Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

History As It Happens

May 31, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court, one of our bedrock judicial institutions, has been on the wrong side of history time and again. But as the arbiter of the Constitution, the Supreme Court is indispensable to the functioning of democracy. In this episode, esteemed constitutional scholar Akhil Amar discusses some of the court's...


May 26, 2022

Take a look at a map of the NATO countries today and compare it to one from 1989. It's a remarkable change. And what once seemed far-fetched is now close to becoming reality. That is, almost all of Europe will belong to NATO right up to Russia's borders. But Finland's and Sweden's applications to join the alliance,...


May 24, 2022

Replacement theory -- the racist ideology that claims elites are abetting immigrants to disempower or eliminate native white people -- has been around in one form or another for a long time. The current iteration has gone mainstream, leading to widespread condemnation of some Republican politicians and...


May 19, 2022

Long before Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right to an abortion -- indeed, centuries before abortion became one of the most divisive issues in American society -- ending a pregnancy before "quickening" was commonplace in the colonial era and not very controversial, either. That began to change in the...


May 17, 2022

This is the fourth installment in an occasional series that will focus on slavery, the Constitution, and the ongoing debate over the meaning of the American founding.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he invoked the historic struggle to make America a more equal society. The civil rights...