The Hour of History Podcast

Dr. Danielle Giffort is a medical sociologist who studies the politics of health and social movements. She recently published the book, Acid Revival: The Psychedelic Renaissance and the Quest for Medical Legitimacy (University of Minnesota, 2020). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Liberal Arts at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. Her research has appeared in Gender & Society, Sociology Compass, PsychCritiques, and MedED Portal. You can read more at...

James Carter is a writer and historian of modern China. He earned his PhD from Yale University under the direction of Jonathan Spence, and has taught since 1999 at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. His new book is Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai, coming in June from W.W. Norton. In it, Carter describes the many worlds of Shanghai on the eve of World War II, centered on the city’s celebrated race track just weeks before Pearl Harbor. Dr. Carter is the author of two previous...

Harry Blutstein has worked as a freelance journalist since 1972 and his articles have appeared in major Australian newspapers. He is an adjunct professor at RMIT University and a fellow at the University of Melbourne. More recently he has published several books: An Insider's Guide to Australia (Kummerly & Frey, 1995), Ascent of Globalisation (Manchester University Press, 2016) and his latest, Cold War Games (Echo Publishing, 2017) and has been reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald, He is...

Dr. Thomas DiBlasi is an associate professor at St. Joseph's College in New York, where he teaches and writes about the history of psychology. Tom completed his PhD at Hofstra where he received general and specialized training in treating anxiety, depression, anger, and crisis counseling. At St. Joseph's College, he I teaches undergraduate students and research anger, aggression, and revenge. I am lucky enough to have nearly ten publications and over 25 presentations on such topics. I...

Dr. Anna Clayfield is an expert in history and languages and the current Programme Leader for BA Modern Languages & Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Chester. Her latest book is The Guerrilla Legacy of the Cuban Revolution (University Press of Florida, 2019). You can follow Anna on twitter @AnnaClayfield Buy the Book: About the Book: Analyzing official discourse, including newspapers, history textbooks, army training manuals, the writings of Che Guevara, and...

Dr. Ferenc Laczó is an expert on European history and the editor of the recent volume The Legacy of Division: East and West after 1989 (CEU Press 2019). He is currently assistant professor in history at the University of Maastricht where he teaches in the European Studies BA, MA and Minor programs as well as at University College Maastricht. He also acts as the academic secretary of the research group Politics and Culture in Europe and is a member of the Faculty Council. His main research...

Dr. Douglas R. Egerton is an expert on American history and a professor of history at Le Moyne College. A prolific historian, his latest book is called, Heirs of an Honored Name: The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America (Basic 2019). His books include Thunder At the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America (2016), The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era (2014), Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham...

Dr. L. Benjamin Rolsky is an expert on American Religion and the author of the new book, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left (Columbia 2019). Dr. Rolsky received his PhD in American Religious Studies from Drew University. He is currently an adjunct instructor at Monmouth University in History and Anthropology and a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University- New Brunswick in Religion. You can read more at his website here. You can follow him on twitter here. Read Benji's Book: Some...

This week on the Hour of History Podcast, I visit the home of Joseph Stalin, the infamous leader of the Soviet Union (1922-1953). Some Highlights: Gori, Georgia Visiting the home of a dictator Public History in a post-Soviet state Who runs the Stalin museum? Who visits the Stalin museum? Dark Tourism Honoring a dictator or learning history? The construction of a memorial museum Some Further Reading: SRB Podcast - great podcast that specializes on Russia The Death of Stalin Young Stalin...

Anna Aleksanyan is an expert on the Armenian Genocide, which she currently writes about as a Ph.D. candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. Her dissertation explores gendered aspects of the Armenian Genocide in the experiences of its victimized females. Before starting her Ph.D., Anna worked at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, in Yerevan, Armenia, as a scientific researcher for seven years. Some Highlights: Origins of the Armenian...

This week, I look back on the Hour of History Podcast at 100. Some Highlights: Map of the Hour of History Podcast listeners A word of thanks to our listeners, readers, and subscribers. A look at the fascinating guests who have contributed. The Podcast Producer How I create the podcast every week The next 100 episodes! Suggestion: Find out what Hour of History Podcast you missed and listen to some of our great episodes in their entirety! Some of the faces of the Hour of History Podcast:...

David Brydan is a lecturer in the modern history of international relations at King’s College London. He previously worked as a lecturer and researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, and received his PhD from Birkbeck in 2016. Between 2013 and 2017 he was a member of the Wellcome Trust-funded Reluctant Internationalists project at Birkbeck, and is currently a member of the Centre for the Study of Internationalism. In 2014 he was a visiting researcher at the European University Institute...

Photography by Thai NguyenDr. Richard Bell is a scholar, writer, and teacher at the University of Maryland, where he is an associate professor. His research focuses on the history and culture of the United States between 1750 and 1877. His new book, Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home, was published by Simon & Schuster on October 15, 2019. Stolen is the true story of five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep...

Ken Strange is a native New Yorker and former FBI agent who has written travel articles for local US and international newspapers and magazines. His recent book It’s Your Camino: One Couple’s 500-mile Pilgrimage Across Spain recounts his journey across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago. A Spanish speaker, Ken has traveled extensively around the world to more than 65 countries, walking the paths of his characters and assimilating geographical venues; he has lived and worked in Saudi...

John Farndon is a bestselling nonfiction author, playwright, poet, composer, and translator of literary works. Through collaboration with native speakers and global writers he has introduced the Western World to the great minds and voices of Central Asia. His latest collaboration released in September 2019, is The Dead Wander in the Desert written by Rollan Seisenbayev and translated by John Farndon and Olga Nakston. He plays an important role in bringing literature from Uzbekistan,...

Dr. Joel Breakstone is an expert on history education and directs the Stanford History Education Group. He received his Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Along with Mark Smith and Sam Wineburg, he led the development of SHEG's assessment website, Beyond the Bubble. He received the Larry Metcalf Exemplary Dissertation Award from the National Council for the Social Studies in 2014. He holds a B.A. in history from Brown University and a M.A. in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth...

Dr. Matthew Avery Sutton is Edward R. Meyer distinguished professor of history at Washington State University. His latest book, which will be released later this September, is Double Crossed: The Missionaries who Spied for the United States in the Second World War (Basic 2019). He is also the author of a number of other excellent books including American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Harvard 2014), Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with...

Dr. Ming-sho Ho is a Professor at National Taiwan University where he received his Ph.D. in Sociology (2000). Ming-sho’s research interests include social movements, labor and environmental issues. He published Working Class Formation in Taiwan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and most recently Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan's Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement (Temple University Press, 2019). Currently, he is also researching the grassroots initiatives in...

Dr. Hope Bastian is currently the Associate Director for the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad/Cuba Divisional Cente and a professor at the Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana, Universidad de La Habana. Her research looks at social capital, social networks and social mobility and economic and social inequalities in contemporary Havana. As an anthropologist she has done research in Cuba since 2012. Hope's new book is Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility,...

This week Patrick Egan (Pádraig Mac Aodhgáin) joins us on the Hour of History Podcast. He an expert musician who works in the digital humanities, ethnomusicology, and web development. He is currently fellow in digital studies at the Kluge Center (Library of Congress, Washington DC) and also a Fulbright scholar (2019). He recently completed his PhD at University College Cork, Ireland where he focused on exploring the “Seán Ó Riada Collection” at University College Cork in Ireland. You can...