Drafting the Past

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In this episode, Kate is joined by Dr. Shane White, the emeritus Challis Professor of History at the University of Sydney. Shane is a historian of US history, especially African American history, and has written or co-written seven books. His newest book is A Moment in the Sun: Black Manhattan Before the Civil War, and it is the product of decades of thinking and research. In it, he details the world of Black men and women in antebellum New York, bringing to life characters and moments that might otherwise be overlooked. As you’ll hear, it’s a book that emerges out of Shane’s incredibly detailed and intimate knowledge of one dense body of sources in particular, the district attorney’s records in the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, hundreds of thousands of files that date back to the 1790s. Listen to their conversation to learn about Shane’s dogged approach to research and his reflections on a career as a historian of the United States who lives and works in Australia.

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When Katherine Grandjean’s new book, Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution, came out earlier this summer, somehow I missed it. But I’m awfully glad someone corrected that for me (shout out to historian Robert Parkinson), because this was a remarkable book.

In it, Grandjean follows the trail of a pair of brothers who terrorized the Kentucky and Tennessee countryside for nine months in 1798, murdering dozens of people for reasons that were unclear to their contemporaries and to the people who have written about them for the past two hundred years. Grandjean not only tells a gripping, beautifully written story, but she weaves it with the uncertain political and social atmosphere of the United States in the wake of the American Revolution. It’s a story about masculine violence, class, property, and the creation of the nation, and it has surprising resonance even now.

Dr. Katherine Grandjean is an associate professor of history at Wellesley University, and a historian of early America. Her first book was American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England.In our conversation, she had insightful things to say about building tension, balancing narrative threads, and the hard, tireless work it took to track down the evidence that makes a story like this possible to write.

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In this episode, Kate interviews Dr. Thomas Andrews, a historian who cares deeply about the writing—and revision—process. Thomas is a professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder and is also the faculty director of the Center for the American West. He’s the author of three books, including the Bancroft-award winning Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies, and his newest book, The Great Horse Flu: A Forgotten Pandemic and the Fate of Reconstruction America. In addition to his own writing, he has interviewed historians as part of the Writer’s Studio feature in the journal Modern American History, which is a series of terrific interviews about how some of the most highly regarded American historians work. As you might imagine, Kate and Thomas had a great time talking about the writing process and especially Thomas’ love of revision. This one also includes a treadmill desk, a harrowing publishing tale, and why he might have taken Bill Cronon’s dissertation advice a little too seriously.

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For this episode, Kate is joined by Eric Jay Dolin, the New York Times-bestselling author of 17 books, to talk about his writing process and what it’s like to build a career as an author of popular histories. His books include Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America; A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes; Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates; and Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.

His most recent book is The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail. His books have won awards and are frequently named best books of the year. Before writing history books, Eric worked in environmental policy and earned a PhD in environmental policy and planning from MIT.

We talked about how his career has developed, the ups and downs of the book market, and he dished about advances, career trajectories, and why he thinks he’d rather have a huge book now than early in his career.

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Eric Jay Dolin, The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail

Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860

Erik Larson, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

James Truslow Adams, The Founding of New England

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How many history books have kept you up late into the night, turning the page to find out what happens next? That’s exactly what the newest book from this episode’s guest did to Kate, but it was well worth the lost sleep.

Catherine Grace Katz joins the Drafting the Past podcast to talk about her newest book, Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War. Catherine is a writer, historian, and lawyer, with degrees in history from Harvard and Cambridge along with a JD from Harvard. Her first book was Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War.

She joined Kate to talk about what goes into writing such extraordinary true stories, from how she works without an outline to the writing tool she found in her mom’s basement, and the unlikely inspiration for the book in a classic holiday movie.

