The History Onion

This episode is the second installation in our series on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Our first episode covered the very recent history of the conflict, looking at the round of violence that began in October of 2023 with a Hamas-led attack on Israel. The primary focus for that episode was the genocide that Israel has perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza since the fall of 2023.

In this episode, we journey back to the early history of the conflict, looking at the linkages between Zionism and colonialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As we investigate...

Today we are excited to release our excellent conversation with Professor Kristoffer Smemo, author of Making Republicans Liberal: Social Struggle and the Politics of Compromise. Professor Smemo is a historian of labor, politics, and popular culture in the United States at the University of California - Los Angeles. Both hosts of the show were incredibly lucky to have been taught by Professor Smemo at Washington University in St. Louis.

Making Republicans Liberal details how a unique brand of liberalism developed within the Republican Party in response to mass movements of the mid-twentieth century. The book describes the...

This episode marks the first installation of a new mini-series for the podcast. The series will cover the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and will take as a central text guiding us through this history a book titled The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, which was written by the Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi.

But before getting into the book, we wanted to start with an episode on the very recent history of the conflict—the round of violence that began on October 7th of 2023, when Hamas launched an attack against Israel that claimed the lives of roughly 1,200 peop...

For today’s episode, we spoke with Michael Foley, author of Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash, for a wide-ranging discussion about Cash’s politics. We dissect Foley’s framework of a “politics of empathy” to describe how Cash navigated a complex political environment marked primarily by the various civil rights movements and the Vietnam War. Crucially, we consider the relevance of a politics of empathy in today’s climate, as well as the important role artists play in these increasingly troubling times.

Show Notes

* Find Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of...

In this episode, we dig deep into the slop of AI discourse. We start by looking at the culture of hype that’s sprouted in Silicon Valley, then turn to the strange world that this hype has produced, and finally present a more sober view of AI, one that’s deeply historically grounded.

Show Notes

Silicon Valley Braces for Chaos — The Atlantic, 5/13/2025

Sam Altman, Tim Cook, and other tech leaders lauded Trump at a White House AI dinner — Business Insider, 9/4/25

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event — The Atlantic, 8/18/25

AI as Normal Tec...

Today we are thrilled to release our interview with Melat Kiros, a progressive candidate for Congress in Colorado’s 1st District. Kiros is running to unseat the longest-serving representative of Colorado’s current congressional delegation, Democrat Diana DeGette, and she is doing so with an unabashedly progressive platform. She has centered issues of affordable housing, healthcare, and money in politics throughout her campaign, and she has been outspoken against the genocide being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians.

Topics discussed include:

* How to get money out of politics and fix corruption

* Why Democratic resistance to T...

Today we are joined by Jack Meyer, an economics masters student at Oxford, as well as an aspiring political economist and economic historian. His current areas of study include innovation, development and inequality. You can find him on Twitter/X @jackbmeyer and on Substack, where he publishes the newsletter Public Works.

On this episode, we take on Abundance, a bestselling book published earlier this year by the liberal commentators Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Jack has written a great review of the book on his Substack, which you can check out here. We use his review as...

Today we are joined by Ross Barkan, an award-winning journalist, novelist, and essayist. Ross is the Editor-in-Chief of The Metropolitan Review, a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, and a columnist for New York Magazine. He is also active on Substack, where he publishes his newsletter Political Currents. And he has a new novel, titled Glass Century, that is out now.

On this episode, we discuss Ross’s recent book Fascism or Genocide: How a Decade of Political Disorder Broke American Politics. The book focuses on the decade or so of American politics leading up to...

We are happy to announce our first interview episode, featuring friend of show Spencer Hacker! Spencer is a social worker, an activist, and a political content creator. He is based out of Denver, Colorado, and he is making waves with his show Spencer on the Street, which you can find on Instagram and TikTok!

On this episode, we talk with Spencer about his political journey and about the case for left-wing populism in America. We touch on the history of the populist movement, the failures of the Democratic establishment, and recent successes of left-wing populists such as...

We ended our last episode with the United States contemplating its next move against the Chilean left. The socialist Salvador Allende had just won the Chilean presidency in the 1970 election in spite of the US’s covert actions throughout the decade prior and its “Spoiling Operation” in the 1970 election.

In today’s Part 2 of “The US in Chile,” we discuss how the US maneuvered to try to prevent Allende from being confirmed by the Chilean Congress, including their involvement in the assassination of General Rene Schneider. We then turn to the US’s posture towards Allende once he is confirme...

