Reckoning with Jason Herbert

What if Clue isn’t just a cult comedy — but a sharp satire of the Cold War? In this episode of Reckoning with Jason Herbert, historian Julio Capó Jr. joins me to unpack the surprisingly profound history lesson hidden inside the 1985 film Clue. Set in a 1950s mansion but released during the Reagan era, Clue plays with paranoia, anti-communism, class anxiety, and America’s nostalgic myths about the past — all while delivering rapid-fire jokes and multiple endings. We explore how the film reflects Cold War politics, the cultural mood of the 1980s, and why its farcical dinner party still resonates today. Is Clue simply a beloved murder mystery comedy? Or is it a clever commentary on power, fear, and the stories Americans tell about themselves? If you love film history, Cold War history, political satire, or cult classics, this conversation will make you see Clue in an entirely new light. 🎙️ Subscribe, rate, and share Reckoning with Jason Herbert wherever you get your podcasts.

Today on the podcast, we’re stepping inside The Gray House—not just the story you see on screen, but the one behind it. This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at how this series came to life: how it was conceived, how it was built, and why it mattered enough to tell it this way. I’m joined by executive producers Lori McCreary and Leslie Greif, along with director Roland Joffé. Together, they walk us through the creative choices, the production challenges, and the larger questions they were wrestling with as they made The Gray House. What did they want this series to say—not just about the past, but about the moment we’re living in now? And what do they hope stays with viewers long after the final scene fades to black? This is a conversation about storytelling, history, collaboration, and intent—and about why some stories demand to be told as more than just entertainment. Let’s get into it.

In this episode, I sit down with cultural geographer Rashad Shabazz to dissect the 1984 classic starring Prince — and ask the uncomfortable questions. Is The Kid a tortured genius… or a young man replaying generational trauma? Is the final performance redemption — or dominance? And what does Minneapolis represent in a film about Black masculinity, ambition, and control? We unpack race, space, violence, desire, artistic genius, and the myth of upward mobility — all through the lens of one of the most iconic soundtracks of the 1980s. This is Purple Rain as you’ve never heard it discussed before. 🎧 Press play.

In this episode of Reckoning, historian Andrew Wehrman, author of Contagion of Liberty, explores how smallpox and inoculation shaped the American founding—and ignited some of the earliest debates over liberty, risk, and public health. Long before COVID-19, Americans wrestled with questions of bodily autonomy, religious belief, communal obligation, and government authority, all in the shadow of a deadly disease and without modern medical knowledge. From local resistance to inoculation to George Washington’s controversial decision to mandate it in the Continental Army, this conversation places early American public health in its full moral and political context. By looking closely at how Americans responded to smallpox, this episode shows why vaccine controversy is not a modern anomaly—but a recurring feature of American life—and what our past can (and cannot) teach us about navigating public health crises today.

In this episode of Reckoning, we speak with author and journalist Jack El-Hai about the new film Nuremberg and the deeper questions it raises about justice, memory, and moral responsibility. Drawing on his book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, El-Hai examines the relationship between Hermann Göring and Dr. Douglas Kelley during the Nuremberg Trials, and what it reveals about psychology, power, and the human impulse to explain evil. The conversation considers how early efforts to diagnose Nazism continue to shape the way we understand perpetrators—and the limits of that understanding. This episode asks what it means to reckon with history honestly, without turning the past into either monsters or myths. About our guest: Jack El-Hai is an author and journalist whose work explores psychology, history, and the moral complexities of the twentieth century. He is the author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, which examines the psychological interrogation of Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg Trials and the uneasy questions those encounters raised about evil, responsibility, and human nature. El-Hai’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and other publications, and he is known for bringing rigorous historical research together with narrative clarity and ethical depth.