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In this episode, Kate spoke with Tai S. Edwards and Charlee Huffman, writers and editors of a new book, Shokhi: A Kanza Relative, A Monument, and Rematriation. This book is a little different from others that have appeared on the show: it tells the story of how a group of people, include Kaw Nation citizens, historians, artists, activists, and others worked together to bring a grandfather rock, In‘zhúje‘waxóbe, back to the Kanza people with whom they had a centuries-long relationship. The boulder had been appropriated as a memorial to the founders of Lawrence, Kansas, and the land on which it stood bore witness to many intersecting narratives of people and place. The book, is part history, part artistic expression, and part handbook for this kind of restorative work.

Tai and Charlee discussed their collaborative process, incorporating disability accommodation into the heart of their work, and how they let the land lead them in telling a history with many voices.

Tai S. Edwards is professor of history and director of the Kansas Studies Institute at Johnson County Community College. She is the author of Osage Women and Empire: Gender and Power and co-editor of Lyda Conley and the Fight to Preserve Huron Indian Cemetery, also published by Kansas. c. huffman is a Kaw Nation Citizen with an MFA and an MDiv who sits at the intersection of privilege, dis/ability and Indigeneity; a place where poetry and theology dance. Her writing has appeared in The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, a poetry anthology edited by Hannah Soyer.

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In this episode, Kate is joined by our first guest from New Zealand, archivist and independent historian Jared Davidson. Though he was not trained as a historian and originally comes from a graphic design background, Jared has written and published five books that focus on overlooked and radical histories of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as you’ll hear him call it.

During the day, he works at the Alexander Turnbull Library, where he is the Research Librarian Manuscripts. His books have won multiple awards in New Zealand and have covered subjects ranging from anarchists to censorship. His most recent book, Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand, uncovers the ways that incarcerated labor literally shaped the country’s environment and landscape. If you’re a historian who comes to the subject without formal training, you’ll especially love this episode, but there’s a lot here to learn for all of us, including how to weave compelling individual stories into a strong argument, which Jared does brilliantly in this book.

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How does the history of English colonialism in the Renaissance change when you tell that history through objects? In this episode, Kate spoke with Dr. Lauren Working, a historian whose work focuses on England’s colonialism and interactions with Indigenous people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Lauren is a lecturer in Early Modern Studies at the University of York. Alongside her research, Lauren is committed to sharing historical knowledge with the public. In fact, as you’ll hear in the interview, she was approached by a literary agent thanks to her work with the BBC. As a result, she published her new book, A Golden World: How The Americas Transformed Tudor and Stuart England, with a trade press. In order to help her tell a story of the Atlantic world from both Indigenous American and colonial British perspectives, Lauren turned to objects. The result is a tactile and beautifully written history of a world of encounter and influence. We talked about the rewards and challenges of writing history through objects and how Lauren brought so many people’s experiences to the page, even when they were largely missing from the archive.

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In episode 110 of the Drafting the Past podcast, Kate interviews historian Richard Jobs and anthropologist and illustrator Steven Van Wolputte. Rick and Steven teamed up to write, illustrate and create In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism. Part graphic history, part historical essay, part poetic commentary and more, the book not only tells the history of one moment in 20th century imperial exploration and anthropology but also takes apart the act of historical research and narration and turns it inside out for the reader. Rick and Steven discussed how they conceived of and developed the project and how they collaborated across countries. They also talked about the possibilities of historical narrative, and why the book would be a great teaching tool. And don’t miss the pretty amazing reading list they slipped in at the end.

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Megan Marshall estimated that it might take her 3 ½ years to write her first biography. In would up taking 20. Her commitment was worth it, though. In this episode of the Drafting the Past podcast, Kate interviews Megan Marshall about how she approaches the subjects and structures of her books, and what has kept her going—plus, why she believes biography is essential now.

Megan is a writer and biographer who got her start writing book reviews. Her first biography was The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. It was awarded multiple prizes and became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir. Her second book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, won the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and her third book was Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast, a biography of the poet, Bishop, interwoven with chapters from Megan’s own life leading up to her study with Bishop. She has also been awarded the BIO award, the highest honor given by the Biographers International Organization.

