Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features veteran political reporter Susan Page, who will be giving a book talk on Wednesday, April 29th, at 6 pm in SMU’s McCord Auditorium (Dallas Hall 306). Susan’s most recent book, The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History , chronicles the largely unknown story of Queen Elizabeth II’s relationship with thirteen American presidents, from ...
Apr 22, 2026•14 min
Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Frank Gavin, Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Gavin visited Dallas in early April to speak to CPH's Article II Society members about his most recent book, Thinking Historically: A Guide...
Apr 10, 2026•24 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Katherine Epstein, professor of history at Rutgers-Camden. Dr. Epstein will be with us here at SMU this coming Thursday, March 12, to talk about her new book, Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State.Analog Superpowers won the 2025 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Robert H. Ferrell...
Mar 10, 2026•23 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books. This episode features Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson, Ralph & Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History & Associate Professor at Baylor University. Dr. Johnson will be with us here at SMU this coming Monday, March 9, to talk about his new book, Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution. Johnson offers an importa...
Mar 04, 2026•20 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books. Our second episode features former CPH postdoctoral fellow and current associate professor of history at Florida State University Paul Renfro, who will be giving a book talk on Thursday, February 19th, at 6 pm in SMU's McCord Auditorium (Dallas Hall 306). Dr. Renfro is the author of The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America . In the 1...
Feb 17, 2026•16 min•Season 5Ep. 2
CPH is excited to announce Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency . This season will feature brief interviews with historians about their newest books, ranging in topic from religious freedom to technology theft; from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River; from global diplomacy to Texas football. This week's conversation features CPH Assistant Director Ashlyn Hand, who will be giving a book talk on Thursday, September 18th, at 6 pm in SMU's McCord Auditorium (Dallas Hall 306). D...
Sep 16, 2025•18 min•Season 5Ep. 1
On October 30th, 2024, CPH Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel presented a lecture as part of the SMU Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute Godbey Lecture Series, described below. A few weeks later, we sat down with Dr. Engel for a Q&A about his talk -- that conversation follows a recording of the lecture itself. Fifty Years Since Watergate: Presidential Power in the Age of Rampant Immunity and Feckless Impeachments It has been fifty years since Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. Congression...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr
For the conclusion of this season, we examine conclusions: the deaths of presidents. Not just presidents who died while in office, but those who died years after they retired from the presidency and the constant limelight. Our journey through the lives, deaths, and legacies of our presidents from 1799 to today offers surprising revelations about the constancy of mourning and the role of the president beyond the Oval Office. Beyond exploring the moment of a president’s death, we explore the deepe...
Apr 27, 2023•21 min•Season 4Ep. 10
The early 1980s was a time of great political uncertainty. With the threat of nuclear destruction seemingly imminent, the emergence of global terrorism, and the rise of proxy conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Ronald Reagan entered the White House with many global security problems on his hands, and very few clear solutions. He wasn’t alone, though. Throughout the end of the Cold War, Reagan was supported by a national security team with competing ideals to solve these looming crises....
Apr 13, 2023•13 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Many Americans, if they know about Reconstruction at all, likely think of it as a failed venture. What had begun in 1865 as an opportunity to guarantee equal citizenship and rights for African Americans, fizzled out as citizens and elected officials became apathetic, or even hostile to the struggle for equality. Our guests today survey the four presidencies that touched Reconstruction—Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Haynes—and offer a broad-sweeping, and perhaps disappointing framing of the era. Th...
Apr 06, 2023•20 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang are some of the most recognizable characters in American pop culture. From Snoopy’s doghouse to Linus’s blanket to Lucy’s perpetual football prank, the scenes from this iconic comic strip are imprinted in the memories of many Americans even today, more than 70 years after the strip’s debut. However, behind the lemonade stand, amateur psychiatric help, and baseball shenanigans, Charles Schultz placed underlying social commentary on the state of American politics...
Mar 31, 2023•8 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Oil runs the world. From our cars to our houses, most of us can’t live without it. From the 1940s to the 1960s, though, oil played another specific role as a central part of conflict and diplomacy during the Cold War. It was during this era that Iran developed into the world’s first “petro-state”: a nation whose state revenue, industrializing economy, military, and growing middle class all depended on the growth of the oil industry. This all occurred alongside major Cold War developments, includ...
Mar 23, 2023•18 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stands out as a major affront to the promise of American liberty. In 1942, this executive order forced approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans out of their homes on the western coast, and incarcerated them in makeshift prisons all around the nation. Our guest today explains today that this was not only a case of civil rights being stripped from Americans, but labor rights as well. In these glorified concentration and work camps, a...
Mar 16, 2023•15 min•Season 4Ep. 5
When we think about the history of westward expansion and the growth of state power in the United States, the postal system probably isn’t the first institution that comes to mind. But this week, that’s exactly what we’ll be exploring: the unsung power and reach of the U.S. Postal Service in the late-19th century America. It took Anglo-Americans nearly two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of what became the United States, but just one generation in the late-19th century to occupy the res...
Mar 02, 2023•6 min•Season 4Ep. 4
A conversation with Dr. Peniel Joseph (University of Texas at Austin) about his new book, The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century .
Feb 23, 2023•15 min•Season 4Ep. 3
We welcome Dr. Spencer McBride for a conversation about his book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (Oxford UP, 2021). Dr. McBride tells us about Joseph Smith's story from his days as the founder & leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to his presidential campaign in 1844. Along the way, he explains what Smith's quixotic campaign reveals about the limits of freedom in 1844, and about our political parties ...
