History Author Show

November 9, 2015 – In honor of Veterans Day and Remembrance Day on November 11th, Bristol writer Jacqueline Wadsworth takes us back to “the war to end all wars” in Letters from the Trenches: The First World War by Those Who Were There . We hear from soldiers on the Western Front, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, Italy, Northern Russia — and, of course, from the women and children su...

November 2, 2015 – For our first historical fiction author, we’re pleased to introduce Jennifer Kincheloe’s debut novel: The Secret Life of Anna Blanc . Join us in 1907 Los Angeles, where Anna Blanc chafes under the thumb of her controlling father and yearns for a life of crime — solving them that is. Inspired by the wild Santa Anna winds, Anna joins a suffragette protest,...

October 29, 2015 – In this special, Halloween episode, we’re traveling back to the days before the American Civil War, when doctors would take their scalpels to fully awake patients — the pre-microbial era when the causes of common diseases remained a mystery, and when oil lamps and flammable clothing combined to engulf a staggering number of people in flames. This, was the age o...

October 26, 2015 – What if John Wilkes Booth’s gun had misfired? And what if we could blast off to a Mars colony founded by the Carthaginians, or head 250,000 years into the past when a race of giants dominate Africa? Writer and archaeologist Jordan Harbour, explores stories like these at the  Twilight Histories podcast. And like a David Lynch film, things keep getting weirder. The Twi...

October 19, 2015 – On this episode, you’ll meet five legends — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, and Dolley Madison — as viewed through their relationships with James Madison. Often overlooked in death as he was in life (and having the White House burned out from under him in the War of 1812 didn’t help), David O. Stewart reveals a...

October 12, 2015 –  On this episode, we’ll visit a key period in Winston Churchill’s life, half a century before World War Two. In the late 1800s, Churchill chased adventure in the Sudan, South Africa, India and Cuba, filing dispatches that helped build his resume, and fill his empty wallet. Simon Read describes a Winston Churchill who’s part Indiana Jones, part Ernie Pyle,...

October 6, 2015 – How did Winston Churchill overcome so many personal, financial and professional setbacks to lead the United Kingdom to victory during its darkest hour, when the Empire nation stood alone against Hitler? The answer may surprise you, and that’s the focus of a new book. It’s God & Churchill: How the Great Leader’s Sense of Divine Destiny Changed His Troub...

October 5, 2015 –  On this episode, we visit the theaters, throne rooms and taverns of London 400 years ago, as seen through the eyes of William Shakespeare. History Author Show correspondent Stephen Bedford met our guide to Jacobian London in the shadow of the immortal bard’s statue in Central Park. He is renowned Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, professor of English of Columbia Uni...

September 28, 2015 – Even casual baseball fans can name the game’s greatest heroes, and its most infamous villain: Ty Cobb. Yes, it’s something that even Yankees and Red Sox fans can agree on: “The Georgia Peach” wasn’t a very nice fellow. But what if everyone is wrong? What if, like Ulysses S. Grant, Ty Cobb’s enemies were just more prolific writers than...

September 24, 2015 – This is a special, Pope-in-America edition of the History Author Show. Pope Francis began his visit to the United States on September 22, 2015 with stops in Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia. Top on his agenda were calls for Americans to spend more on the poor. But what about the church’s finances? How did a humble ministry started by St. Paul two th...

September 21, 2015 – Join us in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park — next to the statue of President Chester A. Arthur — as we travel back to the days when Latin was very much a living language. Our tour guide is Van Bryan, associate editor of Classical Wisdom Weekly : “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Minds.” It’s an online publishing house that shares information,...

September 14, 2015 – From Thomas Edison to Dr. Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters , the idea of the quirky, driven scientist working in solitude is a popular one in the American imagination. But today, you need big machines like particle accelerators, electron microscopes, and super computers to advance human knowledge. So how did we get from Alexander Graham Bell in his lonely lab to Robert Oppe...

September 7, 2015 – This journey into the past is our tastiest yet. Our guest is Dan DeMiglio, heir to a legendary Callahan’s hot dog shop, a landmark in Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the George Washington Bridge. Our goal is to do more than books here on the program, to remind people that we’re all the author of our own chapter in the great human story, so Callahan’s &...

August 31, 2015 – In our last episode of August, we introduce you to our first History Author Show correspondent: Amanda Read . Amanda Read grew up across the States and overseas as an Army brat before her family settled on Fair Hill Farms in Alabama. She graduated from Troy University Magna Cum Laude in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in History and a minor in Political Science. She’s...

August 24, 2015 – “What is worse? A confederate con man claiming he was Lincoln’s spy throughout the Civil War, or the Union veteran who pursed his claim all the way to the Supreme Court?” That’s the central question of Jane Singer’s book, Lincoln’s Secret Spy: The Civil War Case that Changed the Future of Espionage . In it, she introduces us to William Al...

August 17, 2015 – You’re familiar with our theme song, 1925’s New York Ain’t New York Anymore . It’s the perfect segue into today’s book, Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America . The story of speakeasies, Flappers and radio is brought to us by Donald L. Miller. He’s the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History at Lafayette Coll...

August 10, 2015 – Three mules, two brothers, and a Jack Russell terrier. Together they rattle 2000 miles from Missouri to the great American Northwest in a covered wagon. That isn’t the setup for a Vaudeville joke, but there are plenty of laughs found on the ruts, roads and interstates. That’s right, interstates. The trip doesn’t take place before the Civil War, but in our...

August 3, 2015 – Welcome to the pilot episode of the History Author Show, a weekly program that uploads a new episode every Monday morning on iHeartRadio , iTunes , tunein Radio or your favorite personal audio outlet. We’re everywhere! If you’ve ever felt a rush of nostalgia when reading about the way things used to be, then you’ve come to the right place — our time machine...