This year, she published a book of essays called After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart. It includes pieces on her family’s history, her own encounters with historic events, and some further investigations into research that didn’t make it in to her other books.

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When historian of early modern Japan Dr. Amy Stanley came upon a letter written by a woman named Tsuneno while she was prepping a class lesson in primary sources, she knew she had found a great story. The challenge was how to tell it, even through gaps in the archive—not to mention the challenges of writing while raising two small boys The result, Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, is an extraordinary biography that went on to win multiple national awards and demonstrate that compelling trade history can be about something other than war or famous white men. Amy Stanley, professor of history at Northwestern University, joins Kate Carpenter to talk about her research and writing process and give some practical advice for revision, bringing lost places to life, and more.

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In this episode, Dr. Christopher Hodson and Dr. Brett Rushforth join Kate Carpenter to talk about their new book, Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolution. It was a book two decades in the making, and when you read it, you’ll understand why. It’s absolutely packed with research and fascinating stories, and it makes a persuasive argument that, when you look beyond its official accounts, France played a much bigger role in the colonization of the Atlantic world than historians have assumed.

Chris is an associated professor of history at Brigham Young University, and Brett is editor in chief of theHuntington Library Quarterly. They bring a dry wit and a spirit of joyful curiosity to their work that comes through in the book and in this interview. You’ll hear about the varied ways they researched their new book, not just in written archives but with visual culture, artifacts preserved across the world, and even at archaeological sites in order to write a history of France’s influence in the Atlantic world that focuses not on the accounts and experiences of officials, but on the daily lives of sailors, indigenous peoples in both North America and West Africa, nuns, smugglers, and much more.

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Dr. Dolly Jørgensen is professor of history at the University of Stavanger in Norway. As you'll hear in this episode, Dolly is one very busy historian. She is the author of three books, including her newest, Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums. She has also co-edited five books and written a truly impressive number of academic articles. She recently ended a term as the editor of the journal Environmental Humanities, and she co-directs the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, which is most known for its excellent series of online book talks.

As an environmental historian, I have been impressed not only by Dr. Dolly Jørgensen's work for years, but also by her warm and friendly presence at conferences and online. I was delighted when she said yes to coming on the show and talking with me about her writing process.

I was eager to hear from Dolly about how she juggles her projects, what draws her to a topic, and how working at a university in Scandinavia changes her approach to scholarship.

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In this episode, Kate welcomes Scott W. Stern and Dr. Charles O'Malley to the show.

Scott is a writer and lawyer who is the author of two previous books of narrative nonfiction and has written for many media outlets and scholarly journals. Charlie is a dramaturg and writer who has worked at theaters across the country.

Together, they teamed up to write a new book titled Shakespeare's Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen. In it, they explore Shakespeare's character Margaret, a woman loosely based on a historical figure who is the only Shakespearean character, male or female, whose entire life appears on stage. They introduce readers to her historical model, her creation by Shakespeare, and her evolution across centuries of performances to show how the character of Margaret illuminates the world in which she is created and brought to life. As they put it, her story "shows how Shakespeare's plays have always been living collaborations among actors, directors, writers, critics, and history itself." It seems only fitting that the book itself was a close collaboration. Scott and Charlie are co-writers, but they also began working on the book together shortly after they got married. By the time they were in the final editing stages, their twin sons had been born. We talked about how they navigated intertwined domestic and writing lives, as well as the challenges of bringing different voices and backgrounds together on the page.

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In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Anna O. Law, a political science who retrained herself in historical methods to write her new book, Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship. Anna is a professor of political science and Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights at CUNY Brooklyn College. In her new books, she takes a close look at which parts and levels of government in the United States have controlled people's ability to move around and across borders throughout the country's history. It's a history that is especially pertinent now, as we await the Supreme Court's forthcoming decision about the Trump administration's attempt to end the right to birthright citizenship protected under the 14th amendment of the constitution.

