Reckoning with Jason Herbert

This week Edda Fields-Black joins in to talk about her book on Harriet Tubman and the film Harriet . We talk about the importance of accurate terminology in black history, the role of religion in enslaved people's lives, the challenges of escaping from South Carolina, and the emotional impact of historical research. We also get into the need for more biopics on historical figures and recommen...

This week we hit the halfway point in Masters of the Air. Dr. Sarah Myers had to drop out of formation this week so we welcome back Dr. Luke Truxal and Dr. Colin Colbourn to talk about Black Week for the Bloody Hundreth as well as how air crews dealt with the loss of Buck Cleven, Crosby's role as group navigator, the disaster at Munster, and Colin's work recovering fallen service members...

This week  Brian DeLay drops in to share a milkshake about There Will Be Blood and the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis. We explore the complexity of the protagonist, Daniel Plainview, and his lack of change throughout the film as well as the historical context of oil barons and the era of titans in American history. The conversation delves into the relationship between Plainview and capitalism, hi...

This week marks a first in HATM Podcast history as Dr. Sarah Myers takes control, joined by mainstays Luke Truxal and Colin Colbourn. This week we e focus on ground crews and the tension of waiting for missions. The conversation then delves into the significance of the number of missions and the experiences of aircrews reaching their 25th mission. The gang also explores the portrayal of resistance...

This week @ColinColbourn buckles in to talk about Formula 1 racing, the Mille Miglia, how Ferrari recovered from WWII, and Colin’s work to find and repatriate American missing in action with Project Recover.  About our guest: Colin Colbourn, Ph. D., is Project Recover’s Lead Historian and a Postdoctoral Researcher with the University of Delaware. Since 2016, he has managed historical operations in...

That...was intense. Sarah Myers and Luke Truxal are back for Episode 3 in what could be called A Very Bad Day over Germany. We'll set the tone of the episode, give you the backstory, then get into the nitty gritty with a detailed analysis of what we saw and what we didn't in Episode 3. We talk about the challenges of flying, such as the concept of 'max effort' and the impact of...

If you're like me, Carl Weathers was everywhere in your life from the late 70s until today, when we learned of his passing. I asked two friends, Craig Bruce Smith and Robert Greene II, to join in and talk about what he meant to Generation X and the Millenials, his role as THE Black action star of the 1980s, and how he changed his performances over time to new audiences. We refuse to be sad to...

It's here! After years in development, we finally have Masters of the Air as a follow-up to Band of Brothers and the Pacific. Guests Dr. Sarah Myers and Dr. Luke Truxal join in to talk about the first two episodes, where the United States is in 1943, our first impressions, how what we see onscreen compares to historical reality, and where we think the show is going. This episode starts with a...

This week Sarah Keyes and Josh Garrett-Davis drop in to talk about settlers, Native Americans, the Overland Trail, and yes, dysentery via Taylor Sheridan's 1883 . We also talk about the West on film, how the West has been portrayed in movies, books, tv, and video games, as well as question why the West is in a pop culture revival in current moment. This is a really fun conversation. Hope you...

This week George Dehner drops in to talk about 12 Monkeys (1995) and the history of epidemic diseases. We talk not only about the possibilities of a dystopian world caused by global contagion, but about how the fields of both environmental history and disease history evolved in the latter half of the 20th century. George is one of my former professors and it was awesome to sit down and talk to him...

This week environmental historian Sara Dant drops in to talk about a new history of the West, wolf reintroduction in Colorado, public land management, and Seth MacFarlane's homage to classic western films. This is a fun conversation about a silly movie that actually has a lot to say. I hope you like it. About our guest: Sara Dant is Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor and Chair of Hist...

This week we invite Scott Laderman to talk about Point Break (1991) and his book Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. We talk about depictions of surfing in this film and others along with the origins of the pursuit, its commodification and commercialization, how surfers responded to genocide and apartheid in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the greatest surfing movies of all time, and greates...

