In Episode 181 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with Jonathan W. White, co-editor of From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War.
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined once again by Jonathan W. White, Professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, to discuss his latest book, co-edited with Reagan Connolly, From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War. They chat about who George Buswell was, his interesting service record in the Civil War, and the uniqueness of his diary of the period. They pay particular attention to the Dakota War in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory in 1862, in which Buswell served, as well as the execution of 38 Dakota men at Mankato at the
end of the conflict, the largest officially sanctioned mass execution in American history, of which Buswell was an eyewitness. They also discuss Buswell’s tenure fighting in the Deep South as an officer in the 68th U.S. Colored Infantry, his views of the men under his command, and the impact the experience had on him.
Get the book here: https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10075/
In Episode 180 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with David Zweig, author ofAn Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions.
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David Zweig to discuss his latest book, An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions. They chat about how everyone from journalists to eminent health officials repeatedly made fundamental errors in their assessment and presentation of evidence regarding COVID and the closing of American schools, and how there was never any evidence that long-term school closures, nor a host of interventions imposed on students when they were in classrooms, would reduce overall cases or deaths in any meaningful way.
Get the book here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549158/an-abundance-of-caution/
Show Notes:
The Atlantic: David Zweig – “The Disaster of School Closures Should Have Been Foreseen”
City Journal: James B. Meigs – “What Were We Thinking?”
Commentary: Noam Blum – “School’s Out Forever”
The Dispatch: Kevin D. Williamson – “The Wrong Kind of Abundance”
Education Next: Frederick Hess – “The Junk Science of Pandemic School Closure”
The Free Press: David Zweig – “How Covid Lies Destroyed Kids’ Lives”
The Wall Street Journal: Philip Wallach – “‘An Abundance of Caution’ and ‘In Covid’s Wake’: Failing the Pandemic Test”
Washington Examiner: Jesse Adams – “David Zweig proves the fog of war is no excuse for the damage done to children’s education in the name of public health”
The 74: Greg Toppo – “Journalist David Zweig Calls COVID School Closures ‘A False Story About Medical Consensus’”
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Frank Trentmann, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, to discuss his latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022. They chat about how a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvented themselves, and by how much.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554959/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann/
Show Notes:
Literary Review: David Blackbourn – “A Mercedes in Every Garage”
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-mercedes-in-every-garage
New York Review of Books: Timothy Garton Ash – “Big Germany, What Now?”
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/05/23/big-germany-what-now-timothy-garton-ash/
The New Statesman: Brendan Simms – “What it means to be German”
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2023/12/meaning-modern-germany-brenadan-simms
The Times: Oliver Moody – “Out of the Darkness by Frank Trentmann review — how Germans became good (and rather complacent)”
Times Literary Supplement: Ben Hutchinson – “New moral order”
The Wall Street Journal: Ian Brunskill – “‘Out of the Darkness’ Review: War Crimes and Remembrance”
The Washington Post: Bryn Stole – “An ambitious history of Germany interrogates the country’s moral makeover”
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David L. Roll, founder of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, to discuss his latest book, Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World. They chat about Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right after his accidental ascension to the office and how Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690665/ascent-to-power-by-david-l-roll/
Show Notes:
Foreign Affairs: Jessica T. Mathews – “Review: ‘Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged From Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World’”
Wall Street Journal: Robert W. Merry – “’Ascent to Power’ Review: Harry Truman’s Moment”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/ascent-to-power-review-harry-trumans-moment-e5654cb0
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Harold Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, to discuss his latest book, Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. They chat about the immigration situation in the United States in the 30 years leading up the Civil War, how immigrants forever altered the country’s demographics, culture, and voting patterns, how tensions over immigration broke apart the Whig Party and lead to the formation of the Republican Party, and how Lincoln evolved into a champion for immigration.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558372/brought-forth-on-this-continent-by-harold-holzer/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Brian VanDeMark, professor of history at the United States Naval Academy, to discuss his latest book, Kent State: An American Tragedy. They chat about the context of the divided cultural landscape of America during the Vietnam War and heightened popular anxieties around the country, how the shootings came to take place, the reductive narratives that ensued, the victims of the shooting, and the impact of that day on the Guardsmen who were there.
Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324066255
Show Notes:
Los Angeles Review of Books: Tom Zoellner – “Yelling ‘Fire’ on a Crowded Knoll”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/yelling-fire-on-a-crowded-knoll/
Los Angeles Times: Chris Vognar – “A meticulous, pain-filled history of the senseless slaughter at Kent State”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-08-05/brian-vandemark-kent-state-an-american-tragedy
National Review: Paul Baumann – “What Happened at Kent State?”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/10/what-happened-at-kent-state/
Times Literary Supplement: John McMillian – “Civil unrest”
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David Reynolds, emeritus professor of international history at Christ’s College, Cambridge University, to discuss his latest book, Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him. They reevaluate Churchill’s life by viewing it through the eyes of his allies and adversaries like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, FDR, Chamberlain, Attlee, De Gaulle, and Gandhi, as well as his own family. They also chat about Churchill’s lifelong struggle to overcome his political failures and his evolving grasp of what “greatness” truly entailed.
Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-reynolds/mirrors-of-greatness/9781541620209/?lens=basic-books
Show Notes:
The Wall Street Journal: Robert D. Kaplan – “‘Mirrors of Greatness’ Review: Churchill’s Personal Diplomacy”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/mirrors-of-greatness-review-churchills-personal-diplomacy-c8e300e3
Washington Examiner: Sean Durns – “Making history with Winston Churchill”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2838794/making-history-with-winston-churchill/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Tyson Reeder, assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University, to discuss his new book, Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison's America. They chat about the espionage, shadow diplomacy, foreign scheming, and domestic backstabbing in the formative years of the American republic, and how an infant nation adjusting to rancorous partisan politics, aggravated by the untested and imperfect new tools of governance and the growing power of media, was exploited by foreign powers to advance their own agendas.
Get the book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/serpent-in-eden-9780197628591?cc=us&lang=en&
Show Notes:
Law & Liberty: Sam Negus – “The Old World and the Young Republic”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-old-world-and-the-young-republic/
The Wall Street Journal: Mark G. Spencer – “‘Serpent in Eden’: Foreign Spies and False Allies”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/serpent-in-eden-review-spies-lies-and-false-allies-5a34e6e8
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Richard Carwardine, Emeritus Rhodes Professor of American History and Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University, to discuss his new book, Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union. They chat about how the tensions surrounding the moral quandary of slavery cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, how Lincoln proclaimed more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since, and how these pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/24975/righteous-strife-by-richard-carwardine/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Jeffrey Edward Green, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his new book, Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. They chat about how Green sees Dylan as a modern-day prophet, but a prophet of diremption rather than a prophet of salvation. They also discuss how Dylan has made novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.
Get the book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/bob-dylan-9780197651742?cc=us&lang=en&
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Yuval Levin, the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy, to discuss his new book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation―and Could Again. They chat about the Constitution’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America’s fault lines. They also discuss the Constitution’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society.
Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/american-covenant/9780465040742/?lens=basic-books
Show Notes:
The Atlantic: Yuval Levin – “What’s Wrong With Congress (And How to Fix It)”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/congress-reform-filibuster-constitution/678604/
Commentary: Tal Fortgang – “We Are the Reformers We’ve Been Waiting For”
https://www.commentary.org/articles/tal-fortgang/american-covenant-constitution/
The Dispatch: Ben Rolsma – “The Constitution That Binds Us”
https://thedispatch.com/article/the-constitution-that-binds-us/
Law & Liberty: Charles C.W. Cooke – “A Roadmap—If We Want It”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-roadmap-if-we-want-it/
Law & Liberty: John G. Grove – “The Latent Wisdom in Our Constitution”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-latent-wisdom-in-our-constitution/
Law & Liberty: Mark Landy – “How the Constitution Unifies the Country”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/how-the-constitution-unifies-the-country/
Law & Liberty: Scott Yenor – “Can Our Constitutional Order be Revived?”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/can-our-constitutional-order-be-revived/
National Review: Matthew J. Franck – “The Constitution We Still Need”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/08/the-constitution-we-still-need/
Washington Examiner: Michael M. Rosen – “Yuval Levin’s constitutional glue”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/premium/3064559/constitutional-lore/
Washington Free Beacon: - Robert P. George – “A Constitution, If You Can Keep It”
https://freebeacon.com/culture/a-constitution-if-you-can-keep-it-2/
The Washington Post: Ramesh Ponnuru – “The Constitution was supposed to be a uniter, not a divider”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/yuval-levin-american-covenant-review-essay/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Christine Rosen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and media commentary columnist at Commentary, to discuss her new book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. They chat about how digital technologies offer novelty and convenience, but also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real, and what the costs of these technologies are. They also discuss whether face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom are at risk of becoming extinct.
Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393241716
Show Notes:
National Review: Ian Tuttle – “Losing Ourselves in a Disembodied World”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/12/losing-ourselves-in-a-disembodied-world/
The Wall Street Journal: Meghan Cox Gurdon – “‘The Extinction of Experience’ Review: Devices and Distraction”
Washington Examiner: Mark Judge – “Being human in a digitally disembodied world”
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Jonathan W. White, professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, to discuss his new book, co-authored with William J. Griffing, A Great and Good Man: Rare, First-Hand Accounts and Observations of Abraham Lincoln. They chat about the excerpts of the more than 200 previously unpublished accounts written by men and women who lived during the Civil War featured in the book, what the writers thought about Lincoln, and how these letters and diaries shed new life on Lincoln’s life, his contemporary reputation during the war and before his assassination, and how his death instantaneously turned Lincoln into a revered martyr.
