History As It Happens

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
What was Cold War liberalism? What is its lasting significance? Does it live on as a zombie ideology?
In this episode, historians Daniel Bessner and Michael Brenes trace the origins of this powerful ideology to the 1930s and 40s. It soon reached the apogee of its influence, only to decline after the tragedy of Vietnam. As Americans today grapple with the disastrous consequences of decades of military adventurism, they might find some answers in Cold War liberalism, which shaped U.S. foreign policy as the country emerged from the Second World War a superpower.
Daniel Bessner teaches history at the University of Washington and cohosts American Prestige podcast.
Michael Brenes is Co-Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History at Yale University.
Recommended reading:
Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency edited by Daniel Bessner and Michael Brenes

Enjoy this entire 30-minute bonus episode! To listen to future bonus content and get early access to ad-free episodes, become a subscriber today. History As It Happens Premium costs $5 per month.
Why do some opponents of the abandoned JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, continue to lie about it? Many of these critics are now the most vocal backers of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fiasco of a war against the Islamic Republic, which has failed in all its main objectives while leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
What was actually in the JCPOA? What did it really accomplish? And why is President Trump reluctant to agree to something similar, or possibly a little better, than what President Obama came up with a decade ago? A negotiated settlement is the only way out of this war. Nuclear arms expert Joe Cirincione is our guest.
Further reading:
Dollars For Dust by Joe Cirincione (Strategy & History newsletter)

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
This is the fifth episode in an occasional series for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial.
Americans have always contested the meanings and purpose of the Revolution. During the 1850s, both unionists and secessionists, the anti-slavery movement and pro-slavery stalwarts, cited the Declaration of Independence to defend their positions. How could Americans who were on opposite sides of the all-important slavery conflict cite the same document invoking fundamental human equality? In this episode, historian James Oakes takes us into the mind of Abraham Lincoln, who reached back to 1776 to denounce the South's peculiar institution.
Recommended reading:
The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes
Further listening (America250 series):
Episode 1 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky
Episode 2 w/ Kate Carté
Episode 3 w/ Alan Taylor
Episode 4 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
Every May, Israelis celebrate the anniversary of their independence. For Palestinians, their memories are of dispossession and displacement.
Beginning in late 1947, months before the official creation of the Jewish state, Jewish forces expelled Palestinian Arabs and destroyed their homes and villages. By the time the Nakba, which means catastrophe in Arabic, was over, some 750,000 Palestinians had been expelled in one of the first ethnic cleansing operations of the post-WWII era.
Yet it took generations for this story to receive the attention it deserves — an alarming erasure because today's conflict cannot be understood without this "other half" of Israel's origin story. Historian Mark LeVine of the University of California-Irvine is our guest.
Further reading:
Art Beyond the Edge: Creativity and Conflict in the World on Fire by Mark LeVine
Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880-1948 by Mark LeVine

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content!
This is the fourth episode in an occasional series for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial.
What if we approached this coming Fourth of July not as a single day to celebrate a special national birthday, but as the start of a decade-long commitment to a "civic renaissance"? The story of the founding of the United States didn't end on July 4, 1776 — it remains a work in progress (with plenty of setbacks, too). Indeed, a question people pondered at the time remains important today: What does it mean to be a republican citizen? Historian Lindsay Chervinsky, the executive director of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon, is our guest.
Further reading:
A Bold Civic Renaissance for America's 250th by Lindsay Chervinsky and Julie Silverbrook (National Constitution Center)
Further listening:
Episode 1 w/ Lindsay Chervinsky
Episode 2 w/ Kate Carté
Episode 3 w/ Alan Taylor