A Presidency is defined by the decisions that a person makes while serving as Executive, but a Presidential legacy is about much more than that. In the new book, Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, (UVA Press, 2023) Lindsay Chervinsky and Matthew Costello have brought together a collection of chapters that explore the ways that mourning ceremonies, causes of death, and moments of passing impact the way that we remember a President at the time they die, and how new resea...
Feb 20, 2023•50 min•Ep. 263
In the 20th Century, leaders in Atlanta and Charlotte championed a “New South” vision that they hoped would attract the investment needed to transform their regional trading hubs into world-class urban centers. The success in both cases was undeniable, but it was also not equal. Despite Charlotte’s success as a banking hub, it has lagged far behind Atlanta in terms of its economy and its place in American culture. And one possible reason for this gap may be in the way the two cities treated thei...
Feb 13, 2023•51 min•Ep. 262
Jordan Gross played 11 seasons as an Offensive Tackle for the Carolina Panthers. In his rookie season, he was a starting member of the Panthers team that made it to Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. In his final season (2011) he was selected for his third Pro Bowl. Today he is a farmer in Idaho and one of the happiest people we’ve ever met. Jordan joins Bob & Ben for a conversation about his career, the way the NFL has changed over the last few decades, what it’s like to play in the Super Bowl, an...
Feb 06, 2023•50 min•Ep. 261
January 20th was the official halfway mark of the Biden Administration’s first term. That might seem like a an odd time to discuss Presidential transitions, but with the justice department still prosecuting participants in the January 6th insurrection it’s never too soon to ask ourselves what lay ahead for 2024. Our guest in this episode, David Marchick is Dean of the Kogod School of Business at American University, but until recently he was director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Cente...
Jan 23, 2023•48 min•Ep. 260
At the end of World War II, the United States had few laws protecting the environment. Just 30 years later, the Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act had been enacted, representing the urgency of, and widespread support for, environmental protections in those years. Douglas Brinkley, author of Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening (Harper Collins, 2022) joins Bob & Ben to discuss th...
Jan 16, 2023•51 min•Ep. 259
This is part two of our conversation w/ Maximillian Potter & Richard Stayskal. For part 1, check out RTN episode # 257. Since 1950, the Feres Doctrine has prevented active-duty members of the US Armed Forces from suing the government for wrongful injury or death that occurred outside of combat. In this episode we speak with journalist Maximillian Potter and decorated Green Beret Richard Stayskal to learn about the injustice many service members have endured, the reasoning behind the decision...
Jan 09, 2023•49 min•Ep. 258
Since 1950, the Feres Doctrine has prevented active-duty members of the US Armed Forces from suing the government for wrongful injury or death that occurred outside of combat. In this episode we speak with journalist Maximillian Potter and decorated Green Beret Richard Stayskal to learn about the injustice many service members have endured, the reasoning behind the decision, and what can be done to help bring justice to those wrongfully injured while serving in the US Armed Forces. Links to more...
Jan 02, 2023•51 min•Ep. 257
In 1848, New England ships crossed the Bering Strait in pursuit of the bowhead whales that provided their income. In the years since, the activity of outsiders- from hunters, to government bureaucrats from the US and Russia / Soviet Union, to consumers of energy who never set foot in the region- has had a deep impact on the region, but the environment of Beringia has made the place itself an active participant in this process. About a century and a half after New England whalers crossed the Beri...
Dec 26, 2022•55 min
Bob & Ben speak w/ historian Carson Hudson, whose program “Uncivil Christmas” tells of life in Williamsburg, Virginia during the years of the Civil War. Carson explains the politics and culture of the era, the major role that music played in uniting (and dividing) Americans during the war, the challenges of understanding how people in the past experienced war, and the ways that the Civil War still looms large in American culture today. Carson Hudson is Educational Program Developer at Coloni...
Dec 19, 2022•50 min
Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidency is bookended by the tragedies of JFK’s assassination and the escalation of the Vietnam war, but his career in politics and the policies he championed transcend his time in the Oval Office. In this episode, two of the foremost experts on LBJ, Mark Updegrove and Mark A. Lawrence, join Bob & Ben to discuss Johnson’s life and legacy. Mark Updegrove is the President & CEO of the LBJ Foundation in Austin, TX, the presidential historian for ABC News, and the autho...
