Slavery

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...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with Dr. Robert Greene, assistant professor of history at Claflin University in South Carolina & president of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) , to discuss his writing on Juneteenth. Then, they speak with Jaz Brisack, co-founder of St...
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...
It’s News Day Tuesday! Sam breaks down the biggest headlines of the day. But first, Sam speaks with Brian Concannon, human rights lawyer and executive director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), to discuss the ongoing political instability in Haiti. First, Sam runs thro...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with independent journalist Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, to discuss the state of anti-trans legislation moving its way around the country in 2024. Then, they speak with Margie Mason & Robin McDowell, investigative repor...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with Joseph Jewell, professor and department head of black studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, to discuss his recent book White Man’s Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era.
Happy Juneteenth! Sam and Emma speak to Imani Perry, professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, to discuss the history and legacy of Juneteenth, as well as the importance of its bec...
Emma hosts Emily Flitter, finance reporter for the New York Times, to discuss her recent book The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America. First, Emma discusses this morning’s news of President Biden announcing that WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian custody. The...
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...
Happy Indigenous People’s Day! Sam and Emma host Claudio Saunt, professor of American History at the University of Georgia, to discuss his book Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. Sam and Emma first run through updates on Russia’s response to...
Emma hosts Natasha Lennard, columnist at The Intercept, to discuss her recent reporting before, during, and after Roe V. Wade’s overturning by the Supreme Court. Then, Emma is joined by Greg Casar, candidate for Congress in Texas’s 35th District, to give us an update from the campaign trail. Firs...
Sam hosts Kris Manjapra, history professor at Tufts University, to discuss his recent book Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation, on how exploitation and racial caste systems that are buoyed by the lasting legacies of emancipations. Professor Manjapra be...
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 and Emma host Kellie Carter Jackson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, to discuss her recent book Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, using the influence of Black leaders to explore the growth of the abolitionist movement from moral...
Sam and Emma host Kyle T. Mays, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at UCLA, to discuss his recent book An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, which attempts to reframe a history of US capitalism around as a system built around the dispossession and enslavement of indigenous...
Sam and Emma host Jonathan Levy, professor of History at the University of Chicago, to discuss his recent book Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States. Sam and Emma begin by discussing the newly passed defense policy bill and debt limit increase in the House, which includes a ...
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...
Sam and Emma host Tyler Edward Stovall, Professor of History and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University, to discuss his recent book White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea, looking at how the construct of liberty, largely from the French and American perspecti...
Sam and Emma host historian Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, to discuss her recent book Not A “Nation Of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, And A History Of Erasure And Exclusion, on the settler-colonial roots of the US and the impossibility of obscuring them, no matter how much liberals pus...
Emma hosts Orville Vernon Burton, Professor of Pan-African Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, as well as civil rights attorney Armand Derfner, to discuss their recent book Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court, on the progressions, and regressions...
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...
Emma hosts Tom Zoellner, Professor at Chapman University and political editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, to discuss his recent book “Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire,” on the Jamaican rebellion of 1831 and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire....
Emma hosts Van Gosse, Professor and Associate Chair of History at Franklin & Marshall University, to discuss his recent book “The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War,” on the political role of Black folks before their constitutional emancipatio...
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 and Emma host Joshua D. Rothman, University of Alabama professor of history, to discuss his new book, The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America, the myths around the slave trade industry, the deep ties between slavery and US imperialism, and Racial capitalism’s explo...
Sam hosts historian Gerald Horne to discuss his new book The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. 
Sam hosts environmental lawyer Barbara Freese to discuss her new book, Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, from the Slave Trade to Climate Change. Sam and Freese discuss how the psychology of corporate denial has remained the same over centuries. ...
Happy Friday! Sam hosts author Joe William Trotter to discuss his new book Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America. Sam also interviews progressive candidate Jessica Scarane, who is running in the Democratic primary for Delware’s Senate seat currently held by Chris Coons.
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. 
Today, legal historian Martha S. Jones joins us to discuss her new book, “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America.”
W. Fitzhugh Brundage, William B. Umstead Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joins us to discuss his new book Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition.
Caitlin Rosenthal, Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us to discuss her new book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management.
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.”
Andrew Delbanco, professor of American Studies at Columbia University, joins us to discuss his book, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War.
Republicans move towards destroying health care  and Democrats need to slow them down. Ben Carson wants government out of health care, mainstream delusions about Democratic Party politics.
Tanya Erzen, n associate professor of religion and gender studies at the University of Puget Sound, joins us to discuss her new book: “God in Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Prison Ministries in the Age of Mass Incarceration”, explains what brought her to work inside the prison system and the ...
Harvard historian Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History, tells us why cotton helps us understand capitalism. How Europe was able to dominate the global cotton trade. The difference between “mercantile” capitalism and “war” capitalism. Slavery and the growth of global cotton. ...
Professor Walter Block explains the four types of Libertarians and why he is a Anarcho/Libertarian. Non-aggression and property rights. The confusing world of Libertarian Courts. Feudalism or Hobbesianism? How were property rights established? Retributions and Libertarians. Natives Americans, hom...
Historian and author of  An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz explains how the settler colonial history of the United States defines it. Why the US Military is rooted in wars and mass killings against Native Americans. The Indian wars and our policy and history...
Cornell University Professor Edward E. Baptist author of The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism explains the absurd Economist review of his book that blamed him for not being fair to slave owners, stolen capital and stolen labor, slavery and the foundations of...
Professor Walter Block proposed that laissez faire free market exchanges are the best way to organize society, how Block thinks the United States limits freedom, debating the minimum wage, full time workers who live in poverty, debating minimum wages and job losses, what is the value of wages if ...