Jan 24, 2025
Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) was hailed as an exemplary leader on human rights whose presidency was ruined by crises outside his control, none worse than the hostage crisis in Iran. This favorable view elides critical events that took place during the years before the U.S. embassy was seized in Tehran in Nov. 1979....
Jan 21, 2025
Democrat Joseph R. Biden's very long political career is now over. The man first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 reached the pinnacle of power at 78 years old when he defeated Republican Donald Trump in 2020. Biden made saving democracy against the Trump threat a leitmotif of his administration. Yet, Biden's missteps...
Jan 17, 2025
On the eve of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, many Americans are struggling to explain how we got here again. Are past narratives failing to help us understand the present? The history of conservatism or illiberalism may provide some answers for this new age of American politics, this post-post-Cold War period...
Jan 14, 2025
President-elect Donald Trump says China has taken over the Panama Canal. In a news conference, Trump said U.S. military force may be necessary to seize the canal, which would abrogate the 1978 treaty between the U.S. and Panama ceding its control to that Central American country. In this episode, historian Jonathan...
Jan 10, 2025
President-elect Donald Trump, who has said illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country," vows his administration will implement the largest deportation program in U.S. history. Mass deportations are part of the American story; Mexicans were targeted in "repatriation raids" in the 1930s, and in 1954...