Anna and Kate talked about what it meant to think like a historian as well as a political scientist. She also divulged her decidedly analog research tools, the feedback she asks colleagues to give on her drafts, and her advice for any writer deciding on a press for publishing a book.

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It's not every day that I find myself so invested in the characters of a history book that I stay up way past my bed time to find out what happens next, but that's exactly what happened when I read the new book by today's guest, Dr. Charlotte Brooks.

Charlotte is a professor of history at Baruch College, which is part of the City University of New York, or CUNY, system. She is a scholar of race, immigration, and urban history, and is especially known for her work on Chinese American history. She is the author of four books. Her first three books were more aimed at an academic audience, but for her fourth book she wanted to try something a little different. The book that resulted is The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family's Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution. It's a group biography that tells the stories of six siblings, born to Chinese immigrant parents, and how they challenged the limitations and racism they faced in the United States, how many of them sought opportunities in China, and the ways they navigated the tumultuous world in which they lived in both countries in the first half of the 20th century.

They are fascinating characters, but Charlotte uses them to give us a window into the history of an entire generation of Chinese American families that many Americans know little about. I talked with Charlotte about what finally motivated her to write the book that she had been dreaming about, as well as what it was like to work with the Moy descendants, how her narrative makes the siblings so compelling, and why it was still a tough sell as a trade book.

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In this episode, Kate Carpenter is joined by a scholar who can never pass up a good archive, Dr. Gautham Rao.

Gautham is a historian of American law and politics and is an associate professor of history at American University in Washington. He's the author of two books: National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State, and his new book, White Power: Policing American Slavery. White Power is a history of the laws that enslavers used to police enslaved people from 1619 until the Civil War, and how the violent legacies of those laws and practices have reverberated throughout American history and life. In addition to his books and journal articles, Gautham has also written op-eds, contributions to Supreme Court cases, and a Substack newsletter called "The State of the State." I was especially interested to hear how Gautham grappled with organizing and using the evidence he collected from many locations over more than two decades. You'll also learn how he writes and rewrites to make himself clear, and how an offhanded remark from a well-known colleague set him on a new publishing path.

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Today's guest, Dr. Tara Mulder, gets real about the challenges of writing while moving between temporary jobs, juggling a ton of teaching, and struggling to find a tenure track position. But also told me why that struggle brought a surprising amount of freedom and led to a much more creative and entertaining book.

These days, Tara is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, although she did not get that position until after her book was nearly published. She's a specialist in medicine, sex, and gender in antiquity, and her book is called A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome. In it, she brings the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth of Roman women brilliantly to life, turning scraps of archival materials into richly detailed narratives. In addition to her teaching, Tara also previously worked as a managing editor of Eidolon, an online classics journal that brought classics scholarship to the public in a playful, easy to read voice. You'll hear more in our conversation about how that experience shaped Tara's writing. We also talked about how her lived experiences, especially as the daughter of a homebirth midwife, helped her read the archive, and how keeping her writing going means trusting in her future self.

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Episode 100! I'm thrilled to welcome historian of science Dr. Jessica Riskin.

Jessica is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University. She's the author of three books and has edited two additional collections. She has also written extensively for academic journals and has published some highly entertaining book reviews and essays for the New York Review of Books and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Her newest book, and her first with a trade press, is The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. It's a biography of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, whose early theories of evolution have been discredited and ignored. But in this book, Jessica traces his life, restores his thinking, and shows not only that we have Lamarck all wrong, but also what we lose when we turn away from his expansive approach to science. It's an interesting subject, but in Jessica's hands it transforms into a deeply engaging, witty, surprising, and fascinating read. I loved learning more about how her love of novels helps her bring the past to life, how transformative it has been to work with great editors, and how she manages to write a book that is both a delightful read and a persuasive argument.

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Is it possible to write a new history of Lewis and Clark (and get anyone to read it)? If you're Craig Fehrman, the answer is a definite yes! In today's episode, Craig joins Kate Carpenter to talk about his new book, This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark.

