The History Evolution

In this episode, I speak with my former colleague, Robert H. Woodrum, who has researched and taught labor history at community colleges, HBCUs, and prisons for many years. He is retiring at the end of this semester, and we got together to discuss his career, why he chose to study labor history,  what he learned from his research, and anarchist dogs. Sadly, technical problems cost us the last ten m...

In the first episode of the second season, I talk with Erik Loomis, professor of labor history at the University of Rhode Island, and author of  A History of America in Ten Strikes and  Organizing America: Stories of Americans who Fought for Justice . We discuss the importance of understanding labor history, the nature of work, what it means to organize, and what is required if workers are to succ...

In this 5th of July Bonus episode, I look to Frederick Douglass and Randolph Bourne in sorting out my own conflicted feelings about America's 250th birthday. If you're interested in the texts mentioned in this podcast, here are some places you can find out more, in order of their appearance in the show. Langston Hughes, "Let America be America Again," Poetry Foundation , https:...

In the third and final episode of the first season of The History Evolution, I talk with Daniel K. Richter about his efforts to tell the colonial and revolutionary history of the United States from "the other side of the frontier." What do we see when we try "facing east from Indian country," and why does it matter?  Our conversation ranged from questions of historical methodol...

In the second episode of the podcast, Drs. Shea Howell, Stephen Ward, and Michael Doan talk to me about the ideas and activism of James (a.k.a. "Jimmy") and Grace Lee Boggs, a couple whose activism spanned almost every progressive movement of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. We discuss their conviction that history as the story of the future as well as the past, how they...

In the first episode of the podcast, I talk with Dr. Ed Pavlić about James Baldwin's evolving understanding of history and what we can learn from it. Baldwin was one of the major influences on the philosophy behind this podcast, and his changing ideas—from history as nightmare to history as lover—reveal a profound insight into the role of history as part of what it means to be human.

We can change the world. History can help.