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Lectures in History

Lectures in History

C-SPAN

History, Politics, News

4.1 • 696 Ratings

Overview

Go back to school with the country's top professors lecturing on a variety of topics in American history. New episodes posted every Saturday evening. From C-SPAN, the network that brings you "After Words" and "C-SPAN's The Weekly" podcasts.

319 Episodes

Winston Churchill, the Special Relationship and the Cold War

American University professor Laura Beers teaches a class on Winston Churchill and the "special relationship" between Great Britain and the U.S during World War II and the Cold War Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 April 2025

Cold War Refugees & the 1980 Refugee Act

Tulane University history professor Jana Lipman discusses Cold War refugees from Cuba and Vietnam and the impact of the Refugee Act of 1980. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 April 2025

World War II Interracial Relationships in Japan & Hawaii

Santa Clara University history professor Sonia Gomez discusses the intimate relationships between people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds that occurred in Hawaii and Japan during and immediately after World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 April 2025

"The Education of Henry Adams" (1918)

University of Dallas history professor Susan Hanssen discusses the legacy and cultural importance of the 1918 Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Education of Henry Adams." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 April 2025

19th Century American Landscape Painting

Santa Clara University art history professor Andrea Pappas discusses the mid-19th century American landscape painting movement known as the Hudson River School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 March 2025

Development of the Atomic Bomb

University of Texas history professor Bruce Hunt discusses the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and the role of the Army Corps of Engineers General Leslie Groves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 March 2025

FEED DROP: Q&A: Heath Hardage Lee, "The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon"

Historian Heath Hardage Lee, author of "The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon," talks about the life and times of the former First Lady (1969-74). She says that Pat Nixon, who was voted "Most Admired Woman in the World" in 1972, was largely mis-portrayed by the press, who characterized her as being elusive and "plastic." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 March 2025

America & the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Georgetown University history professor Darragh Gannon discusses the Irish diaspora and the role of the United States during "The Troubles" and in the Northen Ireland peace process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 March 2025

Prison Gangs

University of Southern California sociology professor Brittany Friedman discusses the formation and evolution of American prison gangs in the 20th and 21st centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 March 2025

Henry Christophe & the 1791 Haitian Revolution

Yale University professor Marlene Daut discusses the life and legacy of slave, revolutionary, and king Henry Christophe and how the United States and other foreign powers reacted to the 1791 Haitian revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 February 2025

The U.S. Border Patrol

Indiana University history professor Juan Mora discusses the U.S. Border Patrol and how 20th century immigration laws shaped the creation and development of immigration agencies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 February 2025

1607 Jamestown Settlement

College of William & Mary lecturer Amy Stallings discusses the history of the 1607 Jamestown settlement in Virginia and efforts over four centuries to preserve and remember the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 February 2025

History of Latinos in the South

Duke University professor Cecilia Marquez discusses Latino migration trends in the 20th and early 21st centuries and how Latinos shaped the culture, development and economics of the American South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 January 2025

World War I Propaganda

Louisiana State University journalism professor John Maxwell Hamilton discusses U.S. government propaganda efforts during World War I. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 January 2025

American Civil Religion During the Cold War

Hillsdale College professor Richard Gamble teaches a class on civic faith, and how American nationalism incorporated religious elements and symbolism during the Cold War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 January 2025

John Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural Address

President John Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address was the topic of a class taught by University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland. The University of Kansas is in Lawrence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 January 2025

SHORT SERIES: Women Journalists at the Turn of the 20th Century

Iowa State University professor Tracy Lucht talked about women journalists in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. She described the careers of some pioneers, such as Nellie Bly and Dorothy Dix, and the societal pressures for women writers to balance traditional femininity and a career in journalism.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 December 2024

SHORT SERIES:Women's Sports and Title IX

Georgetown University professor Bonnie Morris talked about discrimination against women in sports and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 December 2024

SHORT SERIES: Women's Political Power in Early America

York College professor Jacqueline Beatty discussed women’s rights and changing political power during the American Revolution and the early years of the Republic. York College is located in York, Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 December 2024