As soon as Allende won the 1970 presidential election, the US began plotting ways to prevent his ascension to power. With under two months before his victory would be confirmed by the Chilean Congress, the US moved quickly and with shocking deadliness, helping in the lead up to “the historical equivalent of the assassination of John F. Kennedy” in Chile, according to the National Security Archive. Once Allende took power, the US, in Henry Kissinger’s words, worked “to maximize pressures on the Allende government to prevent its consolidation and limit its ability to implement policies contrary to U.S. and hemi...

In the first of two episodes on the subject, we investigate the United States’s role in undermining the left wing in Chilean politics throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing extensively from the Senate Church Committee’s 1975 report, “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,” we show just how much money, time, and effort the United States spent on Chile in order to not just incapacitate the country’s left but to bolster its right wing.

While the US’s covert actions were not enough to prevent socialist Salvador Allende’s ascension to the presidency in 1970, their work over the previous d...

This episode continues our coverage of modern Chile, focusing on the economics of the period of 1970-1973, during which Salvador Allende governed as president and his administration attempted to transition Chile towards a socialist economic system. We begin with a discussion of sources — who has written about the economics of the Allende years, and whose work will we be drawing upon. We then describe the economic performance of Chile before and during the Allende years, giving a sense of how Chile arrived to a state of economic chaos in 1973. Our next section breaks down the plausible reasons for poor ec...

On our last episode, we gave an introduction to the history of Chile and a preview of the issues and themes we will be exploring throughout this series. Episode 2 will focus on the political life and evolution of Salvador Allende, perhaps the single most important person to this story.

Allende’s legacy in Chilean politics and society is difficult to overstate, and he didn’t come out of nowhere; in fact, Allende had spent decades in Chilean politics prior to his victory in the 1970 presidential election. He learned from other left-wing movements that saw varying levels of succ...

Chile is a country whose history cannot be disentangled from our own; one of history’s great coincidences reminds us of this. On September 11th, 1973, 28 years before the terror attack on the United States, the democratically elected government of socialist leader Salvador Allende was overthrown in a violent coup that left Allende himself dead. The ensuing 17 years of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship led to at least 40,000 people being killed, tortured, or imprisoned. To say that the United States’s hands are not clean in these matters is an understatement.

Join us as we explore the fascinating history and po...

In this episode, we delve into John Maynard Keynes’s seminal essay, “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.” Published in 1930, the essay envisioned a future of prosperity and leisure for all. We explore his predictions, his optimism for the future, and the challenges that have prevented his utopian vision from becoming reality.

Show Notes

The New Yorker: “No Time”

Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)

A favorite quote from the essay: “I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue—that avarice is a v...

What would a world without work look like? How would we achieve that?

Legendary activist James Boggs, writing in 1963, thought that the United States already had the means to create a post-work society: “Many people in the United States are aware that, with automation, enough could be easily produced in this country so that there would be no need for the majority of Americans to work.” But that hasn’t exactly panned out the way that Boggs envisioned it would. Why not? What can we take away from Boggs’s insights in what feels like an increasingly volatile...

Will AI take all of our jobs? We don’t know.

What we do know is that smart people have repeatedly claimed throughout history that technological progress will create long-run mass unemployment, and yet that has never become become reality. In this episode, we dig into the debate over technological unemployment and the history of this concept. We conclude by providing users with a toolkit for better assessing claims about whether technological progress will cause mass unemployment.

Show Notes

CNN clip: “AI company's CEO issues warning about mass unemployment”

Dario Amodei fearmo...

In this episode, we discuss the neoliberal order, its rise and whether it has fallen. Our discussion is geared towards understanding the present moment and whether it represents a break with neoliberalism. However, to ground our analysis, we take a long detour through the history of neoliberalism, with a focus on a seminal neoliberal figure: Milton Friedman.

Show Notes

“The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism,” by Louis Menand

“The Levels and Trends in Deep and Extreme Poverty in the United States, 1993-2016,” by David Brady and Zachary Parolin

“Has Neoliberalism Really Come to an...

Is Trump the new FDR? Rich Lowry, in his recent article for the National Review, certainly thinks so. In this episode, we discuss whether Lowry’s arguments hold any water (spoiler alert: they don’t) and consider whether the Democrats need to embrace the legacy of FDR more strongly (spoiler alert: they do).

Show Notes

Nathan Robinson’s article about FDR is titled “Do We Need a Second New Deal?” in the online edition; the print edition title is “Do We Need a New FDR?” as referenced in the show.

For our discussion on Roosevelt’s...

Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the leading public intellectuals in America, found himself in a media firestorm after the release of his book, The Message, in the fall of 2024. Once a darling of the liberal elite—though perhaps more because of who they wanted him to be than because of who he really was—Coates received scorn from many in the media for daring to question, in particular, America’s perception of Palestine and the Palestinian struggle.

Coates has gifted us an incredible piece of writing and scholarship as he bears witness to some of the most prevalent myths...