Craig is a journalist and historian who lives in Indiana, where he focuses on writing and occasional adjunct teaching at Indiana University. His first book was Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote. He has published articles and reviews in venues like Deadspin, the New York Times Book Review, and Boston Globe.

In his new book, This Vast Enterprise, Craig retells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition through the rotating perspectives of several members of the expedition, as well as some of the people they encountered along the way. The result is a nuanced, fresh version of this history that decenters the expedition leaders and introduces some new sources and interpretations! In the interview, We get into how Craig came upon those sources and how what he found allowed him to reinterpret other sources, like Lewis and Clark's expedition diaries. We also talked about his interviews with contemporary Native sources, how a creative constraint actually led to new insights, his approach to writing history as a page-turner, and much more.

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David Perry returns to talk with Kate about his new book, The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook. If you've ever been curious about writing essays or op-eds, but are unsure where to get started, David's book should answer pretty much any question you can dream up. I think this book is hugely helpful, and I was glad to hear more from David about why he wrote it—and to get answers to a few more burning questions about public scholarship (or, you know, just a pep talk).

When David first joined me on Drafting the Past during the show's first season in 2022, we talked about The Bright Ages: A New History of Europe that he had just published with co-writer Matthew Gabriele. I highly recommend that you go back and listen to that episode, Episode 10. It's especially inspiring for anyone interested in co-writing or who does not find writing to come to them naturally. Since that conversation, David and Matthew have co-authored a second book called Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe. And David has continued to write prolifically for the public. He has also been enthusiastic about giving other scholars the tools to do the same, and he started offering a workshop on public writing for university faculty and graduate students. Now, he's bringing that advice to all of us in a short, essential book called The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook.

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Host Kate Carpenter is joined by drug historian Dr. Emily Dufton to talk about researching and writing Emily's newest book, Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America's Forgotten War on Drugs.

Emily holds a PhD in American studies and works full-time as a writer. Her first book was Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America. Thanks to her expertise in drug history, she regularly serves as a commentator on cannabis history and news, and she also writes essays and op eds for public outlets.

Addiction, Inc. tells the history of medication-assisted treatment for illicit drug addiction, beginning with its emergence during President Richard Nixon's war on drugs in the 1970s as a radical approach to public health. From there she traces the controversies, missed opportunities, and privatization that have scrambled access to what is considered the gold standard of addiction treatment, even as America wrestles with an opioid overdose epidemic. Emily is the recipient of multiple awards that supported the book's creation, including a J. Anthony Lukas Works-in-Progress Award, a Robert B. Silvers Grant, and a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant.

We spoke about the process of applying for those awards and why writers should try for grants, the home disaster that derailed the beginnings of this project, and how she balances feedback with her own vision for her book—even when there is A LOT of feedback. You'll also hear about whether she finds it lonely to write outside of an institution, and why she suggests that more historians pick up the phone and call their sources.

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In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Daniel Neep to talk about his new book, Syria: A Modern History.

Daniel is a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and is currently senior editor at the Arab Center Washington DC, a think tank focused on the relationship between the Arab world and the US. Previously, he has worked as a faculty member, researcher, and leader at universities, NGOs, and research centers as he seeks to bridge academic work and institution building. He is the author of a previous book on Syria, as well as many articles and analyses in a wide variety of venues. His new book tells the history of Syria from the 1800s through the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, focusing on how the Syrian people themselves have understood and advocated for their country's politics, economic relationships and social structures.

Kate and Daniel talked about how his many years steeped in research about the Arab world and Syria went into this book, and how he thought about its structure and purpose. We also talked about some of the quirks of publishing a book in both the US and the UK, including how this one book has two slightly different titles, and about what it's like to be writing and revising a book when the ending is changing in real time.

