Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHow to Stay Human Forever: On America's Digital Technology Crisis with James Poulos
Episode 621
Many Americans have a constant dread of impending doom. Glued to the screens of our computers and smartphones, we sense that some total catastrophe i…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the North American Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War with Jason Bell (Hanover Square Press, 2026)
Episode 619
Historians have always known that the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day in June 1944 depended on deceiving the Germans about where …
1 month, 2 weeks ago
The Quake That Drained the Desert with Mary Elizabeth Reynolds (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
Episode 623
On May 3, 1887, an earthquake struck near the U.S.-Mexico border. Forty-three people died in Bavispe, Mexico; sixty miles north in Arizona, buildings…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
The Romans: A People’s History with Paul Chrystal (Reaktion, 2026)
Episode 625
The Romans loom large in the imagination, credited with roads, aqueducts, politics, plumbing and empire – yet these familiar achievements tell only p…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Strong State, Weak Links: Eugenics and the Southern Politics of Welfare with Anna Krome-Lukens (UNC Press, 2026)
Episode 618
In the early twentieth century, most US states established eugenics programs to improve the human race through selective breeding. North Carolina ran…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain
Episode 613
There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
The Return of the Great Powers with Brendan Simms (Basic Books, 2026)
Episode 612
From the dawn of the modern era to the end of the Cold War, global history was defined by rivalries between Great Powers. In the West, this meant the…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
River of Dreams with Robin Blackburn McBride (Guernica Editions, 2026)
Episode 609
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Robin Blackburn McBride about her novel, River of Dreams (Guernica Editions, 2026).
A near-tragic…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey's Kurdish Borderlands with Fırat Bozçalı (Stanford UP, 2025)
Episode 616
The Kurdish-populated Wan/Van Province is a major smuggling hub between Turkey and Iran. Kurdish smugglers cross this 180-mile-long land border, tran…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Postconflict Power Sharing in Africa with Alexander Noyes (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Episode 610
When an election turns violent and neither side will concede, why is the usual answer to put both sides in the same government?
Alex Noyes has spent n…
1 month, 2 weeks ago