Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Episodes
152 episodes
Field Trip: Walking The National Mall Through Service, Sacrifice, And Civic Duty
A wall of names can change how you see yourself—and your country. Walking the National Mall with our guide Jeremy Goldstein, we explore how the World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam Veterans memorials turn stone, water, and bronze ...
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Season 1
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Episode 148
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18:04
How The New Deal Remade Parties And The Presidency
A national emergency remade American politics—and we follow the fault lines from the Great Depression to the digital age. With Dr. Sidney Milkis, we unpack how Franklin Roosevelt turned crisis into a lasting partisan realignment and built the m...
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Season 1
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Episode 147
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20:23
From Patronage To Primaries: How The Progressive Era Remade U.S. Politics
We track how the Progressive Era broke the grip of local party machines, elevated public opinion, and strengthened the presidency, reshaping both major parties. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson anchor the story as primaries expand and conventions re...
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Season 1
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Episode 146
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14:17
Classroom Edition: Alexis de Toqueville
A French magistrate walked into an American prison and came out with a blueprint for democratic life. We follow Alexis de Tocqueville’s unlikely journey—from an official study of penitentiaries to a lasting analysis of how habits, values, and l...
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Season 1
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Episode 145
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8:43
Tocqueville’s Take On Individualism
What if the biggest threat to freedom isn’t a tyrant but our quiet decision to sit out civic life? We dive into Alexis de Tocqueville’s striking idea of “individualism” as a democratic habit of withdrawal—not mere selfishness—and trace how that...
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Season 1
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Episode 144
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27:22
Field Trip: Civil Rights On The Mall
A public park can teach a nation. We head to the National Mall with Jeremy Goldstein from the Trust for the National Mall to trace a civil rights tour that links the MLK Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial into one...
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Season 1
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Episode 143
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11:28
Tocqueville On Religion’s Role In Democracy
Freedom doesn’t last on parchment alone. We sit down with Dr. Daniel Mahoney to trace why Tocqueville believed that religion—understood broadly and charitably—quietly underwrites the habits that make a republic work. Laws matter, but mores matt...
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Season 1
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Episode 142
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24:35
How Tocqueville Read the Constitution and Judged Andrew Jackson
A French traveler saw something in America that Americans often miss: a Constitution that works precisely because it limits what anyone can do. We dive into Tocqueville’s sharp reading of federal design and put it to the test in the age of Andr...
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Season 1
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Episode 141
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19:32
Tocqueville On Towns And Freedom
Why did a fledgling republic across the Atlantic make constitutional democracy work while France kept crashing into chaos? We pull on that thread with Tocqueville as our guide, following his journey from “prison inspector” to one of the sharpes...
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Season 1
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Episode 140
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21:11
How Democrats And Republicans Evolved Across Ideology, Geography, And Voters
The easiest story about American parties is also the least helpful: that Democrats and Republicans simply “flipped.” We take you past that cliché and into the moving parts that actually reshape coalitions—where parties win, what they believe, a...
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Season 1
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Episode 139
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29:43
Field Trip: How The Lincoln Memorial Became A Stage For America’s Civic Story
Step onto America’s front yard with us and see the National Mall with fresh eyes. Guided by Jeremy Goldstein of the Trust for the National Mall, we unpack how this open, ticketless landscape functions as a park, a museum, and a civic classroom—...
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Season 1
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Episode 138
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16:07
Do Parties Still Matter?
Power doesn’t disappear in politics; it moves. We dig into how American political parties migrated from tightly controlled organizations to looser coalitions where candidates build their own machines, then fight for the right to wear the party ...
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Season 1
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Episode 137
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9:47
Political Realignment, Explained Clearly
Ever wonder why some elections change everything while others fade into noise? Henry Olsen joins us to map the hidden mechanics of political realignment—the moments when voter coalitions reorganize around a new set of priorities and lock in pol...
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Season 1
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Episode 136
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13:46
Lincoln’s Election And The Party Idea
Politics didn’t always reward performance over prudence. We dive into how Abraham Lincoln—once a young Whig and later the face of a new Republican coalition—used a strong party system to win, govern, and preserve a fragile constitutional order ...
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Season 1
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Episode 135
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23:13
From Birmingham Jail To National Conscience: Nonviolence, Context, And Civic Duty
A letter smuggled from a jail cell shouldn’t carry this much power, yet King’s words still light a fire under the American conscience. We sit down with Dr. Michael Butler, Keenan Distinguished Professor of History, to explore why Letter from Bi...
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Season 1
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Episode 134
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33:13
Field Trip: Welcome to America’s Front Yard
Step onto America’s front yard with us and see the National Mall as you’ve never seen it before: a living civics classroom where design, memory, and the First Amendment share the same lawn. Our guide is Jeremy Goldstein, Vice President of Progr...
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Season 1
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Episode 133
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17:21
Why The Republican Party Emerged In The 1850s
A single constitutional question remade American politics: could Congress restrict slavery in the territories? We follow that thread through the 1850s to watch a new party cohere from scattered movements—Free Soil organizers, anti-slavery Whigs...
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Season 1
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Episode 132
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10:13
How 19th-Century Politics Fractured Over Slavery And Gave Rise To Republicans
A nation doesn’t break in a single moment—it fractures across pulpits, newspapers, courtrooms, and party halls until the old order can’t bear the strain. We walk through the pivotal decades when the politics of slavery hardened from reluctant t...
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Season 1
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Episode 131
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9:31
Why The Whig Party Formed, Fought For Congress, And Fell To The Slavery Question
A party built to check presidential power, unite a restless coalition, and knit the country together with roads and banks—then shattered by the nation’s defining moral crisis. That’s the arc of the Whig Party, and we walk it step by step with c...
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Season 1
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Episode 130
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10:16
How The Jacksonian Democrats Built America’s First Modern Party
A party wasn’t just born—it was engineered. We follow the rise of the Jacksonian Democrats from a murky Era of Good Feelings into a disciplined machine that reshaped American politics. With Dr. Sean Beienberg, we unpack how Martin Van Buren bui...
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Season 1
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Episode 129
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10:33
How Two Founders Shaped The Presidency, Parties, And Foreign Policy
A young republic rarely gets to choose its identity in peace and quiet. We step into the charged crossroads where Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton wrestled over what “self-government” should actually look like, and how much power the fed...
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Season 1
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Episode 128
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25:50
Hamilton Vs. Jefferson
A cabinet feud reshaped a nation. We follow Hamilton and Jefferson from principled disagreement to hard-nosed dealmaking, showing how a debate over debt, a national bank, and the reach of implied powers birthed America’s first party system—and ...
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Season 1
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Episode 127
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22:16
Why Parties Emerged In Early America
Why did a Constitution that never mentions parties give birth to them almost immediately? We trace the story from ratification battles to cabinet showdowns, connecting the dots between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, the shockwaves of the Fre...
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Season 1
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Episode 126
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21:30
Federalists Vs. Democratic Republicans
Forget today’s party machinery. We go back to the 1790s, when “party” meant faction, suspicion, and heated pamphlets rather than primaries and platforms. With constitutional law scholar Dr. Sean Beienberg, we trace how Federalists and Democrati...
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Season 1
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Episode 125
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13:18
Reading Washington’s Farewell Address
What if the most important presidential “speech” was never meant to be spoken? We sit down with Samantha Snyder, research librarian at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, to explore why Washington printed his Farewell Ad...
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Season 1
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Episode 124
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31:31