works for the Derfner & Sons writing agency.   Her first book came out in 2025 after many y...

In this episode, Kate is joined by Dr. Matthew Delmont. Matt is a professor and associate dean at Dartmouth University, and he is the author of six books . His two most recent books are Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad , which came out in 2022, and Until the Last Gun is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save...

In this episode we're taking a look at another great new book on this history of the American Revolution:  The American Revolution and the Fate of the World , by Richard Bell. In this book, we get to see how the revolution affected not only North America, but most of the world. To learn more about how you write a book that manages to cover such a massive subject with remarkable alacrity, I'm joine...

In most episodes, I interview an author of nonfiction history about their research and writing process, but in today's episode we get to do something a little different. We're taking a closer look at how authors and presses get the word out about new books. And we're going to do that with an insider's perspective. I'm very excited to be joined in this episode by Sonya Bonczek, the director of publ...

In case you haven't been paying attention—or maybe you don't live in the United States--you should know that this year marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. If you prefer funny words, you can call it America's semiquincentennial. Anyway, what this means for us is that there are a shocking number of books about the American Revolution, the early United States, and related subjects...

Note that bookshop.org links are affiliate links that generate a small commission to support the show if you purchase books using these links. Sign up for the  Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more. Hi everybody! I'm taking this week off to work on some things behind the scenes, so I wanted to talk this chance to replay an episode from early in the podcast that I love. I kn...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews historian Dr. Heather Ann Thompson. Heather is the author of three books. The first was Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City , which was first published in 2002. Her second book, published in 2016, was the astonishing Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy . Blood in the Water won far more...

In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Fahad Bishara. Fahad is an associate professor at the University of Virginia, but he is currently on leave and teaching at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. His first book, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950 , won multiple awards. His second book, which came out in 2025, is Mo...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews labor historian Dr. Shaun Richman. Shaun is a program director at SUNY Empire State College, and he recently completed his PhD in American Studies. But before that, he spent more than a decade as a union organizer and representative. That experience inspires much of his writing, including two books, magazine articles, and op-eds in numerous outlets....

In this episode of Drafting the Past , you'll hear from a historian who had to figure out how to wrangle narratives from twenty different countries to tell a new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But keeping track of all those threads wasn't her only formidable challenge. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Renata Keller. Dr. Keller is a professor at the University o...