Skipped History

To prepare for the tumultuous year ahead, I asked Heather Cox Richardson about the rise of fascism in the U.S. and how Americans have resisted it in the past. In her words, “We are living in another time of testing.” Her advice? Stay focused and get creative. Heather is a professor of U.S. history at Boston College. She’s the author of Letters from an American , the most popular Substack newslette...

With New York Mayor Eric Adams deploying discriminatory police tactics — not to mention insisting that asylum seekers “will destroy New York City” — it felt like a good time to explore the early history of the NYPD. In his new book, Police and the Empire City , and in conversation, Dr. Matthew Guariglia reveals how biased perceptions of race and ethnicity shaped policing in New York (and beyond) f...

Ahead of Thanksgiving, I spoke with Professor Anne Blue Wills about the invention of the holiday as we know it today. In her article, “ Pilgrims and Progress: How Magazines Made Thanksgiving, ” and in conversation, Professor Wills chronicles how nineteenth-century women’s magazines —and one magazine editor in particular — created contemporary Thanksgiving.  This is a public episode. If you'd like...

As the U.S. enters a “fourth wave” of the opioid crisis, I spoke with journalist and author Donovan X. Ramsey about the crack epidemic. In his book, When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era , and in conversation, Donovan details how the epidemic began, why government policies were ineffective, and how lessons from the crack era are fading from memory. Donovan’s reporting has...

Not long ago, I interviewed reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson of The Wall Street Journal about their new book, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 . I hoped a topical moment to share our interview, which traces how the gun came to be used in mass shootings, wouldn’t arrive for a long time. Alas, a gunman in Maine thought otherwise. I’ll note that, while the search for the gunman...

In Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution , Professor Marlene Daut traces the modern understanding of freedom and equality to Haiti. I thought today would be a good time to share a conversation I had with her. Haiti has low-key been in the news of late, with yet another foreign “security mission” arriving. Further, many of the dynamics Haitians fought against are, s...

In If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution , journalist Vincent Bevins chronicles recent uprisings around the world—and why so many of them went awry. In his book, and in conversation, we trace some of the lessons that the next generation of protesters in the US can draw from their peers’ efforts around the world. Vincent also details why the best time to get involved in cha...

In Brooding Over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women's Lethal Resistance , Professor Nikki M. Taylor (Howard University) tells seven different stories about enslaved women who refused to tolerate injustice any longer. In her book, and in conversation, Professor Taylor sheds light on why these women committed lethal acts of resistance and how women trafficked today sometimes resort to the same. This is...

In this week’s interview, commentator Michael Harriot delivers a reframing of U.S. history centered around the Black experience. The title of his forthcoming book, Black AF History, The Un-Whitewashed Story of America , gives you a sense of his approach to investigating the past.  Michael is a columnist at theGrio.com where he covers the intersection of race, politics, and culture. Michael’s work...

With Labor Day around the corner, and 2023 on pace to be one of the most significant years for work stoppages in recent history, I spoke to Kim Kelly, an independent journalist, author, and organizer. Kim has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018, and her writing on labor, class, politics, and culture has appeared in The New Republic , The Washington Post , and The New York Time...

Amid a growing body of scholarship revealing that Native peoples didn’t simply vanish from their homelands, as the old stereotype suggests, I spoke to Michael John Witgen, a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and the author of Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America . Michael is a professor in the Department of Histo...

I’ve been inclined to steer clear of Ukraine in our interviews. This is a U.S. history newsletter, after all. But Eastern Europe has come up repeatedly in our explorations (for example, on Israel and the Diversity Visa ), and I seized the chance to read Goodbye, Eastern Europe by Jacob Mikanowski to learn more. Truth be told, I was blown away, and I hope you find our conversation as enjoyable and...

Professor Natalia Mehlman Petrzela is a historian of contemporary American politics and culture at the New School. She’s the co-producer and host of the acclaimed podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy and the co-host of the Past Present podcast. She’s also a frequent media guest expert, public speaker, and contributor to outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post , CNN, and the Atlantic . She’...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com I’m excited to share a conversation with Professor Kathryn Cramer Brownell. Professor Brownell teaches history at Purdue and is the author of 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News . In conversation, we explored the origins of cable TV and cable news, dating...

Jack is a history professor at the University of Florida and the Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities, specializing in environmental history and sustainability studies. He’s the author or editor of ten books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. His latest book, The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird was the subject of our conversation....

With Super Tuesday coming up and Trump’s nomination all but secured, I thought I’d share a relevant interview that paying subscribers had early access to last year. In his book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right , and in conversation, Professor Matthew Dallek illuminates the ongoing influence of a far-right group in the ‘60s called the John Birch Society. Professo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com I’ve long been interested in tracing food history, and Anne Mendelson’s book, Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood , offered an excellent opportunity. Anne is a food journalist and culinary historian. She was a contributing editor at Gourmet Magazine and has written for the New York Times Dining Section and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Sathnam Sanghera is an award-winning journalist, historian, and writer for The Times in London. Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain , his third book, earned a variety of accolades, including being named a Book of the Year at the 2022 British Books Awards. Just before we spoke, Sathnam learne...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com I spoke with Josh Mitchell, author of The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe , to learn the history behind Joe Biden’s decision to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt—and why, even in the unlikely chance that SCOTUS upholds Biden’s action, student debt will continue...

Dr. Carly Goodman revealed the 150-year-old history behind the Biden Administration’s restrictionist stance on immigration. Dr. Goodman explored this history through the lens of Diversity Lottery: a rare, effective, positive US immigration policy that allows people from around the world to migrate here. Not by coincidence, Dr. Goodman is the author of Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Professor Bart Elmore (the Ohio State University) traced the environmental history of five southern companies—Coke, Walmart, FedEx, Delta, and Bank of America—before reflecting on how they’ve come to shape consumer expectations today. Professor Elmore is the award-winning author of Citizen Coke: The Making of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Professor Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. Dr. Erik M. Conway is a historian of science and technology at Caltech. Together, they’re the bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Sc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Professor Melanie Newport (UConn) is the award-winning author of This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration . As Professor Newport and I discussed, much of jailing history is rooted in kind of good intentions, and she uses Chicago as a case study to illuminate how would-be jail reforme...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer and the author of Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials , S**t is Fucked Up and B******t: History Since the End of History , and most recently, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World . This last, wonderfully comprehensive, and chilling book is t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.com A pivotal Supreme Court case that we’re likely to hear a decision on soon, Haaland v. Brackeen , centers on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), landmark legislation passed in 1978. To learn more about ICWA, I spoke with Matthew L.M. Fletcher, the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan L...