In this episode, we cover the history and return of the economic ideology known as mercantilism, an ideology that is once again taking center stage in American and global politics. We begin with a discussion of the resurgence of mercantilism, embodied prominently in Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Then we look back to the origins of mercantilism in the 16th and 17th centuries, at the same time that capitalism began its rise to dominance. We trace the development of mercantilist thought following the Smithian challenge/critique and end back in the present to wrap up the episode.

Sh...

Nationalism is a dirty word, but maybe it doesn’t have to be—at least, that’s what acclaimed historian Jill Lepore argues in This America (2019). In this episode, we break down Lepore’s passionate “case for the nation” and her argument that we can, in fact, create a liberal nationalism.

If you liked our discussion of Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country, we build on that conversation and consider which perspective holds more value for progressive activists, historians, and thinkers.

Show Notes

Read Daniel Immerwahr’s critique of Lepore in The Nation here.

Read...

In this episode, we discuss the philosopher G.A. Cohen’s book Why Not Socialism?, published in 2009. We talk about his case for socialism, the arguments for and against market socialism, and what we think socialism could look like.

Credits

Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Arthur Santoro.

Editing by Martin Fischer.

Audio production by Nate Nakshian Ward.

In this episode, we take a look back at the Biden administration and what its economic legacy will be. The administration got off to a remarkable and surprisingly progressive start with a nearly $2 trillion stimulus package in early 2021 that sent the US economy rocketing towards full employment and a strong recovery from the Covid downturn. It then turned its attention towards expanding social spending and tackling climate change, doing a sort of mini Green New Deal, with legislation that came to be known as Build Back Better. This was killed in late 2021 by conservative Democrat Joe Manchin.

...

In this episode, we discuss Susan Dunn’s book Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party. The book details the fascinating historical episode of the 1938 midterms, during which FDR decided to intervene directly in Democratic primaries against conservative Democrats. Roosevelt’s express goal was to tranform the Democratic Party into a solidly liberal party, leaving the Republican Party as the conservative party. In other words, he aimed for the sort of realignment and polarization that would only truly occur decades later. Through this under-reported bit of New Deal era history, we see the lengths to which...

Well, the election results are out. Kamala Harris has lost. Donald Trump will return to the White House as the 47th president of the United States. In this episode, we break down the results and give our initial reaction, with a focus on the strategic takeaways for Democrats.

Show Notes

NYT: Election Results

Data analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times:

* What is the point of polling?

* Democrats join 2024’s graveyard of incumbents

NYT:

* See the Voting Groups That Swung to the Right in th...

In honor of the upcoming election on Tuesday, November 5th, we’ve decided to record an election special, breaking down the historical importance of this election, what’s at stake, and how the candidates are approaching the battle for votes. We end with a discussion of the left’s concern about Kamala Harris on the issue of Gaza.

Note: Unfortunately, my (Conor’s) microphone got disconnected about two-thirds of the way into the ep, so there’s a weird shift in the sound at that point. Doesn’t make it difficult to listen but the quality of the sound is...

In this episode, we cover the history and development of the Republican Party, drawing on the story told in the book The Republican Evolution: From Governing Party to Antigovernment Party, 1860–2020, by the political scientist Kenneth Janda. In essence, we shine light on the reverse Zuko arc of the party: from a party fighting valiantly for justice at its founding to a reactionary party trying to turn back the clock. How did this happen? Give the ep a listen.

Show Notes

Per the New York Times: “How Joe Biden Became the Democrats’ Anti-Busing Crusader”

Chart an...

In this episode, we talk about a recent book by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, both professors of political science at Harvard, titled Tyranny of the Minority. Ziblatt and Levitsky make a strong argument that the US Constitution has excessively constrained American democracy, and that its counter-majoritarian measures now make the US an outlier in how anti-democratic it is compared to other rich democracies. As they discuss, the threat posed by the Constitution has become much more evident in recent decades as Republicans have radicalized and repeatedly ridden to power as a result of a prominent counter-majoritarian aspect of...

In this episode, we cover a popular book from a few years back about the transformation of the modern Democratic Party from a party of the working class to one of the professional class. It’s called Listen, Liberal, and its author is Thomas Frank, a progressive journalist we’ve discussed previously on the podcast in our episodes on the paranoid style and the pessimistic style in American politics. Both of us (Aidan and Conor) read this book during college, and it had a significant impact on how we viewed the Democratic party. We now revisit it with fresh eyes...

In this episode, we discuss the recent book American Whitelash by Pulitzer Prize-winning former Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery. He frames American history as a never ending tug of war between mutually opposed forces: supporters and opponents of racial progress. We dig into his approach to history and the ways in which it can illuminate our understanding of the American past.

