Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchS4 E11: More Truth
Season 4 Episode 11
How well do the news media serve us as citizens, and what role does the notion of “objective,” or “neutral,” journalism play in the failings of Ameri…
6 years ago
S4 E10: Schooled for Democracy
Season 4 Episode 10
In most American schools, children *hear about* democracy, but don’t get to *practice* it. What would a more engaged brand of civics education look l…
6 years ago
S4 E9: American Empire
Season 4 Episode 9
“America” and “empire.” Do those words go together? If so, what kind of imperialism does the U.S. practice, and how has American empire changed over …
6 years, 1 month ago
S4 E8: The Second Redemption
Season 4 Episode 8
The conservative, neoliberal counterrevolution in the face of expanding democracy in America: It started long before Donald Trump. Even before Ronald…
6 years, 1 month ago
S4 E7: Freedom Summer
Season 4 Episode 7
In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi to place themselves in the path of white supre…
6 years, 2 months ago
Bonus Episode: Pandemic America
Season 4 Episode 6
In this special episode, host John Biewen and series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss
the coronavirus pandemic and how the crisis, and the na…
6 years, 2 months ago
S4 E6: A New Deal
Season 4 Episode 6
The Great Depression presented a crisis not only for the U.S. economy, but for American democracy. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to save the na…
6 years, 2 months ago
S4 E5: Feminism in Black and White
Season 4 Episode 5
People fighting for more democracy in the United States often have to struggle against sexism and racism. In fact, those two struggles are often inse…
6 years, 2 months ago
S4 E4: The Second Revolution
Season 4 Episode 4
After the Civil War, a surprising coalition tried to remake the United States into a real multiracial democracy for the first time. Reconstruction, a…
6 years, 3 months ago
S4 E3: The Cotton Empire
Season 4 Episode 3
In the decades after America’s founding and the establishment of the Constitution, did the nation get better, more just, more democratic? Or did it d…
6 years, 3 months ago