From the publisher: " An epic, riveting history based on new interviews and research that elucidates the approval, construction, and fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the world’s first atomic bomb. Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project and delivered by a B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary long-range bomber, the weapon destroyed large swaths of the city, instantly killing tens of ...
Aug 12, 2025•1 hr
American politics has been dominated by two major political parties for large swaths of time. They raise money, put forward candidates at every level of government, get them elected, and - for better or worse - keep them there. It's a system that was spearheaded by Martin Van Buren, the eighth president. Though his administration was a bust, he has influenced public life since he left office in 1841. James Bradley is an editor of the Van Buren Papers, and argues on this episode that Van Buren ma...
Jul 29, 2025•49 min
From the publisher: "In this definitive portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—one of America’s most consequential and enigmatic presidents—J. Randy Taraborrelli delivers a deeply researched and authoritative biography. More than the story of a presidency, this is an intimate study of a man whose public triumphs were shaped—and at times overshadowed—by the complex realities of his private life, from his legendary family to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy. Drawing from hundreds of interviews cond...
Jul 15, 2025•56 min
Happy fifth!! On this special edition of "Axelbank Reports History and Today," we are thrilled to chat with HW Brands to celebrate this show's fifth anniversary. Over the last five years, we have published 180 episodes and profiled books and authors of many stripes. We have done our best to make history relevant to today, and to give our listeners the information they need to get along in their communities and to make informed decisions about protecting American democracy. Thank you for being al...
Jun 24, 2025•56 min
From the publisher: "In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general. Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the foundi...
Jun 17, 2025•57 min
Harriet Tubman is well-known for being a conductor of the Underground Railroad. She helped dozens of people escape the slave-owning south through her bravery, wisdom and skill. But as Edda Fields-Black discovered, she also helped Union troops raid rice plantations in South Carolina and free hundreds of people who were living in some of the worst conditions imaginable. On this episode, we talk with this newly-minted Pulitzer Prize winner about how she wrote "Combee" and how her own family's histo...
Jun 03, 2025•56 min
From the publisher: On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews set sail—not to Jerusalem or New York, where many on board had dreamed they would go, but to Texas. The man who encouraged the passengers to go was David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. The journey marked the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when ten thousand Jews fled to Texas in the lead-up to World War I. The charismatic leader of the movement was Jochelmann’s closest frien...
May 13, 2025•46 min
From the publisher: Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander G...
Apr 22, 2025•43 min
From the publisher: The gripping, true, and untold history of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during World War II, told through the stories of four spectacularly courageous women fighters From underground soldiers to intrepid spies, Women of War unearths the hidden history of the brave women who risked their lives to overthrow the Nazi occupation and liberate Italy. Using primary sources and brand new scholarship, historian Suzanne Cope illuminates the roles played by women while Italians st...
Apr 08, 2025•58 min
Perhaps the worst punishment that can be inflicted on someone is to be forced away from one's own family. When the slave trade was active in the United States, potentially a million people were sold away from their families either for punishment or profit. After slavery ended, many of those who had not seen their families for years took out ads in newspapers, hoping for a clue that would help them reunite with their families. In "Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find...
Mar 25, 2025•57 min
In "Red Scare," Clay Risen traces the cultural differences in contemporary America to McCarthyism and the disagreements in the 1940s and 50s over how the United States should respond to Russian efforts to influence American society. He shows how the American political system was weaponized against those deemed worthy of suspicion, and how that destroyed the lives of thousands of people. He also shows how disagreements over the New Deal and how to respond to a growing nuclear threat morphed into ...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 2 min
As Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham shows us in this episode, the story of the first cabinet secretary who was a woman - Frances Perkins - has been missing its most consequential chapter. Dr. Graham discovered the story of how Frances Perkins organized and prodded the Federal government to allow Holocaust victims to escape before it was too late. Graham tells the story of how Perkins wielded power in Washington, and how a rare impeachment of a cabinet secretary began to curtail that power. But, she ma...
Feb 11, 2025•59 min
America's fight against COVID felt like a never ending battle over who had a right to be safe, to get a vaccine, to work at their place of employment and to visit places of entertainment. Rules around vaccines, restaurants, schools and businesses provided the fuel for the question of "which way worked better?" Which areas saw more deaths, kept people employed and fostered the educational success of children? In "COVID Wars," former tech CEO Ronald Gruner dug into the data to determine which stra...
Feb 11, 2025•50 min
Nearly eighty million were killed. Seventy countries were involed. Two nuclear bombs were dropped. The world was reshaped in its aftermath. World War II wasn't just an event in the lives of seven future presidents, it was the event. Steven Gillon argues seven future presidents were changed irrevocably by what they’d experienced from the moment Pearl Harbor was attacked to the moment millions of soldiers came back to the United States. They had seen death, lost friends and feared for their own li...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr
In under a week, the United States will have a new president. On this episode, former White House staffer and academic historian William Haldeman shares his new book that shows how presidents transform from merely an elected leader to someone whose mark is left for generations. He describes how six presidents - Washington, Lincoln, TR, FDR, JFK and Reagan - developed leadership skills over the course of their lives that could then be applied not only to policy, but to their use of the bully pulp...
