Are you an educator? An administrator? A school board member? Does your life intersect in some way with a public school? If so, this episode is for you. We talk about the religion and transatlantic roots of American public education […]
The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast
More on Christian socialism
Last weekend we dropped Episode 103 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast with historian Vaneesa Cook, author of Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left. I hope you enjoy this episode. If you are interested in learning more […]
Episode 103: Spiritual Socialists
Does the American Left have religion problem? What can progressives learn from people like Dorothy Day, Ignazio Silone, Henry Wallace, Staughton Lynd, and Cornel West? Many of these thinkers and activists offered a powerful vision for a moral and just […]
Episode 102: The Ghosts of Colonial Williamsburg
Our guest on this episode, public historian Alena Pirok, explains how John D. Rockefeller’s vision of Colonial Williamsburg eventually gave way to a vision of the site championed by an early 20th century clergyman who saw ghosts. Join us for a conversion […]
Episode 100: Christian Historians as Activists?
In this episode, our 100th, host John Fea redelivers his 2022 Conference on Faith and History presidential address. Listen at: Apple Podcasts Stitcher iHeartRadio Spotify Podchaser Podbean The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast is a product of Current. If you […]
Episode 99: “Historicizing the Search for Roots”
Do you do genealogical research? In this episode, historian Francesca Morgan talks about her new book A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History. She discusses Americans’ fascination with tracking family lineage through three centuries and how the […]
Episode 98: “Conversions: Spiritual and Political”
What do Sammy Davis Jr., Muhammad Ali, Clare Booth Luce, Whitaker Chambers, and Charles Colson all have in common? They all had very public religious conversions. In this episode, historian Rebecca Davis joins us to talk about her new book Public […]
Episode 97: “In Search of George Washington’s Hair”
Using America’s obsession with Washington’s hair as his window, historian Keith Beutler examines how “physicality,” or the use of the material objects, was the most important way early Americans (1790-1840)–museum founders, African Americans, evangelicals, and school teachers– remembered the nation’s […]
Episode 95: “The Lost Promise of American Universities”
American universities entered the 1960s with the hope of bringing a high-quality system of universal higher education to all comers. But by the early 1970s hope turned to despair as universities gave way to neoliberalism, corporatism, and a powerful conservative […]
Episode 94: “Gettysburg, 1963”
Our guest in this episode is Gettysburg College historian Jill Ogline Titus. Her new book, Gettysburg 1963, tells the story of the centennial celebration of the Civil War in the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. Through an examination of the experiences of political […]
Episode 93: A Story of Faith and Conspiracy in Revolutionary America
Less than a year after the American Revolution, a group of North Carolina farmers hatched a plot to assassinate the colony’s leading patriots, including the governor. In this episode, Boston University historian Brendan McConville talks about the Gourd Patch Conspiracy. […]
Episode 92: “Original Sin and the History of American Democracy”
Our guest in this episode is historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, author of We the Fallen the People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy. In the spirit of the 20th-century theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr, McKenzie places the Christian doctrine of […]
Erin Bartram does history
Longtime listeners of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast may remember our interview with historian Erin Bartram in Episode 37: “Should You Go Grad School?” In that episode we discussed Bartram’s February 2018 blog post “The Sublimated Grief of […]
Episode 90: The Gospel According to Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh was a celebrated aviator, the father of the baby abducted in the “crime of the century,” a Nazi sympathizer, and a believer in eugenics. He also carried a small New Testament with him as he entered the South […]
Episode 89: The Heretical John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. In this episode we talk with Robert Elder, author of Calhoun: American Heretic. Elder shows that Calhoun’s story is crucial for understanding the political climate in […]
Episode 88: History Education on the Great Plains
In this episode we talk with Nathan McAlister, Humanities Program Manager at the Kansas State Department of Education in Topeka. When it comes to history education, Kansas is doing it the right way. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion on […]
Clearing-up some confusion about the Current podcasts
Current is the home of two podcasts. I host The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. I have hosted it for for five years. It predates Current. This podcast is interview-driven. Our guests are historians. It is also FREE! You […]
Episode 87: Religion and the American Revolution
In her new book Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, historian Katherine Carte offers a major reassessment of the relationship between Christianity and the American Revolution. She argues that religion helped set the terms by which Anglo-Americans encountered the […]
Episode 86: A Conversation with Eric Miller, Editor of Current
In this episode we introduce Current, a new online platform of commentary and opinion that provides daily reflection on contemporary culture, politics, and ideas. Editor Eric Miller talks about Current‘s vision, some of his favorite articles, and the history of the […]
Episode 85: Reckoning with Confederate Monuments
Historian Karen L. Cox argues that “when it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground.” In this episode, we talk with Cox about the history of Confederate monuments and how the recent racial unrest in the United States […]