SHORT SERIES: Satchel Paige, Negro Leagues Baseball, and Civil Rights

Professor Donald Spivey talked about the legacy of pitcher Satchel Paige and Negro Leagues baseball. Satchel Paige was the first Negro Leagues player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Professor Spivey also explained the ways that Paige and other Negro Leagues players and owners contributed to the struggle for civil rights, including fighting Jim Crow laws, financially supporting groups like the NAACP, and fostering friendships with white players in Major League Baseball.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2024

SHORT SERIES: Baseball in the Gilded Age

Professor Joan Waugh talked about the rise of baseball as a national activity, spectator event, and business. She described the efforts of baseball club owners to codify the rules of the games, establish a national league, and attract a broad middle class audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2024

SHORT SERIES: Baseball During the Depression

Pepperdine University professor Loretta Hunnicutt taught a class about baseball during the Great Depression. She looked at the role of baseball in American culture and the origins of sports journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2024

1893 Lizzie Borden Trial, Part 2

University of Maryland history professor Michael discussed, in the second of a two part lecture, the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden. She was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. The murders and trial received widespread publicity at the time and Lizzie Borden became a lasting figure in American popular culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 December 2024

1893 Lizzie Borden Trial, Part 1

University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross discussed the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden, who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. The murders and trial received widespread publicity at the time and Lizzie Borden became a lasting figure in American popular culture. This is the first of a two-part lecture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 December 2024

FEED DROP: Booknotes+: Richard Brookhiser, "Glorious Lessons"

Richard Brookhiser has written and edited for National Review magazine for over 50 years. He has also written books about George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton, and "gentleman revolutionary" Gouverneur Morris. Now comes his latest, "Glorious Lessons: John Trumbull, Painter of the American Revolution." Trumbull, who lived between 1756 and 1843, was most famous for his 4 very large paintings about the Revolutionary War on the walls of the rotunda in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2024

FEED DROP: Booknotes+ Erik Larson, "The Demon of Unrest"

In the first week of publication of Erik Larson's latest book, "The Demon of Unrest," sales put it at the very top of the bestseller list. It's about the start of the Civil War, with a focus on the five months between Abraham Lincoln's election and the day of the first shot fired on Fort Sumter, which is off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. That was April 12, 1861. In his introduction, Erik Larson writes: "I invite you now to step into the past, to that time of fear and dissension…I suspect your sense of dread will be all the more pronounced in light of today's political discord…" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 November 2024

FEED DROP: Booknotes+: Howard Blum, "Night of the Assassins"

In 1943, in the middle of World War II, the Allied leaders FDR, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin were planning to meet secretly in Tehran. The Nazis wanted to kill them. In his book "Night of the Assassins," author Howard Blum tells the story of "Operation Long Jump," the code name for the Nazi plan to assassinate the Allied leaders. In telling this story, author Blum says: "I wanted to write a suspenseful character-driven story of men, heroes, and villains caught up in a tense, desperate time, who needed to find courage and cunning to do their duty for their countries and to fulfill their own sense of honor." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 November 2024

The Great Depression

Indiana University history professor Carolina Ortega discussed the 1929 Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and the impact that the economic crash had on various populations, including Mexican- Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 November 2024

Road to the 1787 Constitutional Convention

University of Dallas history professor William Atto discussed the decade leading to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the key compromises that led to the ratification of the United States Constitution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 November 2024

Ryan White & the AIDS Epidemic

Florida State University history professor Paul Renfro discussed the life and death of Indiana teenager Ryan White, who emerged as one of the faces of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 October 2024

America's National Pastime

Boston College communications professor Michael Serazio discussed how baseball connects Americans to their past and culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 October 2024

Southeast American Indians During the 18th Century

University of North Carolina at Pembroke history professor Jamie Myers discussed Southeast Native American tribes during the 18th century and the impacts of colonialism, the American Revolution, and the emergence of the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 October 2024

