The Road to Now

The Republican Party has changed a lot since a few former Whigs started the party in the 1850s. Today, the party's legacy is usually defined in terms of well-known figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but author Robert Merry thinks William McKinley deserves a lot more credit than historians and modern politicians have given him. In this Presidents' Day 2018 episode of The Road to Now, we talk with Robert Merry to learn more about McKinley's impact on the reconfiguration of the GOP in the late 19th century, and what it might teach us about the current transformation happening under Donald Trump. Robert W. Merry is the editor of The National Interest and author of several books on American history, including President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (Simon & Schuster, 2017) and James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent (Simon & Schuster, 2010). We're also excited to announce that we're a joining the Osiris Podcast Network, which is launching this week! Osiris' co-founders RJ Bee (CEO, host of Helping Friendly Podcast) and Tom Marshall (COO; lyricist & songwriter for Phish; host of Under the Scales podcast), have brought together a team of podcasts focused on music, art and culture, and we're excited to be part of it! For more on this episode and The Road to Now, visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com

The Road to Now was lucky enough to be part of The Avett Brothers at the Beach music festival, so we invited our friend Bruce Carlson of My History Can Beat Up Your Politics to join us for a discussion of some key moments in the relationship between the United States and Mexico. We cover the US annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War, as well as the ways that the US and Mexico have contributed to each other's development. We couldn't hit everything, but we hope this discussion shows that despite a tumultuous past, both countries stand to gain a lot from cooperation with one another. We'd like to thank everyone who came out to the live recording. We hope to see you on the road again soon! For more on this episode and others, check out www.theroadtonow.com

The War of 1812 isn't an event most of us get excited about. The conflict between the US and Great Britain lasted almost 3 years, but like a lot of sequels, it didn't live up to the original. When the war was over, little had changed for either country's place in the world, and most of the grievances that began the war remained unsettled. So aside from the burning of the White House and Congress, the rise of Andrew Jackson as an American icon, the writing of the national anthem, and the demise of the first American political party system, not a lot happened. In this episode, Bob and Ben speak with Don Hickey of Wayne State College to talk about the war of 1812, its impact on the US, and why so few people today remember such a significant moment in American history. Dr. Don Hickey is Professor of History at Wayne State College. Called "the Dean of 1812 scholarship" by The New Yorker, he has written 10 books and over a hundred articles on the War of 1812, including The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2012). For more on this and any other episode of The Road to Now, visit our website: www.theroadtonow.com.

There is no question that Donald Trump's approach to foreign affairs is nothing we've seen from the Presidents who preceded him. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, Mark Landler argued that the Trump Administration has broken a 70-year tradition in America's foreign policy. Whether this is an abrogation of America's responsibility to the globe or a necessary change for the good of the country requires knowledge of what came before, so Bob & Ben caught up with Whittier College's Joyce Kaufman to learn about the origins of American diplomacy and the reasons that the US became so heavily involved abroad. It turns out America's approach to foreign relations in 2018 may have a lot in common with earlier periods of American history. Dr. Joyce Kaufman is an expert on International Relations in the Department of Political Science at at Whittier College, where she has taught for more than 3 decades. She is the author of multiple books, including A Concise History of US Foreign Policy (4th edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). She previously served as a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense (1977-79). Visit Dr. Kaufman's faculty page for more on her work and publications. For more on this episode or others, visit www.TheRoadToNow.com

Americans love coffee. According to recent statistics, more than 60% of Americans drink at least one cup of coffee every day, and the market research firm Mintel predicts that coffee shops will take in more than $23 billion dollars in 2017. Our love for coffee ties us to people and countries around the world, and to those who lived long before us. In this episode of The Road to Now, we speak with Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds and Beyond Fair Trade to find out coffee's origins, its effects on global trade, and how a small cherry that originated on the other side of the planet became part of our daily life. We're also excited to welcome our newest sponsor, La Cosecha Coffee Roasters. La Cosecha is dedicated to connecting people together by offering fresh-roasted coffee grown in a sustainable manner where the farmer is given a fair price. You can visit their coffee bar in Maplewood, Missouri, or order online and have their coffee shipped directly to your home. We're happy to have such a great business supporting The Road to Now, so we hope you'll show them some love! For links and more on our podcast, visit our website- www.TheRoadToNow.com