Show Notes

Lowery summer 2023 book talk

Credits

The podcast’s theme music was made by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Arthur Santoro.

In this episode, we discuss the American philosopher Richard Rorty’s book Achieving Our Country, which provides a critique of the left from within. Rorty divides the 20th century into two distinct phases for the left, the first being dominated by the reformist left, and the second, starting in the mid-1960s, being dominated by the cultural left. Rorty’s sympathies lie clearly with the reformist left, but he is nonetheless highly appreciative of the successes of the cultural left, specifically as they relate to the fight against the Vietnam war. In the book, Rorty proposes a sort of alli...

In this episode, we do a deep dive on populism, its true history, and why liberal intellectuals like Richard Hofstadter are wrong to issue blanket condemnations against it. We argue that there is a very scary form of populism, that embodied in politicians such as Donald Trump, but that this is not the only form of populism, and not at all what populism originally meant when the term was coined in the late 19th century. The original populism actually represented an American version of a social democratic movement, and it had much to recommend it.

Show Notes<...

In this episode, we discuss liberal historian Richard Hofstadter’s famous essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” originally published in Harper’s Magazine in 1964. We break down what the paranoid style is, its long history in American politics, and its evolution since Hofstadter’s essay first surfaced. In particular, we emphasize the prominent place the paranoid style has occupied in the Republican party throughout American history, and the ways in which it has increasingly dominated Republican politics in recent decades.

Show Notes

Thomas Frank’s 2014 retrospective on Hofstadter’s essay

2013 CAP study titled “Inside...

This episode continues our conversation about poverty that we started with our episode “Poverty, by America,” a discussion and critique of the book of the same title by Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond. We now turn to the work of another sociologist, David Brady, who we believe has a much more compelling approach to poverty.

Show Notes

David Brady paper “Poverty, not the poor”

Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics Explain Poverty, David Brady

Credits

The podcast’s theme music was made by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Art...

In this week’s episode, we tackle Poverty, by America, a recent bestseller written by Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond. Though we found this book compelling in some ways, it fell short of the providing the sort of serious analysis of poverty, and solutions to poverty, that we think is needed.

Show Notes

Road to Wigan Pier, by George Orwell

Desmond’s New York Times article

Desmond’s 2018 paper

EPI study on poverty and wages

Explainer from the Census on the two main US poverty measures

The ar...

This episode continues our discussion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final book Where Do We Go From Here?: Chaos or Community. We cover King’s views on history, on past American heroes, and his prescriptions for a better future.

Credits

The podcast’s theme music was made by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Arthur Santoro.

Today’s episode is about the most influential democratic socialist in American history: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We start the episode by looking at how King is portrayed in American media and in high school history textbooks. We then move on to how King is portrayed by historians, who view him very differently and more in his totality. Finally, we begin a discussion about King’s last book, Where Do We Go From Here?: Chaos or Community. Part two of this episode, which will come out next Monday, will continue this discussion.

Show Notes

Note...

This episode continues our discussion of James Loewen’s bestselling book Lies My Teacher Told Me. We look at the reason he gives for why high school history textbooks are so bad, and we spend much of the episode talking about how high school history classes could be improved.

Show Notes

Link to the Popular Info piece cited at the top of the episode.

Great quote from the book: “But only about history and social studies do writers actually ask, ‘Can textbooks have scholarly integrity?’ Only in history is accuracy so political.” (pg. 333)

Credi...

In this episode, we discuss James Loewen’s bestselling book Lies My Teacher Told Me. We begin the episode by talking about our own experiences with high school history, both as students and, in Aidan’s case, as a teacher. We then get into the material of the book, outlining Loewen’s main thesis and the examples he provides of the failures of American high school history textbooks.

Show Notes

Good interview with James Loewen if you want to hear the author in his own words

Summarizing Loewen’s major critiques of American high sch...

Our second episode extends our conversation that we began in episode one. Having discussed history’s importance, we now turn to how to approach history. We consult another clip of Eric Foner to make the point that strong beliefs about present matters do not detract from your ability to understand the past. If anything, they enhance it. We then cover the benefits of interdisciplinarity and the drawbacks of narrow expertise.

After that, we talk about the various popular narratives of history, which we break down into the categories of old and new liberal versus old and new co...

The first episode of the History Onion podcast is here!

In today’s episode, we introduce ourselves and explain why we’ve decided to start this podcast. We then listen to a couple of clips from interviews with Eric Foner and Howard Zinn, two of our favorite historians, as a jumping off point for a discussion about the importance of history. The interviews are linked in the show notes below.

Our next episode, on how to approach history, will come out on Monday, July 22nd, and we plan to publish a new episode every Monday goin...