The Past, the Promise, the Presidency

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles . This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S...

Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features veteran political reporter Susan Page, who will be giving a book talk on Wednesday, April 29th, at 6 pm in SMU’s McCord Auditorium (Dallas Hall 306). Susan’s most recent book, The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History , chronicles the...

Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Frank Gavin, Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Gavin visited Dallas in early April to...

Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Katherine Epstein, professor of history at Rutgers-Camden. Dr. Epstein will be with us here at SMU this coming Thursday, March 12, to talk about her new book, Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State. A...

Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books. This episode features Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson, Ralph & Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History & Associate Professor at Baylor University. Dr. Johnson will be with us here at SMU this coming Monday, March 9, to talk about his new book, Entangled Alliances:...

Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books. Our second episode features former CPH postdoctoral fellow and current associate professor of history at Florida State University Paul Renfro, who will be giving a book talk on Thursday, February 19th, at 6 pm in SMU's McCord Auditorium (Dallas Hall 306)...

CPH is excited to announce Season 5 of  The Past, the Promise, The Presidency . This season will feature brief interviews with historians about their newest books, ranging in topic from religious freedom to technology theft; from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River; from global diplomacy to Texas football. This week's conversation features CPH Assistant Director Ashlyn Hand, who will...

On October 30th, 2024, CPH Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel presented a lecture as part of the SMU Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute Godbey Lecture Series, described below. A few weeks later, we sat down with Dr. Engel for a Q&A about his talk -- that conversation follows a recording of the lecture itself. Fifty Years Since Watergate: Presidential Power in the Age of Rampant Immunity and Fe...

For the conclusion of this season, we examine conclusions: the deaths of presidents. Not just presidents who died while in office, but those who died years after they retired from the presidency and the constant limelight. Our journey through the lives, deaths, and legacies of our presidents from 1799 to today offers surprising revelations about the constancy of mourning and the role of the presid...

The early 1980s was a time of great political uncertainty. With the threat of nuclear destruction seemingly imminent, the emergence of global terrorism, and the rise of proxy conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Ronald Reagan entered the White House with many global security problems on his hands, and very few clear solutions. He wasn’t alone, though. Throughout the end of the Cold War, R...

Many Americans, if they know about Reconstruction at all, likely think of it as a failed venture. What had begun in 1865 as an opportunity to guarantee equal citizenship and rights for African Americans, fizzled out as citizens and elected officials became apathetic, or even hostile to the struggle for equality.  Our guests today survey the four presidencies that touched Reconstruction—Lincoln, Jo...

Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang are some of the most recognizable characters in American pop culture. From Snoopy’s doghouse to Linus’s blanket to Lucy’s perpetual football prank, the scenes from this iconic comic strip are imprinted in the memories of many Americans even today, more than 70 years after the strip’s debut. However, behind the lemonade stand, amateur psychiatric help, and basebal...

Oil runs the world. From our cars to our houses, most of us can’t live without it. From the 1940s to the 1960s, though, oil played another specific role as a central part of conflict and diplomacy during the Cold War. It was during this era that Iran developed into the world’s first “petro-state”: a nation whose state revenue, industrializing economy, military, and growing middle class all depende...

Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stands out as a major affront to the promise of American liberty. In 1942, this executive order forced approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans out of their homes on the western coast, and incarcerated them in makeshift prisons all around the nation. Our guest today explains today that this was not only a case of civil rights being s...

When we think about the history of westward expansion and the growth of state power in the United States, the postal system probably isn’t the first institution that comes to mind. But this week, that’s exactly what we’ll be exploring: the unsung power and reach of the U.S. Postal Service in the late-19th century America. It took Anglo-Americans nearly two hundred years to occupy the eastern half...

A conversation with Dr. Peniel Joseph (University of Texas at Austin) about his new book, The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century .

We welcome Dr. Spencer McBride for a conversation about his book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (Oxford UP, 2021). Dr. McBride tells us about Joseph Smith's story from his days as the founder & leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to his presidential campaign in 1844. Along the way, he explains wha...

It’s finally here: the first episode of Conversations , Season 4 of The Past, The Promise, The Presidency ! As you may have learned from previous seasons, when we at the Center for Presidential History talk about “presidential history,” we’re thinking deep and wide. And our conversations this season will be no different. The postal system, Mormons, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during Wo...

In this final episode of "Cross Currents" we explore Norway's challenging balancing act in their relationship with the United States in the years after 9/11. How would Norway maintain a close partnership with the US, on the one hand, while also remaining committed to keeping NATO a strong and relevant worldwide alliance? In addition to this, Norway's leaders had to continue ans...

After 9/11, the United States—led by President George W. Bush—made it clear to the world they would pursue al-Qaeda and any other threats to the US national security. But rather than working directly through established security alliances like NATO, the US chose to pursue new plans, and new alliances. This shift precipitated a downturn in diplomatic relations with many nations around the world, an...