Dec 12, 2022•58 min•Ep. 256
On July 4, 1964, Alabama Governor George Wallace decried the passing of “ [a] law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country.” That law was the Civil Rights act of 1964, which struck down many of the Jim Crow laws that relegated black Americans to second-class citizens. How could Wallace and so many like him throughout American history see no irony in decrying the federal government for taking away their freedom to deny freedom to others? In this episode, we take tha...
Dec 05, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 255
On February 4, 1962, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opened its doors in Memphis, TN with a promise to help victims of childhood cancer regardless of race, religion, or national origin. Since then the hospital has treated thousands of children from all over the world, and has played a vital role in increasing the survival rate of children diagnosed with cancer to more than 80%. And in more than five decades of operation, St. Jude has provided its services to children and their families for...
Nov 24, 2022•51 min
This week on the Road to Now, Bob welcomes leadership consultant, author, and speaker Dov Baron . Inc. Magazine has named Dov one of the top 100 leadership speakers in the country and his Curiosity Bites podcast the number one leadership podcast. For over two decades Dov has advised business leaders, politicians, entertainers, scientists, and musicians, about how to discover their emotional source code. In this episode we get to meet Dov and hear him work his magic with his newest client: Americ...
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 253
The Netflix series The Last Czars and HBO’s Chernobyl have (in very different ways) brought Russian & Soviet history to televisions across the world. In this episode, Ben sits down with fellow Russian historians Dr. Philippa Hetherington and Dr. Jonathan Waterlow to discuss their opinions on the two series, what they think they got right, and ways that producers and scholars might benefit most from collaboration on future projects. Philippa, who is a featured scholar in The Last Czars , shar...
Nov 07, 2022•54 min
Death is something that we all have in common, but what happens to our remains can vary. In this episode, RTN favorite Tanya Marsh breaks down the origins, legal peculiarities and cultural specificities of the American death care system, and how recent developments in the industry are leading many of us to reimagine the afterlife of our physical remains. Tanya Marsh is Professor of Law at Wake Forest University and one of the foremost experts on Mortuary Law and the history of cemeteries in the ...
Oct 31, 2022•47 min•Ep. 252
Pete Souza has spent more time inside the ‘Presidential bubble’ than almost anyone. The more than thirteen years he spent photographing Ronald Reagan (1983-1989) and Barack Obama (2009-2017) gave him a singular view into the executive branch that he has captured and shared with the public through his photography. In this episode, Pete joins Bob & Ben to discuss his new book The West Wing & Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency, which looks beyond the Presidents themselves and to the p...
Oct 24, 2022•57 min•Ep. 251
Although he passed away a decade ago, Levon Helm is still the voice of Americana music. Always will be, in my opinion. Levon was drummer for The Band, collaborator with Bob Dylan, actor, husband, father, and friend. In his new book, Levon Helm: Rock, Roll, Ramble , author John Barry gives a first-hand account of Levon’s struggles with cancer and financial ruin that led to the legendary Midnight Rambles concerts at his home in Woodstock, New York. In this episode of the Road to Now, Bob celebrate...
Oct 17, 2022•57 min•Ep. 250
Libertarianism has had a tremendous influence on American politics, but according to Andrew Koppelman, its most prominent adherents have stripped libertarian philosophy of its more humane intentions. In this episode, Andrew joins Bob and Ben for a discussion about his new book, Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) and why he contends that libertarian philosophers such as Friedrich Hayek have been stripped of their origi...
Oct 10, 2022•46 min•Ep. 249
Bill Plante was a remarkable reporter. He spent four tours as a CBS correspondent in Vietnam, he interviewed Martin Luther King Jr in 1965, and he served as CBS’ White House Correspondent from 1976 until his retirement in 2016. On September 28, 2022, Bill Plante passed away. To honor him and his work, we are reairing our 2018 conversation w/ Bill and The Washington Post’s Olivier Knox. You can read Bill’s CBS News obituary here and his Washington Post obituary by Emily Langer here. You can watch...
Oct 03, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Armenia and Azerbaijan were once fellow Republics within the USSR, but in the Soviet Union’s last days tension between them led to bloodshed and animosity that continues today. For decades, Russia played the role of peacekeeper in the region, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has opened the door for a new wave of Azerbaijani attacks on Armenia and both sides say the other is to blame. Laurence Broers has spent the last twenty years working as a scholar and peacemaker in the region, and has built r...