Schools of Thought on the Vietnam War

Hillsdale College history professor Mark Moyar discusses competing interpretations of the Vietnam War when it comes to questions about the necessity of the conflict and whether it was winnable for the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 October 2024

Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"

Georgetown University English professor Christopher Shinn discussed the history and cultural reception of Truman Capote's 1967"In Cold Blood" as well as its impact on the genres of pulp fiction and true crime novels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2024

Gilded Age Bohemians

University of North Carolina at Pembroke professor Ryan Anderson discussed the rise of a Bohemian culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that rejected conventional societal restraints and embraced the arts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 September 2024

The American Presidency and Foreign Policy

Presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky discussed how presidential foreign policy and warmaking powers evolved from the time of George Washington to the modern era Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2024

Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement

Ohio State University history professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries discussed historical narratives of the Civil Rights Movement and modern understandings of victories, defeats and what the movement was trying to achieve. Professor Jeffries is the brother of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 September 2024

Rise of Industry in the Gilded age

College of the Ozarks professor David Dalton, who teaches a class on 19th Century American history, discussed the rise of American industry in the Gilded Age. College of the Ozarks is located in Point Lookout, Missouri. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 1 September 2024

Obama's 2004 DNC Keynote

Former President Barack Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was the topic of a class taught by University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland. The University of Kansas is in Lawrence, Kansas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 August 2024

American Churches During World War 1

Hillsdale College Professor Richard Gamble taught a class on American churches and religion during World War I. He discussed how American pastors, ministers, and rabbis spoke about the Great War before and after the U.S. entered the conflict. This lecture was part of a course titled “The U.S. from the Great War to the Cold War.” Hillsdale College is located in Hillsdale, Michigan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 August 2024

The Red Scare 1940s-1950s

University of California, Davis, history Professor Kathryn Olmsted taught a class on how the ‘Red Scare’ evolved into a wide-ranging conspiracy theory in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 28 July 2024

Appalachia in the American Imagination

Professor Benjamin Bankhurst talked about Appalachia in the American imagination. He described how the regional stereotype has changed over time, from the view of “backwards hillbillies” during the Industrial Revolution to a people respected for their folk culture in the early 20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 July 2024

Eisenhower & 1950s Political Advertising

Purdue University Professor Kathryn Brownell taught a class about political advertising in the 1950s, highlighting Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential campaigns. She compared radio and early televised ads and examines what components made them successful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2024

History of Abortion

University of California, Davis, law professor Mary Ziegler discussed the history of abortion and contraception laws in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2024

20th Century Fundamentalism & Pentecostalism

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Molly Worthen taught a class about the history and the intellectual underpinnings of Protestant fundamentalism in 20th century America. She began with the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which pitted the teaching of evolution versus creationism in public schools and gained national attention. Later she delved into the origins and growth of Pentecostalism, which strives for a personal connection with the Divine and includes such aspects as faith healing and speaking in tongues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2024

D-Day & Omaha Beach

Professor Adrian Lewis talked about about Omaha Beach and the 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, France, during World War II. He described the German and Allied military strategies as well as the command structure on each side. He also enumerated the challenges American troops faced when trying to land on Omaha Beach and argued that the outcome was not inevitable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2024

C.S. Lewis

Calvin University Professor Micah Watson discussed C.S. Lewis’s views on law, politics, and government and how they connected to his Christian beliefs. This lecture took place at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2024

WWII Battle of the Atlantic

University of Notre Dame military history professor Ian Ona Johnson discussed the contest for control of Atlantic sea routes during World War II. The University of Notre Dame is located in Indiana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2024

The Road to Brown v. Board of Education

Prairie View A&M history professor Malachi Crawford discusses the evolution of civil rights law from efforts to dismantle Jim Crow and racial segregation to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2024

The West Virginia Mine Wars

Virginia Tech lecturer Taulby Edmondson discussed unionization efforts in the West Virginia mining industry that led to a series of armed conflicts in the 1910s and 1920s. Virginia Tech is located in Blacksburg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2024

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