In this episode, I’m joined by Cherokee scholar and author Julie Reed to talk about her powerful book Land, Language, and Women: A Cherokee and American Educational History. We explore how Cherokee women have shaped—and continue to sustain—relationships to land, community, and language in the face of colonial violence and dispossession. Reed shows how land is not simply territory, language is not merely words, and women are not peripheral to history, but are instead central to cultural survival and meaning. Our conversation moves between history, storytelling, gender, and Indigenous knowledge systems, asking what it really means to belong to a place—and what is lost when those relationships are broken. This is a conversation about memory, resistance, responsibility, and the enduring power of women to carry culture forward. About our guest: Julie L. Reed is an associate professor in history at the University of Tulsa. She is a historian of Native American history, with an emphasis on Southeastern Indians and Cherokee history, and American education. She is also a member of the Cherokee Nation.

There is probably no historian working today more influential in shaping how we think about the way in which humans and animals engage with each other and the environment than Dan Flores. Today, Dan joins in to talk about his epic work, Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, on the eve of its 10th anniversary release, along with discussions on wolf reintroduction, bison on the plains, the American Serengeti, and his relationship with Steven Rinella and the crew over at Meateater. About our guest: New York Times best-selling author Dan Flores is one of America’s most celebrated historians, renowned for his deep explorations of the country’s landscapes and the remarkable figures who shaped them. While he has 11 acclaimed books to his name, Flores is first and foremost a teacher. He served as Professor Emeritus of Western History at the University of Montana. This year, Flores brings a lifetime of expertise and storytelling to the MeatEater Podcast Network with his new podcast, The American West with Dan Flores.

This week Jason Socrates Bardi joins in to talk about about the rivalry between three mathematicians that defined the fifty years surrounding World War I. About our guest: Jason Socrates Bardi is an award-winning journalist in DC who has written two books about the history of math: The Calculus Wars and The Fifth Postulate. He has published hundreds of articles about modern science and medicine in outlets including the San Francisco Chronicle, Good Morning America, US News & World Report, and The Lancet. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

This week Dr. Zackary Graham drops in to talk about one of America's most important environmental stewards--the crawfish--and why their disappearance should worry us all. About our guest: Zack is an evolutionary and behavioral ecologist who studies crayfish diversity. The goal of his research is to untangle the ecological and evolutionary complexities that have led crayfishes to be amongst the most successful freshwater animals within the Eastern United States and beyond. ​ He is the author of an upcoming popular science book (available 1/6/26) on crayfish entitled Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad: The Biology and Conservation of North America's Favorite Crustaceans published by UNC Press.

Egyptologists Dr. Julia Troche and Matt Szafran join in this week to talk about the history behind The Fifth Element and how the anxieties of the 90s are reflected in Luc Besson's campy space opera. About our guests: Dr. Julia Troche is an Egyptologist and Associate Professor of History. In 2022 she was awarded her university's highest teaching award followed by the Missouri Governor's Award for Education Excellence. She is committed to advocating for students, early career scholars, and contingent faculty, and fostering inclusive spaces for learning about the ancient world. She is dedicated to the university Public Affairs mission, evinced by her numerous Service-Learning courses, public lectures, and community engagements, such as co-curating with Bryan Brinkman and student input an exhibition of antiquities at the Springfield Art Museum (Ancient Artifacts Abroad, spring 2024). Julia's areas of instruction and research include social history, religion, archaeology, digital humanities, and reception studies of antiquity. Julia received her PhD from Brown University's Department of in Egyptology & Assyriology in 2015, and her BA in History from UCLA in 2008. She serves as Committee Chair (2024-2027) for her field’s annual, international conference (the American Research Center in Egypt Annual Meeting) and as co-chair (2023-2026) for the Archaeology of Egypt sessions at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Overseas Research. Julia is an active member of her field, sitting on numerous international, national, and regional Boards and committees. Since 2022, she is a membership-elected Governor on the American Research Center in Egypt’s Board of Governors (a 501c3 non-profit, cultural institution in Egypt; www.arce.org). She co-founded both the ARCE, Missouri Chapter (Past President and Vice President, current Director focusing on Finance) and the annual Missouri Egyptological Symposium. She attended the HERS Leadership Institute in 2024 for women leaders in higher education (hersnetwork.org). She has served her campus community since arriving here in 2017 as a Bear Bridge mentor (2023, Outstanding Bear Bridge Faculty Mentor award), Safe-Zone Faculty Advisor, Advisor for the Ancient Worlds Club, Co-Advisor for History Club, and supporting her department through extensive service, including—at various times—chairing Undergraduate Committee and Personnel Committee, sitting on about three-dozen MA committees, serving on five search committees (chairing two), and serving as a past Faculty Senate and College Council department representative. Matt Szafran is an independent researcher specialising in the study of ancient tools and technologies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Trustee of the Friends of the Petrie Museum. His current research focusses on the manufacture and use of stone palettes in Predynastic Egypt, using experimental archaeology and advanced imaging technologies, such as microscopy and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) to complement textual studies. Matt has published and lectured on this topic, and is currently incorporating this research into a book discussing the design, manufacture, and possible uses of Predynastic palettes. His research interests also include the popular perception, reception, and representation of Egypt depicted in mass media, in particular late 20th and 21st century movies and television.

