Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Keri Leigh Merritt, discussing her new book, An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America (St. Martin’s Press, 2026). Smith, born in 1897, was a white Southern woman living in the Jim Crow South who defied all stereotypes: she …Continue Reading »
Stan’s guest this week is historian Craig Fehrman, author of This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark (Avid Reader Press, 2026), an exciting new history of the Corps of Discovery. Thirty years after Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, Fehrman offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes …Continue Reading »
Stan welcomes back to the podcast historian David Henkin of the University of California, Berkeley, to talk about his latest book, Out of the Ballpark: How to Think About Baseball (Oxford University Press, 2026). Henkin strips away the mythology that has accumulated around baseball in the United States and rejects the notion that understanding the …Continue Reading »
Stan’s guest this week is distinguished historian Peter Mancall of the University of Southern California, author of Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c.1000 – 1680, the new and first volume in the renowned Oxford History of the United States series. Contested Continent recounts the origins of “America” and how it came to birth …Continue Reading »
Stan’s guests this week are three members of the Whitfield Remembrance Project, a community remembrance initiative in Dalton, Georgia, inspired by the Equal Justice Initiative. Their mission is to honor victims of racial injustice in Whitfield County, beginning with efforts to memorialize the last known lynching in Whitfield. Their current project focuses on honoring Juliette …Continue Reading »