Get the book here: https://www.reedypress.com/shop/a-great-and-good-man-rare-first-hand-accounts-of-abraham-lincoln/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the Australian Parliament, to discuss his book How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity. They chat about how ingenuity, greed, and desire for betterment have determined our past, present, and future. They also discuss why Europe colonized Africa instead of the other way around, what happened when countries erected trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s, and how property rights drove China’s growth surge in the 1980s
Get the book here: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-economics-explains-the-world-andrew-leigh?variant=42112692453410
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Cara Rogers Stevens, associate professor of history at Ashland University, to discuss her book Thomas Jefferson and the Fight against Slavery. They chat about the evolution of Jefferson’s views on race and slavery, his legislative attempts to put the practice on a pathway to extinction in Virginia beginning in the colonial period, the antislavery intentions of his lone book, Notes on the State of Virginia, and how he tried to persuade younger slaveholders to embrace emancipation.
Get the book here: https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700635979/
Show Notes:
The Imaginative Conservative: Bradley J. Birzer – “Redeeming (Mostly) Thomas Jefferson”
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by renowned historian Richard Overy to discuss his new book, Why War? They chat about why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past, and indeed in the human present, and what are the major drivers and motivations for war, how each has contributed to organized conflict, and whether humanity will ever evolve away from organized conflict. They also discuss the impulses embedded in human biology and psychology, the incentives to conflict developed through cultural evolution, and how competition for resources, or conflicts stirred by the passions of belief, the effects of ecological stresses, the drive for power in leaders and nations, and the search for security all contribute to this phenomenon that is unique human.
Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324021742
Show Notes:
The Telegraph: James Holland – “Why humanity’s appetite for war will never be sated”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/why-war-richard-overy-review/
Times Literary Supplement: Edward N. Luttwak – “Battle grounds”
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-society/politics/why-war-richard-overy-book-review-edward-luttwak
The Wall Street Journal: Dominic Green – “‘Why War?’ Review: Nature, Nurture and Violence”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/why-war-review-nature-nurture-and-violence-e0babb7f
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Anthony Eames, director of scholarly initiatives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, non-resident fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and professorial lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University, to discuss his new book, A Voice in Their Own Destiny: Reagan, Thatcher, and Public Diplomacy in the Nuclear 1980s. They chat about how the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used innovations in public diplomacy to build back support for their foreign policy agendas at a moment of widespread popular dissent. They also discuss how ow competition between the governments of Reagan and Thatcher, the Anglo-American antinuclear movement, and the Soviet peace offensive sparked a revolution in public diplomacy.
Get the book here: https://www.umasspress.com/9781625347107/a-voice-in-their-own-destiny/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Sergey Radchenko, Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, to discuss his new book, To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power. They chat about how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution, and how this tension drove Soviet policy throughout the second half of the 20th Century. They also discuss whether Soviet foreign policy was motivated more by Marxist-Leninist ideology or by traditional Russian imperialism and security concerns.
Get the book here: https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/history/diplomatic-and-international-history/run-world-kremlins-cold-war-bid-global-power?format=HB
Show Notes:
The Bulwark: Brian Stewart – “Going to War for Respect”
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/review-radchenko-run-world-going-war-for-respect
Financial Times: Edward Luce – “To Run the World — Moscow’s quest for power and parity with the US”
https://www.ft.com/content/e8dc41b9-98a7-4ca0-8092-79d64249694a
Foreign Affairs: John Lewis Gaddis – “Why Would Anyone Want to Run the World?”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/why-would-anyone-run-world-cold-war
Foreign Policy: Casey Michel – “Putting the Cold War on the Couch”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/19/radchenko-gorbachev-krushchev-cold-war-psychology/
The New Statesman: Serhii Plokhy – “Russia’s great-power complex”
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2024/06/russias-great-power-complex
The Spectator: Rodric Braithwaite – “China’s role in Soviet policy-making”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/chinas-role-in-soviet-policy-making/
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Maurice Isserman, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, to discuss his new book, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism. They chat about the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA, the history of the American far left, and how the Bolshevik Revolution skewed the American far left. They also discuss CPUSA’s unwavering faith in the Soviet Union, how many American communists became involved in espionage on behalf of the USSR, and the organization’s decline into political irrelevance.
Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/maurice-isserman/reds/9781541620032/?lens=basic-books
Show Notes:
The American Prospect: Harold Meyerson – “Red Weather Vanes”
https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-08-08-red-weather-vanes-isserman-review/
The Bulwark: Ron Radosh – “How and Why American Communism Failed”
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/communism-failed-maurice-isserman-reds-review
Foreign Policy: Casey Michel: “The Contradictions of America’s Communist Party”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/07/communist-party-america-history-illiberal-democracy/
The Wall Street Journal: Joseph Epstein – “‘Reds’ Review: Communism in the U.S.A.”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/reds-review-communism-in-the-u-s-a-1e0b14d7
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Sean McMeekin, Francis Flournoy Professor of European History and Culture at Bard College, to discuss his new book, To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism. They chat about the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. They also discuss communism’s unpopularity as a political form, yet it’s endurance as an ideology.
Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sean-mcmeekin/to-overthrow-the-world/9781541601963/?lens=basic-books
Show Notes:
The New Criterion: Gary Saul Morson – “The red star returns”
https://newcriterion.com/article/the-red-star-returns/
Washington Free Beacon: Harvey Klehr – “The Struggle To Contain Communism … in One Book”
https://freebeacon.com/culture/the-struggle-to-contain-communism-in-one-book/