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In this episode, Kate is joined by Dr. John Garrison Marks, whose new book is Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory. This is a fantastic book that takes a careful, and often surprising look, at how generations of Americans have remembered and forgotten George Washington's relationship to slavery and used that memory to bolster their own arguments.

John Garrison Marks is the vice president of research and engagement at the American Association for State and Local History, so he is steeped in the role of public history across the country. He is the author of a previous book, Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery, and co-editor of an anthology. John has written essays and op-eds for outlets including TIME and Smithsonian Magazine. Recently, his expertise on the memory of Washington's relationship to slavery became particularly relevant when the National Park Service removed an exhibit about the history of slavery at the President's House in Philadelphia, and John was ready to jump into the fray and offer vital historical context. I asked John about the relationship between his work with public historians and how he thinks about writing history, as well as how he manages to write while having a busy day job and a young family.

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In this episode, Kate welcomes back episode 1 guest Dr. Megan Kate Nelson as the very first return guest on Drafting the Past! Megan is a historian and the author of five books, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In our first conversation, we talked about Megan's writing process, favorite writing advice, and more. But in this episode, we're going deeper! While we talk about Megan's new book, The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier, she's sharing a look behind the scenes at the timeline of a trade press book, how she balances promoting one book and researching the next one, and even some of the behind-the-scenes drama. Plus, she let me take a look at the book's original proposal, and share FIVE failed proposals before she landed on a winner for her next book. This episode is a rare glimpse into the nitty gritty of publishing as a trade press historian, and you're going to get a ton out of it. Plus, stick around to the end—we have a little (okay, BIG) announcement to share!

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In this episode, I'm happy to welcome historian of religion Dr. Matthew Avery Sutton. Matt's newest book is called Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity, following the relationship between Christianity and the nation from the arrival of the first Europeans up to Donald Trump's second term in office. Matt is the author of three previous books, along with an edited collection and a documentary history, and he regularly writes about the history of Christianity in America for a general audience. We talked about how he thinks about all those different audiences and how he keeps writing so much despite many personal and professional responsibilities—including seven years as department chair.

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In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Rhae Lynn Barnes to talk about book Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. Rhae Lynn is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University. With meticulous research and piles of evidence, Darkology reveals the widespread and persistent use of amateur blackface minstrelsy across the United States from the Civil War through the early 2000s. Rhae Lynn is also the co-editor of three books, the founder of open-access teaching resource U.S. History Scene, and was featured in and served as an executive advisor for the PBS documentary series Reconstruction.

Researching and writing Darkology took a stunning amount of research, as well as a mental toll, and I'm grateful to Rhae Lynn for talking about how she grappled with all of it, the unusual challenges she faced when thinking about visuals for the book, and much more. Plus, she shares some excellent wisdom for how to keep going even when it seems too hard, or when you don't feel like you belong.

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Historian and writer Emily Lieb's professional history is a fascinating one, from crafting textbooks for kids to leaving a job as a professor to become a full-time writer. She taught history and urban studies at Seattle University for more than a decade. Now, in addition to her work as a historian, she also works for the Derfner & Sons writing agency.

Her first book came out in 2025 after many years of research, writing and revision. It's called Road to Nowhere: How a Highway Map Wrecked Baltimore, and it tells the story of a plan to build an expressway through Black, middle-class community in Baltimore, and how even though the road was never built, the plan paved the way for the destruction of a vibrant neighborhood. It's a history that echoes similar ones in cities across the United States, and Emily uses it to tell a fascinating but frustrating, deeply human story about racial inequality and the resistance of determined residents. Emily had a clear vision of how she wanted to tell this history, right down to the kind of book it should be, and you'll learn a lot in this interview from how she got there and her frank approach to writing and editing.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Emily Lieb, Road to Nowhere: How a Highway Map Wrecked Baltimore

Derfner & Sons

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, the origin of the phrase "shitty first drafts"

Andrew Hartman also praised editor Tim Mennel in episode 69

Calvin Trillin, "Thoughts Brought On By Prolonged Exposure to Exposed Brick"

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In this episode, Kate is joined by Dr. Matthew Delmont. Matt is a professor and associate dean at Dartmouth University, and he is the author of six books. His two most recent books are Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad, which came out in 2022, and Until the Last Gun is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America's Soul, which just came out this year. Matt has also worked on numerous digital history projects, and he is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award.

