Skipped History

As conversations about Latino voters heat up , I spoke with Marie Arana about her book, LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority . Marie details the centrality of Latinos to the economy, how Republicans are making inroads courting Latino communities, and how the “government has often treated Latinos as an afterthought.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Soon after it ended, I debriefed the DNC with Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton. We discussed the evident joy of the convention, why speakers went light on policy, and heavy on Trump attacks. We also explored the inroads the left has made on the Democratic agenda—with glaring exceptions like Gaza....

With the DNC coming up in Chicago next week, I thought it’d be fun to dive into the Windy City’s history. I spoke with Professor Scott Berg about one of Chicago’s defining events: the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Professor Berg (George Mason University) is the author of The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City's Soul . We discussed how Chicago was in its adolescence h...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com In our latest interview with a historian about the 2024 election, I welcomed Professor Mehrsa Baradaran back to Skipped History. An authority on inequality and banking history, I asked for her thoughts on Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and what she sees at stake in the election. For Professor Baradaran, it’s about...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com In the first of our series of interviews with historians about the 2024 election, I spoke with Professor Matt Dallek, author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right . Professor Dallek examines how the John Birch Society (JBS), a far-right group active in the 1960s, came to shape...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com The Olympics officially start tonight! To learn about the origins of the games — and their forgotten history of exclusion — I spoke with Michael Waters, author of The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports . In his book and in conversation, Michael explores a handful of athletes...

Amid the political headlines over the last few weeks, one piece of news went under the radar: how freaking hot it’s been. To bring us back to earth, I thought I’d share a recent conversation with journalist Boyce Upholt about the Mississippi River . In The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi , Boyce delivers a winding history of the “chaos” of the river, and American efforts to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com A Democratic Party in crisis during an election year. A Republican candidate who believed the president was above the law. Police crackdowns on protests over American imperialism. Surprisingly, I’m not talking about 2024, but 1968, another time that Democrats held the DNC in Chicago.  To learn more about that...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Earlier today, I spoke with Dr. Carly Goodman about last night’s presidential debate. We tried to make some sense of the madness together. Dr. Goodman is a historian, editor, and the award-winning author of Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction . Her expertise in immigration histor...

Previously, we’ve explored Native history on national and regional levels. Professor Ryan E. Emanuel’s book, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice , offers a chance to take a more granular view. In his book, and in conversation, Professor Emanuel traces the history of his tribe, the Lumbee, in Eastern North Carolina. He reveals how the colonial project that began hundreds of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com In We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance , and in conversation, Professor Kellie Carter Jackson highlights stories of Black refusal. Sometimes, refusal takes the form of violent resistance. Other times, it’s an impromptu electric slide in the middle of a protest. Either way, Professor Carter Jacks...

Earlier this week, President Biden closed the border to asylum seekers, many of whom are Salvadoran. To learn about their history and how it “ties into a bigger picture of U.S. imperialism in the hemisphere,” I spoke with Daniel Alvarenga, a Salvadoran journalist and the host of HUMO: Murder and Silence in El Salvador . As Daniel reveals, the U.S. doesn’t have the best track record of dealing with...

Chances are you’ve seen the DARE logo — on a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, a license plate, or maybe a street sign. In DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools , and in conversation, Professor Max Felker-Kantor (Ball State University) traces the history of the ubiquitous tough-on-drugs program. It's almost too easy to make fun of DARE (almost), but as Professor Felker-Kantor reveals,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com To contextualize conversations about antisemitism today, I spoke with Daniel Schulman, a bestselling author and Mother Jones ' deputy editor for news and politics .  In The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America , and in conversation, Dan exp...

Whoa, Nelly — one of my favorite authors, Mehrsa Baradaran, just published a new book, The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America . In The Quiet Coup , and in conversation, Professor Baradaran (UC Irvine Law) traces how backlash to integrating schools led to the rise of neoliberal economic theory — which was essentially one giant excuse to maintain the status quo. As neoliberals accr...

As college administrators call the police on pro-Palestinian protestors around the country, I asked Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd if she’d explore some of the history behind crackdowns on students. Dr. Shepherd, a historian and teacher at the University of New Orleans, kindly agreed. In her book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America , and in conversation, Dr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Growing up, we’re often taught that there’s a natural societal progression from hunting and gathering, to farming, and then to towns and cities. But as Professor Kathleen DuVal (UNC-Chapel Hill) illuminates in Native Nations , and in conversation, that conception is very Eurocentric. It obscures, among many t...

Here in the States, Monday is Tax Day. I haven’t filed mine yet, partly because if you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute, and also because I recently spoke with Michael J. Graetz about the history of Americans paying their taxes.  In The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America , and in conversation, Professor Graetz traces the rise of the antitax movement to 197...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com If you think there’s a strong American liberal tradition, wait till you hear about the other side of the coin from Professor Steven Hahn. In Illiberal America , and in conversation, Professor Hahn traces illiberal ideas and political currents from hundreds of years ago through the present day. His recasting o...

Immigration has been in the news week after week after week… after week after week after week. As a point of comparison, I thought we’d explore the history of U.S. humanitarian assistance, not at the border but in the countries immigrants often leave. In conversation, and in Catastrophic Diplomacy , Professor Julia Irwin (LSU) reveals that our government’s treatment of foreign citizens, even in th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com In Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother , and in conversation, Professor Peggy O’Donnell Heffington traces the collapse of once-common communal methods of childrearing. Her words contextualize why having kids — or choosing not to — feels so challenging for Americans in particular. Professo...

In conversation, and in Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel that Survived the CIA , investigative journalist Patrick Winn traces the history of Wa State. For decades, Patrick reveals, the CIA worked with the Wa, turning a small, little-known Indigenous group in Southeast Asia into one of the most powerful and least understood drug producers in the world. This is a public episode. If you...

With the CDC set to end the 5-day isolation period for Covid, as well as rates of disease transmission spiking in Ukraine and Gaza , I thought it a poignant time to explore the history of one of the world’s most infectious diseases: tuberculosis.  In her book, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis , and in conversation, author Maria Smilios traces the twists...

With attacks on LGBTQ+ rights exploding , I spoke to Professor Joanna Wuest about scapegoating of the LGBTQ+ community over the years and how science has helped hasten reform — even if, sometimes, the science hasn’t been so sound. Joanna Wuest is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College and a sociolegal scholar specializing in LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, religion, and health...

With guns in the news a lot of late — Wayne LaPierre recently announced his resignation from the NRA and, yesterday, the DOJ concluded an investigation that found “unimaginable failure” with police in Uvalde — I spoke with Professor Andrew C. McKevitt of Louisiana Tech.  In Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America , Professor McKevitt traces many of the origins of our...