This week, I invited I invited on two absolute luminaries in the gaming world in Emily Friedman and Trevor Valle to talk not only about the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, but about the world around D&D complete with the history of the game and the politics surrounding table top gaming. And folks, this is such a cool deep dive into D&D. This is an appropriately dragon-siz...

It's Christmas time and that means visiting an old classic. This week doctoral student Vaughn Joy joins in to talk about A Christmas Story and her work looking at how the American government exerted control over Christmas films as a way of influencing  the national narrative. We talk about all we love and hate with this movie, the history of Christmas films, and yes, continue to debate whethe...

This week guest Kate Jewell stops by to talk about one of the more interesting John Cusack performances in the film High Fidelity . This movie features some phenomenal performances by Cusack, Jack Black, Todd Louiso, and one very weird Tim Robbins. We also talk about Kate's new book Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio . This might be in your Top 5 favorite episodes ever. Abo...

With Godzilla Minus One tearing up the American and global box office, it's time for another EMERGENCY PODCAST. This week we are joined by two amazing scholars of Japanese social and cultural history in Bill Tsutsui and Akiki Takenaka. We talk about our first impressions of the film, where it fits into Godzilla and WWII lore, and the history of Godzilla himself. This is such a cool conversati...

Ready for a deep dive on the Middle Ages? This week Patrick Wyman, host of Tides of History and The Pursuit of Dadliness and author of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World stops by to talk about Ridley Scott's The Last Duel , the 2021 epic that closely follows one of the last judicial duels of the Middle Ages. The film, starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, an...

This week we welcome Lindsay Chervinsky back to the pod to talk about 1995's The American President . We talk about just how revolutionary was the idea of a president, the history of presidential relationships, scandals in the White House, and even presidential pets. This was a lot of fun. I hope you like it. About our guest: Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian. She is the a...

With Napoleon hitting the big screen this past week, we decided it was time for our first emergency podcast. This week we recruited French history scholars Corinne Gressang and Laura O'Brien onboard to talk about what the film did right, what it did wrong, and why exactly can't we seem to get Bonaparte right onscreen. About our guests: Dr. Corinne Gressang began as an Assistant Professor...

In honor of Thanksgiving and Season 2 of High on the Hog, we thought it might be fun to bring back another older episode of the Historians At The Movies Podcast during our two week break. Leftovers, if you will. This episode features two of my food history scholars in Adrian E. Miller and Mark Johnson, talking about African American culinary traditions, gender roles in the kitchen, and some of the...

This week HATM Podcast is on hiatus so we thought we'd rerelease an older episode for those of you who maybe haven't had the opportunity to explore the back catalog yet. This week's guest is my great friend Brett Rushforth and we are talking about both his favorite film- Up in the Air - and his work in 17th century New France. Looking back, this is one of the more interesting conver...

This is HATM's 50th episode and I wanted to do something special. This week we are joined by military historian Wayne E. Lee from the University of North Carolina to talk about The Last of the Mohicans and his new book, The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800 . We talk about historical misconceptions of Indigenous warfare, how warfare in the Americas compar...

It's spooky season and that means I have something a little different planned for you. This week HATM is joined by emergency physician Dr. N.J. Gallegos to talk about Flatliners (1990). We also talk about her new book The Broken Heart, med school, her work as a physician, and because we are both nerds, Star Wars. It's a rolling and fun episode with one of my favorite people on the planet...

This week Thomas Lecaque and John Wyatt Greenlee drop in to talk about the most historically accurate film of all-time: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Ok, it's nowhere near accurate but that doesn't mean we can't love it all the same. We talk about when and where the myth of Robin Hood emerges, our favorite portrayals of the character, the score and the soundtrack, and yes, the acce...

This week Historians At The Movies dives into one of the sharpest historical films of the 1980s- Dirty Dancing. No, we're not kidding either. Guests Leah Lagrone, Lauren MacIvor Thompson, and Lauren Lassabe Shepherd tackle the memory of the 60s from the 80s, young love, issues of labor and class, dancing, AIDS, the Reagan era, abortion, whether or not Baby and Johnny are still together, and o...