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PODCAST

The Road to Now

RTN Productions

Bob Crawford (The Avett Brothers) & Dr. Ben Sawyer (MTSU History) share conversations with great thinkers from a variety of backgrounds – historians, artists, legal scholars, political figures and more –who help us uncover the many roads that run between past and present. For more information, visit TheRoadToNow.com If you"d like to support our work, join us on Patreon: Patreon.com/TheRoadToNow

history

All Episodes

01:10:38

Journalism & Politics w/ Bill Plante & Olivier Knox

The Road to Now ·

2022/10/03

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

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44:44

#248 The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict w/ Laurence Broers

The Road to Now ·

2022/09/26

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

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01:00:24

#247 The FBI w/ Stephen Underhill

The Road to Now ·

2022/09/19

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

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59:26

The Great Exception: The Rise and Fall of the New...

The Road to Now ·

2022/09/12

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 better

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50:53

The French Revolution w/ Peter McPhee

The Road to Now ·

2022/09/05

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 Now

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34:53

#246 Rank Choice Voting w/ Scott Huffmon

The Road to Now ·

2022/08/29

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 influence

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01:04:45

#245 Cryptocurrency: A Brief History w/ David Hollerith

The Road to Now ·

2022/08/22

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

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01:10:34

#244 Presidential Rhetoric: The last one hundred...

The Road to Now ·

2022/08/15

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

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58:10

#243 Out of the Trenches: What a World War I Truce...

The Road to Now ·

2022/08/08

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 ground

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53:35

The Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern...

The Road to Now ·

2022/08/01

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 the

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01:15:27

#242 Why Bushwick Bill Matters w/ Charles Hughes

The Road to Now ·

2022/07/25

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

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30:55

#241 Basically Anybody Can Do It

The Road to Now ·

2022/07/18

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 Tennessee

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43:36

Surrender in the American Civil War w/ David Silkenat

The Road to Now ·

2022/07/11

Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 marked the end of the American Civil War, but it was just one of many times that officers and soldiers faced the reality of surrender. Throughout the four years of the war, approximately one in four soldiers surrendered to the opposing army. In this episode, David Silkenat explains how looking at surrender as both an experience and a set of codes offers a new and insightful perspective on the Civil War and those who lived through

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53:33

#240 When the People Decide: A History of Ballot...

The Road to Now ·

2022/07/04

Jenna Spinelle joins Ben & Bob for a discussion about her new podcast, When the People Decide, which traces the origins of ballot initiatives in the United States and their impact on American politics in recent years. Jenna Spinelle is the Communications Specialist for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, where she also teaches classes in the college of communications. You can follow her on twitter at @JennaSpinelle. To learn more about the differences between initiatives and

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01:23:00

#239 The Best History Stories You’ve Probably Never...

The Road to Now ·

2022/06/27

One episode. Two historians/podcasters. Four stories from American history that you’ve probably never heard. And an unknown number of listeners that we hope will find these stories as fascinating and surprising as we do. Greg Jackson is the creator of History That Doesn’t Suck and a Professor at Utah Valley University. Ben Sawyer hosts this podcast and has been teaching history at the university level for over a decade and a half. You might think that at this point they’ve heard it all, but when

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35:39

#238 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame w/ John Goehrke

The Road to Now ·

2022/06/20

Since 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located in Cleveland, Ohio has worked to engage, inspire and teach people about the power of Rock music and the musicians. During a recent Avett Brothers tour stop in Cleveland, Bob dropped by the RRHF and spoke with Rock Hall director of guest experience John Goehrke about the history of hall and the broad definition of the term “Rock and Roll” the hall uses in the induction process. If you enjoy this episode, check out our patron-only bonus episode!: Bob

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01:06:43

#237 George Carlin’s American Dream w/ Michael...

The Road to Now ·

2022/06/13

George Carlin had a comedy career that spanned half a century, and his take on the US remains relevant more than a decade after his death in 2008. The new HBO documentary George Carlin’s American Dream tells Carlin’s story as he evolved from a clean-cut comic in the 1950s into the edgy critic who remains one of the most influential comedians of all time. In this episode, Michael Bonfiglio, who directed the film (along with Judd Apatow) and Kliph Nesteroff, a historian of comedy who is featured in

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01:06:41

#236 Catching Up w/ Doug Heye

The Road to Now ·

2022/06/06

Long-time friend of RTN Doug Heye returns to share his take on the state of politics in the US. Doug has served as communications director for the Republican National Committee, chief-of-staff to House majority leader Eric Cantor and has been active in national politics since the 1990s. Our conversation covers the recent primary elections, the prospects for the midterm elections this fall and, in a transition that’s increasingly easy to make, professional wrestling. You can follow Doug on twitter at

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41:55

In the Footsteps of Lafayette w/ Julien Icher

The Road to Now ·

2022/05/30

On August 15, 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the United States to say farewell to the country whose independence he helped secure more than four decades earlier. Over the next 15 months, Lafayette visited all 24 states, meeting with old friends and attending celebrations hosted by Americans who flocked to see the last-living Major General of the Revolutionary War whose close friendships with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson shaped both the American and French

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55:00

#235 Catching Up w/ Heather Cox Richardson

The Road to Now ·

2022/05/23

Heather Cox Richardson returns to the show to talk history, politics, and life in general. Heather shares her thoughts on what history has to teach us about navigating division and finding unity, the sources she thinks are critical in following US policy, and why she remains optimistic despite increasing polarization in American society. She also discusses what she’s learned from her public engagement work on facebook and from “Letters From an American,” where she has published her thoughts daily

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437 results

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