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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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 politica...
Feb 16, 2023•8 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jun 09, 2022•30 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 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 t...
May 26, 2022•24 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
May 12, 2022•58 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast 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 consta...
May 05, 2022•49 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast 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: Ind...
Apr 28, 2022•49 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast 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 talke...
Apr 21, 2022•55 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 14, 2022•57 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 07, 2022•54 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast This week on The Past, The Promise, The Presidency , we are exploring a tragic national crisis that hits very close to home in 2021. The crisis of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Having lived through two years of a new coronavirus pandemic, we all intimately understand just how confusing and terrifying it can be for patients, doctors, and yes, presidents to confront a new and deadly disease. One of unknown origin, transmission, and incubation. Indeed, the only thing doctors could say with real confidence...
Dec 01, 2021•58 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast This week's crisis could have ended with the world in a giant blaze of nuclear flame, but it didn't. In fact, it's an example of how a crisis can be handled so effectively, that most people don't even remember it as a crisis. This week, we are talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. It's November, 1989. Reagan famously delivered his "tear down this wall" speech in 1987, but West and East Berlin are as divided as ever. In the summe...
Nov 18, 2021•56 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode VI: The Bonus Army & The 1932 March on Washington. This Veteran’s Day, we are examining the time that World War I veterans organized their own March on Washington. Most Americans associate the Great Depression with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But it was Herbert Hoover who was in office in 1932 when a group of World War I veterans decided to organize a March on Washington to demand an early payment of their bonus checks for se...
Nov 11, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode V: Teddy Roosevelt & The Great Coal Strike of 1902. In 1902, miners under the leadership of John Mitchell and the United Mine Workers went on strike to protest long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. Mine operators and owners were determined not to concede to the miners' demands or recognize their right to organize as workers. With winter approaching, millions of Americans faced freezing conditions and would...
Nov 04, 2021•58 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode IV: Ulysses S. Grant and the Ku Klux Klan Act. In our previous episode on Bleeding Kansas and the Utah War, we discussed the intense violence and bloodshed that led up to the cataclysmic wrenching of the Union in half during the Civil War. But what happened after the Union shattered? It's not easy to put the pieces of national unity back together after a civil war, nor was it a simple task to change the hearts and minds of ...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast This week on The Past, The Promise, The Presidency: Presidential Crises we examine two presidential crises from the 1850s: Bleeding Kansas and the Utah War. So far this season, we've seen the nation solidify under George Washington's leadership. Then, we saw the city named for our first president nearly burned to the ground by British forces little more than a generation later. The United States survived each of those crises, but by the 1850s, the new nation was starting to come apart....
Oct 21, 2021•50 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast 
