The Past, the Promise, the Presidency
Welcome to "The Past, the Promise, the Presidency," a podcast about the exciting, unexpected, and critically-important history of the office of the President of the United States. You'll find four seasons of this podcast: Season 1 - Race and the American Legacy; Season 2 - Presidential Crises; Season 3 - The Bully Pulpit; and the current Season 4 - Conversations. Between Seasons 3 & 4, you will also find here a new pilot series called "Firsthand History." In each season of this series, we'll tell a different story from the complex and controversial era of the George W. Bush presidency. We'll tell these stories by featuring oral histories from our Collective Memory Project - firsthand stories told by the people who were there, including U.S. government officials, leaders from foreign countries, journalists, scholars, and more. Season 1--"Cross Currents: Navigating U.S.-Norway Relations After 9/11"--explores the tangled webs of transatlantic alliance in a time of war and uncertainty. "Firsthand History" is a production of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.
Episodes
68 episodes
The Queen and Her Presidents: A Conversation with Susan Page
Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features veteran political reporter Susan Page, who will be giving a book talk on Wednesday, April 29th, at 6 p...
Thinking Historically: A Conversation with Dr. Frank Gavin
Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Frank Gavin, Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural Director of the Henry A. K...
Analog Superpowers: A Conversation with Dr. Katherine Epstein
Welcome to “The Past, The Promise, the Presidency,” a podcast about the role of the presidency in American life. This week’s episode features Dr. Katherine Epstein, professor of history at Rutgers-Camden. Dr. Epstein will be with us here at SMU...
Entangled Alliances: A Conversation with Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson
Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books.This episode features Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson, Ralph & Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History &am...
The Life and Death of Ryan White: A Conversation with Dr. Paul Renfro
Welcome back to Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency, which features brief interviews with historians about their newest books.Our second episode features former CPH postdoctoral fellow and current associate professor of his...
Prioritizing Faith: A Conversation with Dr. Ashlyn Hand
CPH is excited to announce Season 5 of The Past, the Promise, The Presidency. This season will feature brief interviews with historians about their newest books, ranging in topic from religious freedom to technology theft; from th...
Dr. Jeffrey Engel, "Fifty Years Since Watergate: Presidential Power in the Age of Rampant Immunity and Feckless Impeachments"
On October 30th, 2024, CPH Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel presented a lecture as part of the SMU Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute Godbey Lecture Series, described below. A few weeks later, we sat down with Dr. Engel for a Q&A about hi...
S4 E10: Mourning the Presidents
For the conclusion of this season, we examine conclusions: the deaths of presidents. Not just presidents who died while in office, but those who died years after they retired from the presidency and the constant limelight. Our journey through t...
S4 E9: The Peacemaker
The early 1980s was a time of great political uncertainty. With the threat of nuclear destruction seemingly imminent, the emergence of global terrorism, and the rise of proxy conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Ronald Reagan entered t...
S4 E8: Framing Reconstruction
Many Americans, if they know about Reconstruction at all, likely think of it as a failed venture. What had begun in 1865 as an opportunity to guarantee equal citizenship and rights for African Americans, fizzled out as citizens and elected offi...
S4 E7: Charlie Brown's America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts
Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang are some of the most recognizable characters in American pop culture. From Snoopy’s doghouse to Linus’s blanket to Lucy’s perpetual football prank, the scenes from this iconic comic strip are imprinte...
S4 E6: Petroleum and Progress in Iran
Oil runs the world. From our cars to our houses, most of us can’t live without it. From the 1940s to the 1960s, though, oil played another specific role as a central part of conflict and diplomacy during the Cold War. It was during this era tha...
S4 E5: Japanese American Incarceration
Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stands out as a major affront to the promise of American liberty. In 1942, this executive order forced approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans out of their homes on the western c...
S4 E4: Paper Trails
When we think about the history of westward expansion and the growth of state power in the United States, the postal system probably isn’t the first institution that comes to mind. But this week, that’s exactly what we’ll be exploring: the unsu...
S4 E3: The Third Reconstruction
A conversation with Dr. Peniel Joseph (University of Texas at Austin) about his new book, The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century.
S4 E2: Joseph Smith for President
We welcome Dr. Spencer McBride for a conversation about his book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (Oxford UP, 2021). Dr. McBride tells us about Joseph Smith's story fr...
S4 E1: Partisans
It’s finally here: the first episode of Conversations, Season 4 of The Past, The Promise, The Presidency! As you may have learned from previous seasons, when we at the Center for Presidential History talk about “presidential h...
Norway's Balancing Act
In this final episode of "Cross Currents" we explore Norway's challenging balancing act in their relationship with the United States in the years after 9/11. How would Norway maintain a close partnership with the US, on the one hand, while also...
Norway's Security Dilemma
After 9/11, the United States—led by President George W. Bush—made it clear to the world they would pursue al-Qaeda and any other threats to the US national security. But rather than working directly through established security alliances like ...
9/11 and its Aftermath
Terrorists attacked the people of the United States on September 11, 2011. But those attacks--and their reverberations--were felt by peoples all around the world, including in places like Norway, for years to come. This episode explores how Nor...
0. Why Norway?: An Introduction to U.S-Norway Relations during the George W. Bush Presidency
Why Norway?! You might be asking yourself this very question as you consider the big questions of diplomacy, war, and alliances during the George W. Bush presidency. Good news - this episode is here to answer that question! This episode sets th...
S3 E8: Bully Pulpits Abroad
This is the eighth and final episode of Season Three: The Bully Pulpit. This season, we explored many domestic policy issues, such as healthcare, women's suffrage, and land rights. But here in the 21st century, we all know that the president's ...
S3 E7: Native Sovereignty and Native Removal
In March of 2021, Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo, became the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in US history. It was was a truly historic first, as Deb Haaland is part of a long history of Indigenous peoples that pred...
S3 E6: Environmental Protection
This week, we are going to be exploring the relationship between presidents, the bully pulpit, and environmental protection. When did presidents start thinking about federal use of land? When did that consideration change from an economic one b...
S3 E5: Prohibition and The War on Drugs
In this episode of the Bully Pulpit, we explore presidential power as it relates to prohibition and the War on Drugs. If you go looking through American history, it's not difficult to find conflict over alcohol and drugs, and the presiden...