Sep 26, 2022•45 min•Ep. 248
The FBI has been the subject of criticism and concern since it was founded in 1908, but it has nevertheless become one of the most powerful, stable, and mythologized branches of the Executive Branch of the US government. In this episode, Steve Underhill joins us to discuss the origins of the FBI, the role J. Edgar Hoover played in making the modern Brueau, and how that greater history of the FBI can help us understand how they’ve approached their seizure of documents from Mar-a-Lago and the subs...
Sep 19, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 247
The New Deal policies of the 1930s never brought an end to the Great Depression, but by establishing Social Security, ending child labor, and establishing a federal minimum wage, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and their allies in Congress laid the framework for the widespread prosperity of the post-World War II-era. As the gap between the richest and poorest Americans continues to widen at remarkable speed, politicians on the left have called for a return to the New Deal. But it might be be...
Sep 12, 2022•59 min
On August 4, 1789, the National Assembly of France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which asserted the Enlightenment ideals of universal rights and democracy. Though the French Declaration shared a common ideological lineage with the American Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution took a very different path: fifteen years after their founding revolutionary documents, the US had George Washington and France had Napoleon. In this episode of The Road to N...
Sep 05, 2022•51 min
Could the structure of elections in the US be feeding the polarization in modern politics? Currently only about twenty percent of voters show up to the polls for what are often closed primaries, meaning that the general election is often a showdown between candidates who have appealed to the most extreme elements of their party’s base. This is far from an optimal outcome in a country where few voters identify with political extremes. Most voting experts believe that the way to reduce the influen...
Aug 29, 2022•35 min•Ep. 246
When Bitcoin launched in January 2009, few people took it seriously and even fewer had the means to mine, buy or spend it. By the end of 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that 16% of Americans had held cryptocurrency and 86% had heard of it. Despite all of this, many of us remain perplexed by the topic, so Ben and Bob invited Yahoo! Finance’s David Hollerith to join us for a conversation about the origins and potential of crypto. We hope this helps! David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Y...
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 245
Political rhetoric has become increasingly divisive in the 21st century, but many of the themes and rhetorical strategies we see today have deep roots in American history. In this episode, Ben and Bruce Carlson ( My History Can Beat Up Your Politics ) discuss the impact that technology, society and other factors have had on Presidential rhetoric from the 1932 contest between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt to the election of 2020. A lot has changed since the Great Depression, but the simil...
Aug 15, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 244
Partisanship in politics has become increasingly tense in the 21st century, and while many Americans lament this polarization, few seem convinced that a rapprochement is possible. Yet history is full of proclaimed enemies striking mutually beneficial deals even in the toughest conditions. In this episode, NCSL Director Curt Stedron explains how a deep examination of the Christmas truce struck between Entente and Allied powers during World War I can reveal some core lessons for finding common gro...
Aug 08, 2022•58 min•Ep. 243
At the beginning of the 20th century, most of the territory that we call the Middle East- including Syria, Iraq, Israel and Turkey- were part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman alliance w/ Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I provided Britain and France w/ the opportunity to divide the once-great empire into many states based on European imperial ambitions. In this episode Bob and Ben speak w/ Eugene Rogan to learn more about why the Ottoman Empire was divided, how that process shaped ...
Aug 01, 2022•54 min
You might know Bushwick Bill as a member of the iconic Houston rap group The Geto Boys, but his contributions to rap music, his role in the debates over free speech in the 1990s, and his overall influence are far more substantial than you probably realize. In this episode, we welcome Charles Hughes back to the show to discuss his new book Why Bushwick Bill Matters (Univ. of Texas Press) and to get a better understanding of the challenges and triumphs that shaped one of rap history’s most influen...
Jul 25, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 242
Ben tells Bob how Thai food became so prominent in the US and shares the story of the bizarre origins and sudden demolition of the Georgia Guidestones. Ben also gives an update on Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn’s ( of 1776 Commission fame ) recent comments that teachers come from “the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country” and that he wants to “demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert educate a child because basically anybody can do it” (all of which he said as Tenn...
Jul 18, 2022•31 min•Ep. 241
