History As It Happens

On Dec. 29, 2024, James Earl Carter died at 100. From 1977 to 1981, he was the 39th president of the United States. Carter's passing reignited a debate over the successes and failures of his one term in the White House. He is remembered for stagflation, gas lines, and the "crisis of confidence." His presidency was upended by economic problems at home and major crises abroad, none greater than the Iran hostage ordeal that vexed his administration for more than 400 days. Yet Carter also left a positive legacy in human rights and racial equality. In this episode, historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel provide commentary as we look back on Jimmy Carter's eventful but largely unsuccessful presidency. Credit also to historians Sean Wilentz, John Ghazvinian, and Andrew Bacevich, whose scholarship was cited in this episode.

Note: This episode was produced before the news of the passing of former president Jimmy Carter. The episode scheduled for this upcoming Friday, Jan. 3, will cover Carter's legacy. Today's episode: Biden's humiliating fall. Trump's historic comeback. Assad was ousted. Israel destroyed Gaza. Russia continued to wage war on Ukraine. Democracy retreated. An accused murderer became a folk hero. Caitlin Clark was Time's Athlete of the Year. And the New York Jets -- Martin Di Caro's favorite sports team -- had another miserable campaign. It's the 2024 Year in Review, with historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel. Happy New Year, everyone. May 2025 be the year when humanity gets its act together.

Maria Lipman, a seasoned journalist and political scientist who witnessed the Soviet Union's collapse, shares her insights on the post-Soviet landscape. She explains the harsh realities faced by Russians in the 1990s—economic collapse and widespread corruption—contrasting with Western triumphalism. Lipman delves into the nostalgia for Soviet times, the complex legacy of leaders like Gorbachev, and the current socio-political climate, emphasizing that while Russians value freedom, they are not yearning for a return to communism.

Something remarkable happened as British, French, and German soldiers shivered in their trenches on Christmas Eve along a 20-mile-long stretch of the Western Front in 1914. Instead of killing one another, they met in no-man's-land to fraternize. They shared songs and cigarettes rather than bullets and bombshells. In this episode, historian Terri Blom Crocker separates history from memory, myth from reality concerning the Christmas Truce of 1914. The myths say more about man's uses of memory than the First World War itself. Further reading: The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, and the First World War by Terri Blom Crocker

Let's talk religion and politics as if we were on the set of All in the Family, the smash 1970s sitcom designed to expose the problems of racism, sexism, and religious intolerance. In this episode, historian Louis Benjamin Rolsky traces the rise and fall of the religious left through the career of Norman Lear, the legendary TV producer and writer. In Lear's view, if Archie Bunker personified the wrong ideas and attitudes, the millions of Americans watching All in the Family would see the errors of his mind. Would Archie Bunker vote for Donald Trump? Recommended reading: Misunderstanding the Right by L. Benjamin Rolsky (New International) The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left by L. Benjamin Rolsky

Since emerging as an independent state in 1991, Georgia has struggled to establish its nationhood. "Joining 'the West' has driven Georgian elites' strategic thinking for decades," writes the historian Bryan Gigantino. Yet, at the same time, Tbilisi must not antagonize Russia, as the legacy of the 2008 war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia still looms over Georgian society. For the past three weeks, demonstrators have staged massive protests, often clashing with police, over the ruling Georgian Dream party's decision to suspend talks to join the European Union. In this episode, Gigantino untangles the complexities of Georgian history and politics as the country copes with life on the post-Soviet periphery. Further reading: In Georgia, a National Election Is a Geopolitical Struggle by Bryan Gigantino (Jacobin)

The fall of Bashar al-Assad marked the historic end of more than 50 years of cruel tyranny that began with his father Hafez, who took power in 1970. The world watched moving scenes of Syrians being freed from the regime's dungeons after a 13-year-long civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. But who are Syria's new leaders? Who are the rebels that toppled Assad? In this episode, Sefa Secen, an expert on Syria and Middle East security, delves into the country's murky future and dark past.

Midway through his eighth year in office, President Bill Clinton kicked off a White House conference on the "new economy." The internet age was underway, unemployment was low, inflation was dormant, the stock market boomed, major industries had been deregulated, and Congress was preparing to pass a big trade deal with China. The future seemed so bright as Americans enjoyed the longest economic expansion in the country's history. The "new economy" cheerleaders did not foresee the working-class discontent that now defines American capitalism in the Age of Trump. In this episode, historian Nelson Lichtenstein delves into the illusions and missteps that hollowed out the working class. Further reading: A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism by Nelson Lichtenstein Why Bidenomics Did Not Deliver at the Polls by Dani Rodrik (Project Syndicate) The Decline of Union Hall Politics by Michael Kazin (Dissent)

Thirty years ago, in early December 1994, at a security summit in Budapest, the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and Ukraine signed a memorandum in which Kyiv agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons left on its territory after the collapse of the USSR. In exchange, the other signatories offered assurances to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine's territorial integrity or political independence. Events would prove the Budapest Memorandum to be worth less than the paper it was printed on. Thirty years later, Russia has invaded Ukraine and occupies much of its eastern regions. The war has been devastating, killing tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage looks back at the empty assurances of the Budapest conference, which were made at a time of great optimism and even cooperation among former foes. Kimmage also contends that today's war is a world war insofar as it has expanding global repercussions and is attracting the involvement of non-European countries. Further reading: How Ukraine Became a World War by Michael Kimmage and Hanna Notte in Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for individual Israeli and Hamas leaders, charging them with crimes against humanity. The accusations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant involve the intentional murder of Palestinian civilians and starvation as a method of war. Since invading Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children while utterly destroying most of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. Jewish settlers are said to be waiting to move into the northern Gaza Strip now that it has been emptied of Palestinians. Is it genocide? In this episode, historian Omer Bartov explains why he believes Israel's actions amount to the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." Further reading: Essay on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Omer Bartov (The Guardian)