Feb 16, 2023•8 min•Season 4Ep. 2
It’s finally here: the first episode of Conversations , Season 4 of The Past, The Promise, The Presidency ! As you may have learned from previous seasons, when we at the Center for Presidential History talk about “presidential history,” we’re thinking deep and wide. And our conversations this season will be no different. The postal system, Mormons, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, Charlie Brown: you’ll hear about all of them as presidential history this season! But th...
Feb 10, 2023•10 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In this final episode of "Cross Currents" we explore Norway's challenging balancing act in their relationship with the United States in the years after 9/11. How would Norway maintain a close partnership with the US, on the one hand, while also remaining committed to keeping NATO a strong and relevant worldwide alliance? In addition to this, Norway's leaders had to continue answering to their own domestic constituencies, reassure their European allies, and of course, achieve their own nation's l...
Jun 09, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 3
After 9/11, the United States—led by President George W. Bush—made it clear to the world they would pursue al-Qaeda and any other threats to the US national security. But rather than working directly through established security alliances like NATO, the US chose to pursue new plans, and new alliances. This shift precipitated a downturn in diplomatic relations with many nations around the world, and a critical point of decision for many others. This episode explores these diplomatic shifts and st...
Jun 06, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Terrorists attacked the people of the United States on September 11, 2011. But those attacks--and their reverberations--were felt by peoples all around the world, including in places like Norway, for years to come. This episode explores how Norway's leaders experienced September 11, and crucially, how they navigated Norway's alliance with U.S. in the years following as American leaders moved toward war in Afghanistan and Iraq. For more on our podcast "Firsthand History" and this season "Cross Cu...
May 26, 2022•24 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Why Norway?! You might be asking yourself this very question as you consider the big questions of diplomacy, war, and alliances during the George W. Bush presidency. Good news - this episode is here to answer that question! This episode sets the stage for us in 2001: A new president in George W. Bush An old multilateral alliance with NATO A longtime alliance with Norway, a founding member of NATO And then, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, changed everything. This episode introduces t...
May 26, 2022•15 min0
This is the eighth and final episode of Season Three: The Bully Pulpit. This season, we explored many domestic policy issues, such as healthcare, women's suffrage, and land rights. But here in the 21st century, we all know that the president's voice reaches far beyond the borders of the United States. Has it always been this way? And how does the bully pulpit reach audiences abroad? We invited three scholars to help us understand the many ways presidents have utilized the bully pulpit to speak t...
May 12, 2022•58 min•Season 3Ep. 46
In March of 2021, Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo, became the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in US history. It was was a truly historic first, as Deb Haaland is part of a long history of Indigenous peoples that predates the United States as a nation. And today, we are going to explore the relationship between Indigenous peoples of America and the United States Government. When the United States became an independent nation in 1776, a new era began, one of constant co...
May 05, 2022•49 min•Season 3Ep. 45
This week, we are going to be exploring the relationship between presidents, the bully pulpit, and environmental protection. When did presidents start thinking about federal use of land? When did that consideration change from an economic one based on maximizing profit and agricultural production for white settlers to something else? We are going to tackle these questions and more on today's episode. First, we spoke with Dr. Mark David Spence, the author of Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian R...
Apr 28, 2022•49 min•Season 3Ep. 44
In this episode of the Bully Pulpit, we explore presidential power as it relates to prohibition and the War on Drugs. If you go looking through American history, it's not difficult to find conflict over alcohol and drugs, and the president's role in addressing them. The president of the United States has plenty to say, not just about what goes into our bodies, but about the industries, ecosystems, and societal consequences of those substances. For some keen historical insight, we talked to two g...
Apr 21, 2022•55 min•Season 3Ep. 43
This week, we are exploring women's suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment, and how presidents have stymied or supported women's rights. In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband and urged him to remember the ladies as he worked to craft a government for the new nation. But it wasn't until 1919 that Congress actually passed a constitutional amendment that prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of sex. And not until the 1960s did Congress pass legislation that applied civil rights to all p...
Apr 14, 2022•57 min•Season 3Ep. 42
Today, we are covering two topics almost guaranteed to make that Thanksgiving dinner more awkward than it already was: religion and politics, or more specifically for this episode: Church and State. If we're going to talk about a bully pulpit, then we've got to talk about the pulpit part of this equation. But we're also going there because the question of the relationship between church and state is as old as the country. Thus, we begin this episode by examining George Washington and Thomas Jeff...
Apr 07, 2022•54 min•Season 3Ep. 41
This week, we are exploring the history of healthcare policy. Many presidents have tried to pass healthcare reform in America, but time and time again healthcare has tested the limitations and the strengths of the bully pulpit. In today’s episode, we explored the history of the federal government’s interest in healthcare from the New Deal to Obamacare. We consider, why has healthcare reform been so tricky to implement? What role does the president play in passing healthcare reform? And, how has ...
Mar 31, 2022•55 min•Season 3Ep. 40
To kick off season three, The Bully Pulpit , we are starting with an episode on what we are affectionally calling The Big Speeches™. Moments when the president has used his unparalleled microphone and those words have left a major imprint on history. We start where it all began, with George Washington. In September 1796, Washington printed an address to the American people and announced he would not seek a third term. Not only did Washington buck almost all political precedent, he also gave warn...
Mar 24, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 39
With political gridlock in Washington DC at an all time high, government shutdowns–or the threat of them–have become a routine occurrence. National parks close. Federal paychecks stop going out. The National Institute of Health stops admitting new patients. How did we get to the point where it has become normal for the US Government to halt in its tracks? The history, in this case, is quite recent. In the live finale of season 2 of our podcast The Past, the Promise, the Presidency: Presidential ...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 38
