American History Tellers

A great listen that got my imagination going was David Grahn's newest, The Wager, a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder.

A great listen that got my imagination going was David Grahn's newest, The Wager, a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder.

Titled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this novel would be his masterpiece.

Set before the Civil War, the book follows white teenage runaway Huck Finn and the escaped slave Jim as they journey down the Mississippi River in search of freedom.

Though it has been criticized for perpetrating racial stereotypes, Huckleberry Finn was revolutionary.

Through the characters of Huck and Jim, Twain delivered a subtle critique of the harsh realities of slavery and challenged prevailing racist attitudes.

He wrote in plain regional vernacular, offering an authentic and unfiltered perspective on the American South.

From Edgar Allan Poe's macabre poems and stories to the origins of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, we'll explore the lives and works of six of America's greatest authors and how their personal triumphs and tragedies influenced their writing and transformed modern literature.

In 1925, Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, a critique of the American dream and the decade's most emblematic novel.

I should also mention that it was the end of a brutal slaughter known as World War I. And this decade, the 1920s, pretty much began with the red summer of 1919, certainly a fearful time. Explain what that was and how it might have influenced the context of the Scopes trial. Well, sure. In 1919 alone, there were bomb scares and actually bombs that were exploded. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, who is famous, comes down to us as the head of the so-called Palmer raids. This was the time of the Red Scare, and people were afraid of Reds, namely communists. And as a result, there were numbers of socialists and communists and even pacifists who were rounded up and deported. That's something that's going on in the background of the Scopes trial. And in a sense, the Scopes trial is a funnel for all the fear, all the anxiety, all the changes, all in a sense, the kind of frenetic hilarity of the decade.

And check out Noom's first ever cookbook, The Noom Kitchen, for 100 healthy and delicious recipes to promote better living.

Available to buy now wherever books are sold.

And check out Noom's first ever cookbook, The Noom Kitchen, for 100 healthy and delicious recipes to promote better living.

Available to buy now wherever books are sold.

I think like any historian, you find something interesting, you find these key peoples moving through this historical landscape and you want to know more about them, right?

I did what every other historian does, which is you go to the archives, you look at the documents.

I knew all the legends, I knew all the folktales.

The more I looked, I went to the archives, I went to the Library of Congress, I went to the company files hoping to find those really juicy details and they just weren't there.

And the more I looked, the more I found that in the archives, in their records, the company records, it was just this obsessive detailing of their reputation.

The reader knows that I'm determined to win.

The Adams Express company had furnished me with all the backing I wanted and under such favorable auspices, I said, when I must, when I shall.

I did not doubt that Moroni was the thief. The question now was, how can I find the money?

We were in a private room when Fox came in. This is his detective. After hearing his report, I turned to George Bangs and said, the plot thickens every day.

We are nearing success. We have the woman treed at last and in the north among our friends depend upon it. We shall have the money ere long.

and Bomb! The Race to Build and Steal the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Shanken.

If you'd like to learn more about The Manhattan Project, we recommend American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwood, and Bomb!

For more information on the Warren Court, we recommend A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons.

For more information on the Warren Court, we recommend A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons.

If you'd like to learn more about the United Farm Workers, we recommend The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, a biography by Miriam Powell, and Cesar Chavez, a biography by Roger Bruns.

If you'd like to learn more about the United Farm Workers, we recommend The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, a biography by Miriam Powell, and America's Social Arsonist, Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the 20th Century by Gabriel Thompson.

If you'd like to learn more about James Dole and the pineapple industry, we recommend The Story of James Dole by Richard Dole and Elizabeth Dole Porteous and A Pineapple Republic by David Oglesby and Joy Ogawa.

If you'd like to learn more about James Dole and the pineapple industry, we recommend The Story of James Dole by Richard Dole and Elizabeth Dole Porteous, and A Pineapple Republic by David Oglesby and Joy Ogawa.

If you'd like to learn more about the overthrow of Hawaii, we recommend Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Seiler and Captive Paradise by James Haley.

If you'd like to learn more about the overthrow of Hawaii, we recommend Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Seiler and Captive Paradise by James Haley.

His most recent book is The Burr Conspiracy, Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis.

On the next episode, I speak with Professor James Lewis Jr., author of The Burr Conspiracy, uncovering the story of an early American crisis.

He's a staff writer for The Atlantic and author of the forthcoming book How the Word is Past, a reckoning with the history of slavery across America.

How the Word Is Passed, a Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.

And so I got really sort of obsessed with how different historical sites in different cities and different places across the country reckoned with or failed to reckon with their relationship to the history of slavery.

And then I end the book with a trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture with my grandparents.

How the Word Is Passed, a reckoning with the history of slavery across America. It's available June 1st.

On the next episode, I'm speaking to Clint Smith, staff writer for The Atlantic and author of How the Word Is Passed, a look at how monuments and landmarks across America grapple with the history of slavery.

In our next episode, I speak with journalist and author Kate Anderson Broward. Her book First Women, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies offers a glimpse into the lives of the women of the White House, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama.

Well, I wrote a book called The Residence about the people who work at the White House behind the scenes, and they all told me that the person who makes all the decisions in the White House is really the first lady.

And so it made me think about the role of the first lady and how important it is in the actual running of the White House, and then also how complicated that position has always been. It's very fraught in our history.

And I looked at first ladies from Jackie Kennedy until Michelle Obama and sort of delved into how they dealt with this very undefined role. They're just trying to live their lives in the White House, raise kids, trying to figure out what to do with their platform.

Later that same year, poet Allen Ginsberg's book Howl also defeated obscenity charges in court.

His signature work Howl opens with some of the most famous lines in all of American literature.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked.

In Howl, Ginsberg referenced illicit drug use, explored themes of mental health and madness, and graphically described gay sex.

If you'd like to learn more about the sinking of the Titanic we recommend A Night to Remember the classic account of the final hours of the Titanic by Walter Lord

and The Ship of Dreams the Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era by Gareth Russell.

nonfiction work called On Gold Mountain, The 100-Year Odyssey of My Chinese American Family.

So in your book On Gold Mountain, you trace your family's history from China to California in the mid-1800s.

Her book On Gold Mountain, The 100-Year Odyssey of My Chinese American Family, was a national bestseller and a New York Times notable book.

I'll speak with award-winning author Lisa See. She chronicles her own Chinese-American family's turbulent history in California in her national bestseller, On Gold Mountain.

If you'd like to learn more about the Native American experience during the gold rush, we recommend An American Genocide by Benjamin Madley.

If you'd like to learn more about the Native American experience during the gold rush, we recommend An American Genocide by Benjamin Madley.