In Until the Last Gun is Silent, Matt pairs the story of Coretta Scott King's antiwar activism during the Vietnam War with that of Dwight "Skip" Johnson, who received the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam before his life ended tragically after his return to Detroit. It's a combination that illuminates the meaning of the Vietnam War for Black Americans. We talked about how Matt has worked on his voice and narrative style to reach new audiences, as well as how the intriguing historical narrative pairing in this book came to be.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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In this episode we're taking a look at another great new book on this history of the American Revolution: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, by Richard Bell. In this book, we get to see how the revolution affected not only North America, but most of the world. To learn more about how you write a book that manages to cover such a massive subject with remarkable alacrity, I'm joined by the author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, Dr. Richard Bell.

Rick Bell is a professor of history at the University of Maryland and is the author of three books, as well as an edited collection. His first book was We Shall Be No More: Suicide and Self-Government in the Newly United States, which came out in 2012. He followed that up with Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped Into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home, an award-winning book that was published in 2019. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World came out at the end of last year. He has also created two streaming courses through the Great Courses series online, with a third on the way.

I have to tell you, I was a little surprised at how I absolutely devoured this book, and I was even more surprised to learn how it came together. I think you'll love learning about Rick's approach to writing, his thinking about structure and character, and his habit of wandering the halls of his department, talking to himself. Here's my interview with Dr. Rick Bell.

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In most episodes, I interview an author of nonfiction history about their research and writing process, but in today's episode we get to do something a little different. We're taking a closer look at how authors and presses get the word out about new books. And we're going to do that with an insider's perspective. I'm very excited to be joined in this episode by Sonya Bonczek, the director of publicity and communications for University of North Carolina Press.

I have exchanged many emails with Sonya over the past few years whenever I've had podcast guests who publish with UNC Press, and I've been impressed at the great publicity work that Sonya and her team are doing. So when I thought about who might be able to bring us a publicist's perspective, she was first on my list. I was eager to hear from Sonya about how book publicity has changed throughout her career, what works and what doesn't, what she wishes more authors know, and how she's feeling about the state of the book industry today, especially when it comes to nonfiction history.

Mentioned in this episode:

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In case you haven't been paying attention—or maybe you don't live in the United States--you should know that this year marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. If you prefer funny words, you can call it America's semiquincentennial. Anyway, what this means for us is that there are a shocking number of books about the American Revolution, the early United States, and related subjects coming out this year. You're going to hear some of them on this show, starting with today's episode. One of the fascinating things that these books will show us is just how many ways you can approach history. So first up, in this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Andrew Edwards to talk about his new book, Money and the Making of the American Revolution. Andrew is a lecturer at the University of St. Andrew in Scotland, and a historian of capitalism, money, and early America. In Money and the Making of the American Revolution he takes a deep dive into the role of money—and the meaning of money—as one of the key causes of the American Revolution. Andrew tells the story of money in the American colonies and in Great Britain to explain that it was a fight over money and who got to define it, rather than taxes, that kicked off the colonists' rebellion. If that sounds dry and maybe a little confusing to you, I'm happy to report that Andrew does a remarkable job of telling this history in a way that is interesting even to those of us who don't love making sense of obscure fiscal policies. In our conversation, we talked about just how he did that and why he wrote an avid defense of narrative history in the book's introduction. But first, he tells us about the very winding road he took to becoming a historian in the first place.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Note that bookshop.org links are affiliate links that generate a small commission to support the show if you purchase books using these links.

