American Purpose's Bookstack
The books and ideas podcast from American Purpose.
We found 10 episodes of American Purpose's Bookstack with the tag “history”.
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Episode 17: R. James Breiding on Small-Nation Success
February 26th, 2021 | 36 mins 17 secs
books, europe, history, politics
R. James Breiding joins host Richard Aldous to discuss his new book Too Small To Fail: Why Some Small Nations Outperform Larger Ones and How They Are Reshaping the World.
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Episode 16: Emma Rothschild’s Generational Portrait of France
February 19th, 2021 | 29 mins 4 secs
biography, books, history, politics
"History from below” is usually an effort at social history seen through statistics and figures. Our guest this week, Emma Rothschild, takes a different approach in her new book, An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries, by recounting a vast narrative at times resembling a period novel.
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Episode 15: Robert D. Kaplan on Humanitarian Bob Gersony
February 12th, 2021 | 33 mins 10 secs
biography, books, espionage, history, politics
Bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan joins Richard Aldous to discuss human rights, activism, realism, and his new book, The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government’s Greatest Humanitarian.
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Episode 14: Dominique Kirchner Reill on Interwar Fascism in Fiume
February 5th, 2021 | 31 mins 34 secs
books, europe, history, politics
This week, Dominique Kirchner Reill joins host Richard Aldous to discuss fascism, resilience, the indeterminacy of history, and her new book, The Fiume Crisis: Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire.
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Episode 11: Satia on Progress and Colonialism
January 15th, 2021 | 34 mins 29 secs
books, history, philosophy, politics
How does writing history influence the future? How did Enlightenment thinkers help prepare the ground for Empire? And how can we rescue the Enlightenment project to build a better future?
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Episode 9: Teasel Muir-Harmony on the Power of the Moon Landing
December 18th, 2020 | 30 mins 58 secs
america, books, diplomacy, foreign policy, history, politics, us
Project Apollo captured the world’s imagination, and as a feat of “soft power” public diplomacy, it has few peers in the history of mankind, and has not been matched since.
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Episode 8: Thomas E. Ricks on First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
December 11th, 2020 | 28 mins 9 secs
america, books, history, politics, us
Is the America we have today, the America that elected Donald Trump and is still struggling to move on from his term in office, the country our Founding Fathers envisioned? And just what is it that this illustrious group really thought they were building?
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Episode 7: Susan Glasser and Peter Baker on James A. Baker
December 4th, 2020 | 35 mins 31 secs
america, biography, books, history, politics, uk, us
Susan Glasser and Peter Baker join our host Richard Aldous to discuss their new book, The Man Who Ran Washington, a biography of George H. W. Bush's legendary White House chief of staff and Secretary of State, and a rumination about a Washington that perhaps no longer exists.
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Episode 6: Ian Buruma on America's Special Relationship with the UK
November 20th, 2020 | 31 mins 55 secs
books, history, politics
Ian Buruma, author, historian, and a professor at Bard College, joins our host Richard Aldous to discuss all this, as well as his new book, The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit.
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Episode 4: Bookstack: Mark Salter on Senator John McCain’s Legacy
November 6th, 2020 | 36 mins 23 secs
biography, books, elections, history, politics
As we await the final vote tally from the 2020 presidential election, some reflections on political leadership.