Ill Literacy: Books with Benson

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Nick Lloyd, Professor of Modern Warfare at King’s College London, to discuss his new book, The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 . They chat about the scale of the conflict, how the most radical aspect of the struggle in the east was that the violence was not confined to combatants, and how the repercussions of the war in the east, including t...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Michel Paradis, fellow at the Center on National Security and the National Institute for Military Justice and lecture in law at Columbia Law School, to discuss his new book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower . They chat about how Eisenhower’s rise both reflected and was integral to America’s rise as a global superpo...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Michael Kimmage, Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss his new book, Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability. They chat about the origins of the war, how it has transformed multiple centers of power and has...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Frank W. Garmon Jr., assistant professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University, to discuss his new book, A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era and Gilded Age . They chat Cowlam’s career as convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, con artist, and serial bigamist and how his life managed...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by James Davison Hunter, LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory and Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, to discuss his new book, Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis . They discuss how our historic sources of national sol...

In Episode 154 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Sam Rosenfeld, co-author of The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics . Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Sam Rosenfeld, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director, Public Affairs and Policy Research Initiative at Colgate University, to discuss his new book, co-authored with Daniel Schloz...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Sean A. Mirski, Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, to discuss his new book, We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus . They discuss how the United States became a regional hegemon in the century following the Civil War, which no other great power in the modern era has managed to achieve....

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Robert K.D. Colby, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi, to discuss his new book, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South . They discuss how Southerners made the internal slave trade a cornerstone of Confederate society, a bulwark of the Rebel economy, and a central part of the experience of the Civil War. They also cha...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by award-winning novelist, critic, and biographer D.J. Taylor to discuss his new book, Who Is Big Brother? A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell . They discuss Orwell’s books, life and thought, including his conflicted relationship with religion to his competing anti-imperialism and fascination with empire. They also discuss Taylor’s recently released, completely overh...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Kurt Weyland, Mike Hogg Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his new book, Democracy's Resilience to Populism's Threat: Countering Global Alarmism. They discuss how populist leaders can only destroy democracy under special, restrictive conditions, which many never face. They also chat about how left-wing populists typically...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David Blackbourn, Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Chair of History Emeritus at Vanderbilt University, to discuss his new book, Germany in the World: A Global History, 1500-2000. They discuss the existence of a distinctly German presence in the world centuries before its unification. They also chat about Germany’s leading role in creating modern universities a...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David Stahel, senior lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales, to discuss his new book, Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded . They discuss the significance of the unpublished wartime correspondence of these generals and what it reveals about their personalities, their private fears, and the public pressure...

In Episode 147 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Nigel Biggar, author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning . Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Nigel Biggar, Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, to discuss his new book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning . They discuss whether the British Empire was driven primarily by greed and the lust to dominate...

In Episode 146 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Scott Walter, author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Scott Walter, president of the capital Research Center, to discuss his new book, Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America . They chat about what is t...

In Episode 145 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Hyrum Lewis, co-author of The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Hyrum Lewis, associate professor of history at Brigham Young University-Idaho, to discuss his new book (co-authored with his brother, Verlan), The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum...

In Episode 144 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with John M. Owen IV, author of The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by John M. Owen IV, Ambassador Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center of Public Affairs, at the Universi...

In Episode 143 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Martyn Rady, author of The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Martyn Rady, Masaryk Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College London, to discuss his new book, The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe . They chat about how Central Europe has been more tha...

In Episode 142 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with John C. McManus, author of To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945 .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by John C. McManus, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at Missouri University of Science and Technology, to discuss his new book, To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Ja...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Peter Heather, chair of medieval history at King's College, London, to discuss his new book, Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 . They chat about how a small sect of isolated and intensely committed congregations became a mass movement centrally directed from Rome, the Church’s chameleonlike capacity for self-reinvention, and how nothing was ine...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by friend of the podcast H.W. Brands, the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his new book, Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics. They chat about how, while the Framers viewed political parties a fatal threat to republican virtues, parties eme...

The Heartland Institute's Tim Benson is joined by Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, to discuss his new book, The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II . They chat about the backstory behind the three subjects of the book—Felix Kersten, Yoshiko Kawashima, and Friedrich Weinreb—and why all three have been vilified...

In Episode 139 of Ill Literacy , Tim Benson talks with Ronald C. White, author of On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain .  Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by return guest Ronald C. White, senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, to discuss his new book, On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain . They chat about Chamberlain’s...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Joanne Paul, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sussex, to discuss her new book, The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England . They chat about who were the Dudleys, how they gained prominence, then lost it all, then gained prominence once again, and then finally lost it all again. They also discuss how the family’s fortunes seem...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Laurie Winer, founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, to discuss her new book, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical. They chat about why Winer believes Hammerstein more than anyone else invented the musical. They also discuss his relationship with collaborators Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers and how Hammerstein’s optimistic humor, o...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Benn Steil, senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, to discuss his new book, The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century . They discuss Wallace’s brilliance as a geneticist, his odd obsession with mysticism, and his naivete toward the true nature of the Soviet Union and Soviet commu...