This week Kate Sheppard and Thomas Lecaque drop in to talk about the greatest romcom of all time. About our guests: Dr. Kathleen Sheppard earned her PhD in History of Science from the University of Oklahoma in 2010. After a post-doctoral teaching fellowship at the American University in Cairo, she arrived at Missouri S&T in the fall of 2011. She teaches mainly survey courses on modern Western Civilizations, which is arguably one of the most important courses students in 21st century America can take. Her main focus is on the history of science from the ancient Near East to present day Europe, United States, and Latin America. She has taught courses on the history of European science and Latin American science, as well as a seminar on women in the history of science. Sheppard’s research focuses on 19th and 20th century Egyptology and women in the field. Her first book was a scientific biography of Margaret Alice Murray, the first woman to become a university-trained Egyptologist in Britain (Lexington, 2013). Murray’s career spanned 70 years and over 40 publications. Sheppard is also the editor of a collection of letters between Caroline Ransom Williams, the first university-trained American Egyptologist, and James Breasted from the University of Chicago (Archaeopress, 2018). Sheppard’s monograph, Tea on the Terrace, is about hotels in Egypt as sites of knowledge creation in Egyptology during the discipline’s “Golden Age,” around 1880 to 1930. Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age was published in July 2024. It has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and was a top 6 Reader’s Choice non-fiction book on Goodreads. Thomas Lecaque is an associate professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. He specializes in the nexus of apocalyptic religion and political violence. He has written for the Washington Post, Religion Dispatches, Foreign Policy and The Bulwark, among others.

This week Dr. Rachel Gross drops in to explain the rise of outdoor goods manufacturers and how they sold us on going outside. About our guest: Rachel Gross is an environmental, cultural, and public historian specializing in the history of the modern U.S. Her research and teaching interests center on business, consumer culture, and gender, and she is especially interested in what seemingly ordinary consumer goods tell us about identity and power. She teaches courses on capitalism, commodities, women and gender, and public history.

