Throughline
NPR
Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
Episodes
Mentioned books
21 snips
May 12, 2026 • 19min
Four voices from the Great Depression
Meridel Lasour, writer and journalist who documented urban poverty, shares firsthand observations of women's invisibility during the Depression. Short, vivid accounts cover hidden privation, avoiding breadlines, and charity judgments. The conversation highlights everyday survival tactics and how social attitudes shaped who received help.
23 snips
May 7, 2026 • 49min
How our memory of war can shape the future
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-winning novelist and scholar of memory, reflects on refugee life, selective national remembering, and how narratives shape future conflicts. He contrasts American and Vietnamese memorials, critiques Hollywood and U.S. forgetting, and centers displaced people as essential witnesses to war.
8 snips
May 5, 2026 • 17min
The origins of the Socialist Party of America
They trace how rapid industrialization created harsh working conditions and the rise of labor organizing. The story follows one organizer’s railroad roots, a massive national strike, and how federal intervention escalated violence. Listeners hear about political radicalization in prison and the founding of a national socialist party that shaped later reform debates.
21 snips
Apr 30, 2026 • 52min
Gladiators, real housewives and the pull of reality TV
Goloka Bolte, a reality TV casting director with about 20 years shaping shows like MasterChef and RuPaul's Drag Race, walks through casting, editing and how producers shape narratives. Short takes cover spectacle roots, why conflict hooks viewers, survivor-style myths, branding culture, and how dating loneliness fuels romance TV.
25 snips
Apr 28, 2026 • 15min
The fight that shook America
A retelling of Jack Johnson’s rise as the first Black heavyweight champion and the fight’s seismic racial stakes. A look at how athletes used the ring to challenge social norms. Stories of backlash, legal attacks, and the culture wars that followed his victories. Traces Johnson’s personal defiance and the long legacy of sports-driven protest in America.
52 snips
Apr 23, 2026 • 49min
The billionaires' utopia blueprint
Dan Girma, NPR reporter who did on-site reporting from Roatán. Wayne Gramlich, retired engineer and early seasteading designer. Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, journalist who studies how wealth reshapes places. They tour Svalbard's odd status, the seasteading movement and its engineering dreams, and the Prospera charter-city experiment in Honduras. Short, curious conversations about private jurisdictions, legal limbo, and who gets to rewrite rules.
26 snips
Apr 21, 2026 • 13min
Why the wall was built
Anya Steinberg, a producer who reported and narrated the Nogales border fence story, guides listeners through the town split by an imaginary line. She recounts rising tensions from the Mexican Revolution, WWI fears and militarization, the 1918 Battle of Ambos Nogales, and how that clash pushed officials to build a defining fence. The narrative links that fence to wider shifts in U.S. border policy.
44 snips
Apr 16, 2026 • 48min
The original clickbait king
Karen Roggenkamp, a professor of English who studies 19th-century journalism, guides listeners through William Randolph Hearst’s theatrical newsmaking. Hearst’s daring stunts, creation of yellow journalism, participatory “murder squad,” and the Evangelina Cisneros jailbreak are highlighted. The conversation traces how spectacle reshaped news and set up later debates about objectivity and media trust.
83 snips
Apr 14, 2026 • 16min
How the US became America
Daniel Immerwahr, historian and author who studies U.S. imperial expansion, discusses how late-19th-century wars and overseas acquisitions transformed American identity. He covers the Philippine conflict, wartime tactics and casualties, territorial annexations, and how political rhetoric and culture shifted the country’s shorthand from 'United States' to 'America'.
46 snips
Apr 9, 2026 • 51min
Will AI destroy us... or save us?
Stephanie Dick, historian of computing, traces how early machines shaped AI ideas. Francis Collins, physician-geneticist who led the Human Genome Project, reflects on DNA and what makes humans human. George Zarkadakis, AI author and researcher, maps AI’s cultural and historical roots. They discuss AI’s industrial and Cold War origins, neural nets and genomes, and why culture and meaning resist pure computation.