Jan 14, 2025•47 min
From the publisher: In the nineteenth century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, it could affect one's place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay of local, national, and international commerce. In Beyond Vanity , Elizabeth L. Block expands the nascent field of hair studies by restoring women's hair as a cultural site of meaning in the early United States. With a special focus on the places and spaces ...
Dec 31, 2024•50 min
If you've ever gone holiday shopping, you have probably gone into a bookshop to find the perfect gift for someone you care about. In this episode, we talk with Evan Friss about his astonishing history of how American bookstores were born, how they grew, and how they've at least tried to survive in a world where almost everything is done online. From chains to indies, he shows how bookstores became a critical place where ideas are exchanged, and how books themselves are marketed and consumed. Fro...
Dec 10, 2024•41 min
Considering the high profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Betty Ford, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, little is remembered about Pat Nixon. And that, Heath Lee argues, is the way she wanted it. On this episode, biographer Heath Lee discusses her book, "The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady," explores how Thelma Catherine Ryan went from a small mining town in the Far West to the most storied home in the world to become America's First ...
Nov 26, 2024•57 min
On this episode, we chat with David Greenberg about his epic biography of American icon John Lewis. We explore Lewis' background, early life, congressional career and of course, his march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis was beaten, but not broken, and began a one-of-a-kind career fighting for human rights and decency among Americans. Greenberg not only explains what it was like to interview Lewis, but how he found so many new sources during years of research. Information on his book can b...
Nov 12, 2024•57 min
From the publisher: "Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more. In this book, historian Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. Fr...
Oct 29, 2024•44 min
Being president is a mixed bag. There are long days, high-stakes decisions, definitive elections and even the potential to be considered a dunce for the rest of history. But, there are also opportunities to help people in need, win the respect of the world, bring the country together, and, these days, make big bucks after their term in office. Their net worths soar after they sign book deals, honcho a film company or even endorse trinkets that seem fit for informercials. But as Megan Gorman show...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Despite its reputation as a game with roots in rural America, Kevin Baker explains on this episode that baseball is rooted in New York City, and that it became the engine of the Big Apple. He also explains how the city itself influenced the game through its rules, its teams, its stadiums and its superstars. From Christy Mathewson to Babe Ruth, from the Highlanders to the Trolley Dodgers, from rundown streets to the Polo Grounds, Kevin Baker shows how New York and baseball grew up together. Kevin...
Oct 01, 2024•53 min
From the late 1990s until the mid-2010s, conservatives used the rallying slogan of, “What would Reagan do?” as a call to arms on the Federal budget, on taxes, on foreign affairs, and on the government’s role in our lives. He was held up as the beacon for what a president, a governor, a state legislator or a candidate for any office should try to be. George W. Bush modeled his presidency on honoring Reagan and avoiding the political mistakes his made by his father. But that has changed in the Tru...
Sep 10, 2024•42 min
From the publisher: A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes – from former Newsweek reporter and author of the “powerful and moving” ( New York Times ) Witness to the Revolution . For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, Th...
Aug 20, 2024•43 min
The first thing a president must do is swear to uphold the Constitution. But what happens when they betray that promise? Corey Brettschneider argues that it takes ordinary citizens to not only reign them in, but to make sure it never happens again. In "The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It," Professor Brettschneider profiles John Adams, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon, and explains how they f...
Aug 06, 2024•51 min
Three-thousand miles. Fourteen states. Seven hundred towns. Two spouses. One Winnebago. Francis Barry and his wife, Laurel, took a trip across the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco during the height of the pandemic, and during the height of the 2020 election. Their project was to figure out America by driving along the route that was first established more than a hundred years ago as a way to show off America. On this episode, we discuss his book, "Back Roads and Better Angels" to f...
Jul 23, 2024•45 min
George Washington is often given the lionshare of the credit when it comes to establishing the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power in the United States. But in her new book, "Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic," Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky argues that the second president also deserves a healthy portion of credit. Adams understood that he could never measure up to Washington, but he did understand that a strong, democratic nation would depend on his ab...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr
From the publisher, Roaring Book Press: Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare provides a gripping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Authors Dr. Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy delve into Senator Joe McCarthy's infamous hunt for communists during the 1950s Red Scare. Originally written for young adult and teen audiences, the book is written in a unique screenplay-style format with rich illustrations and includes interviews with individuals who ...
Jun 18, 2024•47 min
At the dawn of the 20th Century, the center of city life could be found at department stores. One could find the latest fashion, meet friends for a cup of coffee, mail a letter, and escape the hustle of every day life. Julie Satow shows how three women made department stores not just the place to be, but into an engine of cultural change. She also explores how the women challenged gender norms to build high-flying businesses that would impact World War II, New York City, and the future of consum...
Jun 04, 2024•48 min
On this episode, Adam Higginbotham brings us back to the moment that many say they will never forget, but also to a moment that is filled with misconception and myth. When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, seven astronauts lost their lives and NASA was confronted with its biggest failure. Higginbotham shows us how the space program chose to remember those lost, rebuild faith in its mission, and how NASA persisted as a larger reflection of American culture. Higginbotham also explains...
May 21, 2024•51 min
