Last week Cheryl and I had the opportunity to speak with Kathleen McInnis, Senior Fellow in the International Security Program and Director of the Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We talked about the Russia-Ukraine War, the glacial progress towards an aid agreement in the US House of Representatives, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NATO alliance, and finally Kathleen’s work engaging with and promoting the work of women in...

The Oral History of the Blogosphere series is back! Scott and I had the good fortune to sit down with Laura McKenna of Apt. 11D. We talked the (sometimes pourous) boundaries of the academic, political, and mommy blogospheres, the process of learning how to write for a non-academic audience, the opportunities that participating in the Golden Age of the Blogosphere could open up, and of course how we all made friends along the way. And make sure to check out Laura’s substack! Transcript...

On the latest LGM podcast I had the good fortune to sit down with Aidan Dodson, author of the Windfall Battleships: Agincourt, Canada, Erin, Eagle and the Balkan and Latin-American Arms Races. We talk through the Navalism of the first two decades of the twentieth century, which helped generate a procurement environment in which a country like Chile could contemplate the acquisition of large, modern capital ships. We then work through the histories of the four vessels, finishing with a short...

By Tomás Del Coro – https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/51205888254/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121504643 In our conversation about the Big Game, Scott, Erik and I touched upon: * The late, great (sic) Toby Keith, * The grandest entries in the Very Special Sitcom Episodes of the 1980s genre, * Flight upgrade policies, * The Coaching Carousel, * The conference championship games, * The Big Game...

For our latest podcast, we talked to Pamela Riney-Kehrberg from Iowa State University about her recent book When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. This was a wide-ranging conversation that explored, among other things, the connections between the farm crisis and the manufacturing crisis of the same time, the culture of individualism among farmers that made it very difficult for them to accept help, how terrible the Carter administration was for both farmers...

Rob and I were excited to talk to Elizabeth about the fantastic new Paranoid Style album The Interrogator. And Anna Wintour’s attack on Pitchfork, and playing live in Athens later this month, and Doug Yule, and no-money-in-this-deal professions, and stuff like that there. With the addition of Peter Holsapple the new album is the best musical framing for Elizabeth’s always top-tier songs yet. But don’t take my word for it! Ken Tucker: The Washington D.C.-based band is led by...

For the latest LGM podcast Erik and I had the opportunity to sit down with Chris Yogerst, author of the Warner Brothers, a new history of the Warner family and of the studio that they created. We cover a lot of ground, including the founding and early history of the studio, the nature of the relationship between the film business and technology, and the relevance of the modern streaming industry for film studies. We end with a few words about the legacy of John Wayne....

Earlier this week Rob and I chatted with occasional LGM contributor and Reed College political science professor Chris Koski about the electoral landscape and prospects for 2024. A range of topics are covered, including the ongoing racial depolarization in the Trump era and where it might be headed, the state of polling, and more. Have a listen if you’re into that sort of thing. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords,...

Rob, Dave and I discuss the NFL playoffs. Alas, this came before the firings of Carroll and Belichick, bur all the more fodder for the Super Bowl podcast! We go through the series and try to figure out what could possibly derail a Ravens/49ers Super Bowl. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would very much appreciate reviews, whether of the thoughtful...

For our latest podcast, we were greatly honored to speak to Laura Edwards, a legal historian at Princeton, about her latest book Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States. This is a pretty mindblowing study about how early American courts recognized clothing as women’s property in a world where women had effectively no other property rights. This led to all sorts of unexpected results. Courts would even sometimes recognize...

For the latest LGM podcast, we talked to James Morton Turner, Professor of Environmental Studies at Wellesley, about his new book Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future. This is a fantastic book because Turner is an environmental scholar who thinks deeply about things I am passionate about–supply chains, the real impact of consumption, not pretending that a clean energy future is going to be some magical pre-industrial paradise where we aren’t engaging in...

In our latest podcast, we interviewed Samantha Seeley of the University of Richmond about her recent book Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States. This is a fantastic book about the idea of free migration as central to American history, how this excluded both Black and Native people, and how they resisted, largely rejecting calls for colonization (for free Black populations) and using any means necessary to hold onto their lands (for Native...

