Axelbank Reports History and Today
"Axelbank Reports History and Today: Conversations with America’s top non-fiction authors and why their books matter right now" approaches our past and present in a way that makes anyone want to listen. National-award winning TV news reporter Evan Axelbank interviews writers of history and current events to explore how America works and how it has been shaped by both the powerful and the powerless. In conversational and engaging fashion, listeners learn about the most important events, themes and figures in American history. This podcast shows why we have no choice but to understand where we have been, to know where we are going.
Episodes
177 episodes
#176: Marcus Gadson - "Sedition: How America's Constitutional Order Emerged from Violent Crisis"
From the publisher:Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens belie...
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42:45
#175: Suzanne Cope - "Women of War: The Italian Assassins, Spies, and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis"
From the publisher: The gripping, true, and untold history of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during World War II, told through the stories of four spectacularly courageous women fightersFrom underground soldiers to intrepid spies, ...
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58:05
#174: Judith Giesberg - "Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families"
Perhaps the worst punishment that can be inflicted on someone is to be forced away from one's own family. When the slave trade was active in the United States, potentially a million people were sold away from their families either for punishmen...
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57:06
#173: Clay Risen - "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America"
In "Red Scare," Clay Risen traces the cultural differences in contemporary America to McCarthyism and the disagreements in the 1940s and 50s over how the United States should respond to Russian efforts to influence American society. He shows ho...
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1:01:30
#172: Rebecca Brenner Graham - "Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany"
As Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham shows us in this episode, the story of the first cabinet secretary who was a woman - Frances Perkins - has been missing its most consequential chapter. Dr. Graham discovered the story of how Frances Perkins organiz...
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58:48
#171: Ronald Gruner - COVID Wars: America's Struggle Over Public Health and Personal Freedom
America's fight against COVID felt like a never ending battle over who had a right to be safe, to get a vaccine, to work at their place of employment and to visit places of entertainment. Rules around vaccines, restaurants, schools and business...
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49:31
#170: Steve Gillon - "Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents, from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush"
Nearly eighty million were killed. Seventy countries were involed. Two nuclear bombs were dropped. The world was reshaped in its aftermath. World War II wasn't just an event in the lives of seven future presidents, it was the ...
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1:00:03
#169: William Haldeman - "Meeting the Moment: Inspiring Presidential Leadership that Transformed America"
In under a week, the United States will have a new president. On this episode, former White House staffer and academic historian William Haldeman shares his new book that shows how presidents transform from merely an elected leader to someone w...
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47:17
#168: Beyond Vanity - "The History and Power of Hairdressing"
From the publisher: In the nineteenth century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, it could affect one's place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay of...
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49:54
#167: Evan Friss - "The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore"
If you've ever gone holiday shopping, you have probably gone into a bookshop to find the perfect gift for someone you care about. In this episode, we talk with Evan Friss about his astonishing history of how American bookstores were born, how t...
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41:03
#166: Heath Hardage Lee - "The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon"
Considering the high profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Betty Ford, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, little is remembered about Pat Nixon. And that, Heath Lee argues, is the way she wanted it. On this episode, biographer Heath Le...
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57:13
#165: David Greenberg - "John Lewis: A Life"
On this episode, we chat with David Greenberg about his epic biography of American icon John Lewis. We explore Lewis' background, early life, congressional career and of course, his march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis was beaten, but n...
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57:22
#164: Frank Guridy - "The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest and Play"
From the publisher: "Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo,...
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43:53
#163: Megan Gorman - "All The Presidents' Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money"
Being president is a mixed bag. There are long days, high-stakes decisions, definitive elections and even the potential to be considered a dunce for the rest of history. But, there are also opportunities to help people in need, win the respect ...
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1:03:46
#162: Kevin Baker - "The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City"
Despite its reputation as a game with roots in rural America, Kevin Baker explains on this episode that baseball is rooted in New York City, and that it became the engine of the Big Apple. He also explains how the city itself influenced the gam...
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52:41
#161: Max Boot - "Reagan: His Life and Legend"
From the late 1990s until the mid-2010s, conservatives used the rallying slogan of, “What would Reagan do?” as a call to arms on the Federal budget, on taxes, on foreign affairs, and on the government’s role in our lives. He was held up as the ...
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42:25
#160: Clara Bingham - "The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973"
From the publisher: A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes – from former Newsweek reporter and author of the “powerful and moving” ...
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43:29
#159: Corey Brettschneider - "The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It"
The first thing a president must do is swear to uphold the Constitution. But what happens when they betray that promise? Corey Brettschneider argues that it takes ordinary citizens to not only reign them in, but to make sure it never happens ag...
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51:25
#158: Francis Barry - "Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey Into the Heart of American Democracy"
Three-thousand miles. Fourteen states. Seven hundred towns. Two spouses. One Winnebago. Francis Barry and his wife, Laurel, took a trip across the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco during the height of the pandemic, and during the ...
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44:42
#157: Lindsay Chervinsky - "Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic"
George Washington is often given the lionshare of the credit when it comes to establishing the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power in the United States. But in her new book, "Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forge...
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59:36
#156: Dr. Andrea Balis & Elizabeth Levy - "Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare"
From the publisher, Roaring Book Press: Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare provides a gripping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Authors Dr. Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy...
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47:24
#155: Julie Satow - "When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion"
At the dawn of the 20th Century, the center of city life could be found at department stores. One could find the latest fashion, meet friends for a cup of coffee, mail a letter, and escape the hustle of every day life. Julie Satow shows how thr...
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48:09
#154: Adam Higginbotham - "Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space"
On this episode, Adam Higginbotham brings us back to the moment that many say they will never forget, but also to a moment that is filled with misconception and myth. When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, seven astronauts lost the...
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50:53
#153: Edward O'Keefe - "The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt"
Teddy Roosevelt is thought of as the quintessentially masculine American president. He is known for going to war, for fighting buffalo with his bare hands, and sailing down the River of Doubt. But as Edward O'Keefe, the CEO of the Teddy Rooseve...
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47:50
#152: Paul Sparrow - "Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR's War of Words with Charles Lindbergh - And the Battle to Save Democracy"
Paul Sparrow argues that Franklin Roosevelt is the quintessential American president, not just of the 20th Century, but in all of American history. FDR's ability to rally the nation from the Great Depression, and then carry it into a devastatin...
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55:02