This week historians John McManus and Waitman Beorn drop in to talk about the history behind Hamburger Hill, arguably the greatest war film we ever forgot. About our guests: John C. McManus is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). This professorship is bestowed by the University of Missouri Board of Curators on the most outstanding scholars in the University of Missouri system. McManus is the first ever Missouri S&T faculty member in the humanities to be named Curators’ Distinguished Professor. As one of the nation’s leading military historians, and the author of fifteen well received books on the topic, he is in frequent demand as a speaker and expert commentator. In addition to dozens of local and national radio programs, he has appeared on Cnn.com, Fox News, C-Span, the Military Channel, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Netflix, the Smithsonian Network, the History Channel and PBS, among others. He also served as historical advisor for the bestselling book and documentary Salinger, the latter of which appeared nationwide in theaters and on PBS’s American Masters Series. During the 2018-2019 academic year, he was in residence at the U.S. Naval Academy as the Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Naval and Military History, a distinguished visiting professorship. His current project is a major three volume history of the U.S. Army in the Pacific/Asia theater during World War II. He is the host of two podcasts, Someone Talked! in tandem with the National D-Day Memorial, and We Have Ways of Making You Talk in the USA alongside Al Murray and James Holland. Dr. Waitman Wade Beorn is an associate professor in History at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Dr. Beorn was previously the Director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA and the inaugural Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. His first book, Marching Into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus (Harvard University Press) Dr. Beorn is also the author of The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: At the Epicenter of the Final Solution (Bloomsbury Press, 2018) and has recently finished a book on the Janowska concentration camp outside of Lviv, Ukraine. That book Between the Wires: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv was released in August 2024 from Nebraska University Press. Between the Wires was recognised as a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the United States. He is currently on research leave thanks to an AHRC Research, Development, and Engagement Fellowship. This fellowship supports his work on a project entitled Visualizing Janowska: Creating a Digital Architectural Model of a Nazi Concentration Camp. This interdisciplinary project will build a digital reconstruction of the Janowska concentration camp based on historical sources as most of the site is gone today. Dr. Beorn is managing a team of architects and digital modellers to accomplish this and is partnered with the Holocaust Education Trust, the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Lviv Center for Urban History, the Duke Digital Art History and Visual Culture Lab, and the Holocaust Center North. Dr. Beorn has published work in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Central European History, German Studie

This week author Matthew Davis drops in to talk about the complex history and significance of Mount Rushmore, including its ties to the Lakota people, the role of Gutzon Borglum, and the evolving meaning of the monument in contemporary society. We also dig in on the misconceptions surrounding Rushmore, the importance of indigenous perspectives, and the future of the site in terms of stewardship and representation. About our guest: Matthew Davis is a writer who lives in Washington, D.C. He is the author of When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale and the founder of the Cheuse Center for International Writers at George Mason University. His new book, A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore, is available everywhere.

Sahara had everything going for it: a big cast led by ultra hot actors Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, a devoted fan base of author Clive Cussler’s novels, and a big budget courtesy of Disney. And then it came out and flopped. But that doesn’t mean it’s still not fun and it doesn’t mean that we can’t have real conversations about history. In fact, the movie gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about artifact recovery and repatriation. Joining me today are Colin Colbourn and Derek Abbey from Project Recover, a nonprofit group dedicated to searching for and locating American MIAs and POWs from conflicts around the world. this is a cool conversation about both the movie and the process of bringing American soldiers home.

This week Max Perry Mueller drops in to talk about Wakara, a Ute man who shaped the modern American West. We also talk about the complexities of Native American identity, the impact of Manifest Destiny, and the ethical considerations in writing Native history. Max also highlights the importance of cultural exchange, environmental stewardship, and the ongoing struggles for repatriation and rematriation of Indigenous remains. About our guest: Max Perry Mueller (PhD, Harvard University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies. He is also a fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies and teaches in the Department of History, the Honors Program, and the Global Studies program. Mueller is a theorist and historian of race and religion in American history, with particular interest in Indigenous and African-American religious experiences, epistemologies, and cosmologies. The central animating question of his scholarship is how the act of writing—especially the writing of historical narratives—has affected the creation and contestation of "race" as a category of political and religious division in American history. His first book, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017), examines how the three original American races—"red," "black," and "white"—were constructed as literary projects before these racial categories were read onto bodies of Americans of Native, African, and European descent. Choice described Race and the Making of the Mormon People as an "outstanding analysis of the role of race among Mormons." The book was featured in The Atlantic and Harvard Divinity School Bulletin and has been taught at, among others, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford Universities. His next book, Wakara's America, will be the first full-length biography of the complex and often paradoxical Ute warrior chief, horse thief, slave trader, settler colonist, one-time Mormon, and Indian resistance leader. Mueller's research and teaching also connect with his public scholarship. Mueller has written on religion, race, and politics for outlets including Slate, The New Republic, and The Atlantic. He also co-founded Religion & Politics, the online journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, whose mission is to bring the best scholarship on religion and American public life to audiences beyond the academy.