Here is our midseason NFL podcast. I was very, very tired this week so I probably sound terrible. And yes, I am the Josh McDaniels of NFL prognostication so don’t listen to me if you are betting! This also can be an open thread for tonight’s excellent Bengals-Ravens matchup, neither of which feature Oregon legend Jevon Holland, featured above. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making...

For our latest podcast, I interviewed Stephen Kantrowitz of the University of Wisconsin about his new book Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the Nineteenth-Century United States. We talked about a lot of big picture issues in this conversation, including the struggles of liberals to take our terrible history with Native Americans as seriously as we do Black history, what it is like to teach the Civil War era at a northern university and how centering Native history cuts against...

By Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74462590 On the latest LGM Podcast I spoke with my co-authors, Dr. Charles Dainoff of the University of Idaho and Dr. Geoffrey Williams of Transylvania University, about our new book Waging War with Gold. We talk through the origins of the project, what each of us brought to the book and took away from it, and how the lens of the “Finance Domain” changes our...

Here’s the second part of our NFL preview podcast. Putting up early so you can listen to it if you want before the games and the LGM game thread at 1. So check it out. Good thing we were so bullish on the Lions before we recorded this! For once, it paid off!! Let this serve as an open thread for the opening slate of Sunday NFL games. Transcript is here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer...

WELCOME TO OPENING DAY OF THE NFL, A DAY FAR BETTER THAN CHRISTMAS, THANKSGIVING, NEW YEAR’S AND YANKEE ELIMINATION DAY COMBINED. As you prepare to watch the Chiefs/Lions game tonight, perhaps consider checking out the first half of our NFL podcast, in which we preview the AFC, where 80% of the good NFL teams and good NFL quarterbacks are. And free free to use this as an open thread for the game–but not non-sports b******t and anyone who says “sportsball” is getting banned....

Lemieux, Farley, and I did a sports rundown, mostly focused on baseball, though with Scott entering into a lengthy discussion about problems with race in hockey. Check it out. Transcript is here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety of corporate overlords, so please perform freedom by making your consumer choice. We would very much appreciate reviews, whether of the thoughtful written variety or just by clicking on the appropriate star. The podcast is time-consuming...

Yesterday Erik and I had the extraordinary pleasure of having a conversation with Rich Brooks, former coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, the St. Louis Rams, and of course the Oregon Ducks. We talked realignment, the challenges of modern college coaching, the role of money in the sport, the differences between the SEC and the Pac-10, and finally the growth and development of Oregon’s football program. See also this interview with Coach Brooks about realignment. Transcript is...

As I mentioned Monday, our latest podcast explores the legacy of Robbie Robertson. Elizabeth, Rob and I look at a lot of aspects of Robbie’s career — the Band’s catalog, his modest (really) but brilliant guitar, his very entertaining but not-so-modest memoir, the Levon-Robbie wars, and the affection Rob and I still have for Robbie’s CanCon classic first Geffen solo album. Elizabeth not only agrees with my radical-on-Twitter position that songwriting credits should generally go to the person...

Some weeks back I had the chance to sit down with Joe Dans, Producer & Host of the Creativity & Tech Show for WTBQ & WGHT radio. We talked military technology and the cross-straits balance. Give it a listen if you have the chance…

Yesterday (accidentally on the 78th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki) Abigail, Cheryl, Scott, and myself discussed at length our thoughts on Oppenheimer, which has already generated a number of posts on this very blog. The conversation included general reactions, an attempt to frame Oppenheimer with Nolan’s broader family of work, some thoughts on casting, some thoughts on Nolan’s interpretation of the history, and rumination on the nature of the relationship between politics and film...

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Mary Rose Kubal, associate professor of Political Science at St. Bonaventure, about efforts on the left and on the right to establish a new constitution for Chile. We talked through recent developments in Chilean politics, the failed 2022 effort to pass a progressive new constitution, and the new right wing effort to pass a much more conservative constitution. Transcript available here. The LGM podcast is now available from a variety...

We had the privilege of speaking to Mark McLay, Lecturer at Lancaster University in the UK, about his recent book The Republican Party and the War on Poverty. This was a great chance to discuss the trajectory of the Republican Party since the 1960s, what drew Republicans together in the age where the party had actual liberals, Richard Nixon, the role of race in transforming the Republicans, and a whole lot of great stuff in the context of their overwhelmingly hostile response to LBJ’s War on...