Reconstruction

Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speaks with Manisha Sinha, Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, to discuss her recent book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on the major death toll coming out of ...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Dr. Melvin Rogers, professor of political science and associate director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics, & Economics at Brown University, to discuss his recent book The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Poli...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Dylan Penningroth, professor of Law and History at the University of California, Berkeley, to discuss his recent book Before The Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Iran’s military-specific retaliatio...
Happy Monday! Sam hosts Kidada E. Williams, associate professor of history at Wayne State University, to discuss her recent book I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction. Sam begins the show by talking about the upcoming debt ceiling battle, and how i...
The MR Crew is back! Sam sits down for a pre-taped conversation with Peniel Joseph, joint professor of public affairs and history at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his recent book The Third Reconstruction:America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century First, Emma...
Sam and Emma host Gerald Horne, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, to discuss his recent book The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism. Then later in the show, they’re joined by  Camille Gix, member of ...
Sam and Emma host Dale Kretz, visiting assistant professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to discuss his recent book Administering Freedom: The State of Emancipation after the Freedmen’s Bureau. First, Sam and Emma dive into updates on the US’ sanctions on Venezuela, E...
Sam and Emma host Donald Yacovone, Associate at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, to discuss his recent book Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity. First Emma dives into Lula taking a lead ...
Sam hosts William Forbath, Associate Dean for Research at the University of Texas at Austin Law School, and Joseph Fishkin,  Professor at the UCLA School of Law, to discuss their recent book The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of Democracy. Sam first runs thro...
Sam and Emma host Adolph Reed, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his recent book The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives, on the lasting legacy of the racial order that defined the post-reconstruction era, and its intrinsic ties to labor and expl...
Sam hosts William A. Blair, Professor of Middle American History at Penn State University, to discuss his recent book The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight Over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction, on how the true histories of reconstruction, both in the horrible viole...
Emma hosts Karen L. Cox, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, to discuss her recent book No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice, on the history and reckoning over confederate monuments in the US. Professor Cox brings us b...
Sam and Emma are back from the July 4th holiday with Smithsonian curator Jon Grinspan, author of his latest book The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 on the last time partisanship was the primary driver in American democracy. Grinspan, inspired by the preced...
Sam hosts Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale Historian David Blight to discuss his recent biography of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, and how the Reconstruction era lives on in our contemporary politics. Sam and Blight take a deep dive into Frederick Douglass the orator and ...
Sam and Emma host Duke University Economist Sandy Darity to discuss his latest book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century on addressing the racial wealth gap in America. After covering the modern state of the stratification, they look into the origins...
Emma hosts today’s Majority Report featuring a recent interview Sam recorded with Harvard history professor Annette Gordon-Reed on her new book, On Juneteenth, which explores the Texas roots and national consciousness of the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the South. Beginning in the 15...
Emma hosts today’s Majority Report, featuring an interview Sam recorded with Jonathan Daniel Wells, University of Michigan Professor of History, on his latest book “The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War.” They explore slavery’s deep ties to the fina...
Sam hosts Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson), former advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to discuss his new book Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy on how the filibuster negatively impacts American democracy.
Sam hosts Sarah Chayes, prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world, to discuss her new book On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake. Sam and Chayes take the long view on how corruption has taken hold in society an...
Sam hosts Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale Historian David Blight to discuss his recent biography of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, and how the Reconstruction era lives on in our contemporary politics. Sam and Blight take a deep dive into Frederick Douglass the orator and ...
Journalist and historian Richard Kreitner joins Sam to discuss “Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union.”
Sam hosts NY-14 congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) to discuss her June 23rd primary and what to expect from the progressive caucus before the next round of Covid-19 relief. Historian Gerald Horne joins Sam to discuss the history of Juneteenth in the age of Trump.
As the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues into its eighth day, Sam is joined by historian Brenda Wineapple to discuss the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and her latest book, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation. 
Matthew Blackwell (@Matt_Blackwell), Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, joins us to discuss his co-authored book, “Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics.”