2014's Pompeii is all over the place. Designed to be a Roman apocalypse story with a star making turn by Game of Thrones' Kit Harrington, Pompeii fizzled at the box office. But strangely, it's a phenomenal film to talk about the Roman empire and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Historian and archaeologist Dr. Steven Tuck joins in to talk everything this film gets right and wrong about Roman history. Easily one of our best episodes ever. About our guest: Steven L. Tuck is a professor of classics, who is currently head of classics at Miami University. He teaches many classics courses at Miami University, especially those relating to the arts.He received a Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from University of Michigan in 1997, and he is the author of the textbook A History of Roman Art. In addition to his teaching, he has lectured the general public at Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, Yale University, the University of Puget Sound, Baylor University and for the Getty Villa. He has also appeared in the media discussing classics, including in a 2019 feature for Atlas Obscura on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. and its impact on refugees and migration in the ancient world. For the Vergilian Society, he managed the Villa Vergiliana in Cumae, and organized educational programs there. He is also the author of the brand new book Escape from Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Its Survivors.

How did a small town south of Denver emerge as the center of evangelical capitalism after World War II? Historian Dr. William Schultz explains how evangelicals' faith intertwined with a specific interpretation of Americanism, especially during the Cold War era, and how this allowed them to transition from the margins of society to the epicenter of conservative dialogue. About our guest: William Schultz is a historian of American religion with an interest in the intersection of religion, politics, and capitalism. Schultz is currently finishing his first book, Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City (under contract with UNC Press), which explains how the confluence of evangelical Christianity and free-market capitalism transformed the city of Colorado Springs into an epicenter of American conservatism. His next project, The Wages of Sin: Faith, Fraud, and Religious Freedom in Modern America, uses cases of financial fraud between the 1920s and 1990s to explore how Americans have struggled with questions of religious authority and authenticity. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Schultz was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty fellow at Harvard University. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina and his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

It's a special podcast here at Reckoning. Early American historians Dr. Liz Covart, Dr. Michael Hattem, and Dr. Craig Bruce Smith joined me to live stream Ken Burns' new series The American Revolution and answer questions from people around the world. It's kind of like a Director's Commentary, only if the director was actually four people with degrees in history. This was a blast. About our guest: Dr. Liz Covart is a historian of the American Revolution, and the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Ben Franklin’s World. In 2022, she co-founded Clio Digital Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that uses digital media to foster better, more robust understandings of history. And in 2026, she will launch Scholar.DIY, a public benefit company that empowers scholars to transform their expertise into compelling digital stories— building trust, promoting media literacy, and strengthening democracy along the way. Dr. Michael Hattem is an American historian, with interests in early America, the American Revolution, and historical memory. He received his PhD in History at Yale University and has taught at The New School and Knox College. He is the author of The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024), which was a finalist for the 2025 George Washington Prize, and Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020). He is currently the Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Hattem’s work has been featured or mentioned in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, as well as many other mainstream media publications and outlets. He has served as a historical consultant or contributor for a number of projects and organizations, curated historical exhibitions, appeared in television documentaries, and authenticated and written catalogue essays for historical document auctions. Dr. Craig Bruce Smith is a professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era, Securing Victory 1781-1783 (out soon), and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons in Ethical Leadership. Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University. Previously, he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), an assistant professor of history, and the director of the history program at William Woods University, and he has taught at additional colleges, including Tufts University. He specializes in American Revolutionary and early American and military history, specifically focusing on George Washington, honor, ethics, war, the founders, transnational ideas, and national identity. In addition, he has broader interests in colonial America, the early republic, leadership, and early American cultural, intellectual, and political history. Smith was named a Jack Miller Center Scholar in 2025 and also serves as a member of their History Advisory Council. He is also the co-host of National Defense University's JAWbone podcast.