History As It Happens

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Keep the narrative flow going! Dick Cheney died on Nov. 3. From the 1970s onward, he held several powerful posts as White House chief of staff, a Wyoming congressman, Secretary of Defense, and a private-sector oil executive. But Cheney will be remembered most of all for his eight years as Vice President under George W. Bush, when he exerted his influence to invade Iraq in 2003 and impressed his ideas about executive authority and conduct, ignoring Congress, the Constitution, and international law. The Iraq war became an intractable calamity. Even today, the country is not considered a healthy democracy. Cheney's idea of the "unitary executive" is now being put into practice once more by Donald Trump, an unintended consequence of Dick Cheney's enduring influence. Historian Jeremi Suri is our guest. Further reading: The Costs of War: Iraq by Brown University Further listening: Saddam and his American Friends w/ Steve Coll The Iraq War w/ Andrew Bacevich The Iraq War w/ Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Keep the narrative flow going! History As It Happens returns to the movies! In this episode, historian Kevin Levin discusses the 1989 film Glory, a moving portrayal of one of the first Black fighting regiments of the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and its commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Further reading: Robert Gould Shaw, Glory, and the Problem of AI by Kevin Levin (Civil War Memory on Substack)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Keep the narrative flow going! The U.S.-led military coalition that expelled Saddam Hussein's armies from Kuwait in 1990-91 is usually remembered as the first major conflict of a post-Cold War world. But it was not the first time during those heady days that the U.S. invaded a country to get rid of a dictator in the name of human rights and the rule of law. That was Panama in 1989, a short war that would seem relevant now, as the Trump administration seeks regime change in a different Latin American country, Venezuela. In this episode, historian Alex Aviña reminds us why the rise and fall of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, a longtime CIA asset and drug trafficker, matters. Further listening: Trump and the Panama Canal w/ Jonathan Brown TR to Trump: America and Venezuela w/ Alex Aviña

Subscribe to listen to the entire episode. Enjoy all bonus content for $5 per month! Carl Schmitt was a German legal theorist who joined the Nazi Party after Hitler achieved power. Schmitt supplied legal justifications for the Third Reich as it crushed all opposition and persecuted Jews. Yet long after he collaborated with this monstrous regime, Schmitt's ideas remained influential, and he maintained a respectable following. What explains his popularity on the New Right today in the Age of Trump? Further reading: The American New Right Looks Like the European Old Right by Phil Magness and Jack Nicastro in Reason The Enemy of Liberalism by Mark Lilla in The New York Review

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. The "No Kings" protests across America were aimed at President Donald Trump's mounting abuses of power, based on the idea that he's acting like an elected monarch 250 years after the framers of the Constitution established the separation of powers. In this episode, the eminent historian Joseph Ellis explains why America's founders forged a republic where there'd be no kings. Further reading/listening: Enemies Lists (podcast) Shall We Have A King? by William Leuchtenberg (American Heritage) The Great Contradiction by Joseph Ellis

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. After Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism became a surprise bestseller. Arendt, who died in 1975, became a sort of prophet for the liberal "Resistance" based on her insights into lying and politics and the origins of fascism. Today, as President Trump acts with increasing authoritarianism and corruption, Arendt is still frequently quoted, but she's not the star she once was on the American left. Why? Yale historian and law professor Samuel Moyn discusses the uses and abuses of Hannah Arendt, one of the twentieth century's towering philosophers. Further reading: You Have Misunderstood the Relevance of Hannah Arendt by Samuel Moyn, Prospect (2020) Men in Dark Times by Rebecca Panovka, Harper's (2021) Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt on Deception, Self-Deception, and the Psychology of Defactualization by Maria Popova, The Marginalian Big Racket Man by Martin Jay for Verso Books (2023)

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. The Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani is the favorite to be elected New York City's mayor next month. He is an inheritor of a largely forgotten municipal socialist tradition in America, one in which dozens of cities and towns were once governed by men dedicated to improving the lives of the working class, reforming government, and beating back public corruption. In this episode, the eminent labor historian Shelton Stromquist takes us back to a bygone era when cities faced dramatic problems and voters elected socialists to solve them. Further reading: Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism by Shelton Stromquist

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode. Americans' trust in the news media has plummeted to the lowest point since pollsters began tracking the data. Across the political spectrum, people have little confidence that the traditional powerhouses -- major newspapers along with TV and radio networks -- are giving it to them straight. In this episode, the accomplished newsman Greg Jarrett, who spent more than 50 years covering big stories in the U.S. and overseas, says news outlets' self-inflicted errors and a broken business model are largely to blame.

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Out of the destruction of war and disgrace of Nazism, a new (West) Germany emerged after 1945. It was democratic, prosperous, and peaceful. Another caesura occurred in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, East and West. This was 'the end of history.' But history came back with a vengeance. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri explains why Germans today fear rearmament and militarism may imperil their way of life. Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He hosts 'This is Democracy' podcast and writes the 'Democracy of Hope' Substack. Further reading: The Revenge of History in Europe by Jeremi Suri (Democracy of Hope)

Keep the narrative flow going! Subscribe for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Major changes are afoot in the Middle East, but there are continuities with the past. One is Russian influence in Syria. Moscow remains involved in this country on the Mediterranean, although the civil war is over and a former jihadist is president in Damascus, a man who led the revolt that toppled Vladimir Putin's client. In this episode, analyst Hanna Notte explains the enduring nature of Russia-Syria ties and why other regional powers are trying to exploit Moscow's reduced presence in the country. Hanna Notte is an expert in Russian foreign policy, the Middle East, and arms control and nonproliferation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Recommended reading: Russia Isn't Done With Syria by Hanna Notte in Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (no paywall) Subscribe at https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/