RTN Theology now is now on its own podcast feed! Subscribe anywhere you get The Road to Now for RTN Theology episodes 12-19 and more! In the premier episode of our theology subseries, RTN Theology we welcome Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith to discuss the intersection of Christianity and culture in the United States. We also chat about his illuminating Op-Ed that appeared in the Thanksgiving edition of the Washington Post, which looks at 'love of country' from a religious perspective. Smith penned "Awaiting the King," a new book that studies secularism and its impact on modern day religion. Ian Skotte tracked down the Swedish textile archeologist who believes she may have discovered a link between Viking and Muslim cultures from the ninth century. However, not everyone is convinced of these findings. Finally, singer/songwriter David Childers rounds out our show. It just seemed appropriate to take time out during the Christmas holiday and spend time with our good friend. We discuss his take on gospel music and songs of the season as only David Childers can. For links related to this episode, please visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com

A few days ago, President Donald Trump welcomed the Navajo Code Talkers to the White House. Instead of focusing solely on the veterans' contributions during World War II, he used the event to take shots at Senator Elizabeth Warren, who he mocked as "Pocahontas" for her alleged unsubstantiated claims of Native American ancestry. He also held the ceremony in front of a portrait of President Andrew Jackson, who is a controversial figure for his policies toward Native Americans. In this episode of The Road to Now we speak with Dr. Ashley Riley Sousa, a specialist on Native American history at Middle Tennessee State University, to talk about the Navajo Code Talkers, Pocahontas, and the often overlooked and unappreciated place that Native Americans have held in American history. For more on this episode, visit www.theroadtonow.com

Are faith and reason compatible? How do people of faith reconcile themselves to a secular world? These are difficult and complex questions that have shaped America long before the founding of the United States. On this episode of The Road to Now, we sit down with Molly Worthen to talk about the development of Christianity in the United States, and its impact on American society, culture and government. For more on this episode and many others, please visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com. This episode originally launched on March 6, 2017, and features a new introduction by Bob Crawford recorded for Thanksgiving 2017.

The Russian Revolution that began with the fall of Tsar Nicholas II in February of 1917 and continued into a second revolution the following October, is unquestionably one of the most significant events in modern history. The October Revolution brought Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party from relative obscurity to the leaders of the first communist nation, later called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the economic and ideological system espoused by Soviet leaders transformed Russia from an underdeveloped nation on the periphery of Europe into a global super power in just a few decades. In this episode we speak with Russian history expert (and Ben's former dissertation advisor) Lewis Siegelbaum to discuss the series of events that led to the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, and why he tells his students that ignoring the Soviet Union in 20th century is like "clapping with one hand." Dr. Lewis Siegelbaum is the Jack & Margaret Sweet Professor of History at Michigan State University, and one of the most prolific historians on the history of the Soviet era. He has published and edited twelve books, the most recent of which are Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile (Cornell University Press, 2008) and Broad is My Native Land: Repertoires and Regimes of Migration in Russia's Twentieth Century (Cornell University Press, 2014), which he co-wrote with Leslie Page Moch. For more on The Road to Now and this episode, visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com

On August 4, 1789, the National Assembly of France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which asserted the Enlightenment ideals of universal rights and democracy. Though the French Declaration shared a common ideological lineage with the American Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution took a very different path: fifteen years after their founding revolutionary documents, the US had George Washington and France had Napoleon. In this episode of The Road to Now we talk to Dr. Peter McPhee, who is an expert on the history of the French Revolution at the University of Melbourne (Australia). Peter explains the ways that geography, religion, and the French effort to fundamentally redefine society, shaped the complex course of the French Revolution. As Peter does well to show, the French Revolution changed the world, and left a legacy that is all around us today. (And for all you Hamilton fans- if you ever wondered what happened to the Marquis de Lafayette after Hamilton died, Dr. McPhee has the answer!)