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Hi everybody! I'm taking this week off to work on some things behind the scenes, so I wanted to talk this chance to replay an episode from early in the podcast that I love. I know many of you are devoted listeners who have listened to every episode of the show, but in case you're newer to the podcast, here's a chance to revisit an earlier interview.

Back in August 2022, I first released my interview with Dr. Isabela Morales. She had recently published her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty, and she was working multiple jobs in public history. I particularly love this episode because Isabela speaks so poignantly about her commitment to narrative history and holding on to that writerly spirit in graduate school.

I'm very pleased to report that after we spoke, Happy Dreams of Liberty went on to win multiple well-deserved book awards, including the prestigious Frederick Douglass Book Prize in 2023. I reached out to Isabela for an update on what she's working on these days. At the end of 2025, she wrapped up her time at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum, and is now working full-time on her second book. She hinted at that book at the end of this interview, and it's now under contract with Liveright for W. W. Norton and tentatively titled The Black Widow of Hazel Green. Here's what Isabela told me about that book: It is a biography of Elizabeth Dale, a wealthy white plantation mistress and enslaver in antebellum Alabama, who was married six times and to this day is rumored to have murdered some or all of her husbands. While I think six dead husbands is enough to pique most people's interest, I also find Elizabeth Dale interesting historically as an embodiment of white women's deep but often-overlooked complicity in the institution of slavery.

Having read Happy Dream of Liberty, I am eagerly awaiting Isabela's new book. In the meantime, though, it's inspiring to revisit this conversation with her. Even if you're heard this one before, I think you'll be rejuvenated by another listen. And if it's your first time, you're in for a treat.

I'll be back next week with another fantastic new episode. Until then, please enjoy this marvelous interview from the archive, with Dr. Isabela Morales.

Original show notes:

For this episode of Drafting the Past, I interviewed Dr. Isabela Morales, writer and public historian. She is the editor and project manager of The Princeton & Slavery Project and the digital projects manager at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum, central New Jersey's first Black history museum.

​Dr. Morales received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2019, specializing in the 19th-century United States, slavery, and emancipation. Her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press. We talked about how work as a public historian influences her writing, why guinea pigs are essential to her process, and the fiction she reads to learn how to evoke a place and time.

MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews historian Dr. Heather Ann Thompson.

Heather is the author of three books. The first was Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City, which was first published in 2002. Her second book, published in 2016, was the astonishing Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. Blood in the Water won far more honors than I can list, most notably the Pulitzer Prize in History. And her newest book, which came out last week, is Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage. It's already drawing lots of well-deserved praise, and in this episode we'll talk more about how Heather learned to bring gripping accounts of historical events to life. In case that wasn't enough, Heather is a professor at the University of Michigan, the co-editor of two books series, and regularly writes for public outlets. She served as the consultant for the Academy Award-nominated documentary ATTICA, and is a co-founder of History Studio, a consulting firm that aims to connect historians and the entertainment industry. Honestly, if I kept telling you all the cool things she has done we would never get to the interview, but you can see why I've been eager to learn more about her work. You're going to love hearing about it too.

Mentioned in this episode:

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In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Fahad Bishara.

Fahad is an associate professor at the University of Virginia, but he is currently on leave and teaching at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. His first book, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950, won multiple awards. His second book, which came out in 2025, is Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History. In it, he follows one year of the voyages of a single dhow, a type of sailing ship, and its captain and crew as it travels around the Persian Gulf and Western Indian Ocean. Working at multiple scales, from the details of daily ship life to the circulation of goods and ideas across the Gulf, Fahad gives us a new, ocean-based perspective on Middle Eastern history. It's also a beautifully written book, and I was eager to talk with Fahad about his inventive structure, how he organized his materials, and more. You're going to get a lot out of this conversation with Dr. Fahad Bishara.

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In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews labor historian Dr. Shaun Richman.

Shaun is a program director at SUNY Empire State College, and he recently completed his PhD in American Studies. But before that, he spent more than a decade as a union organizer and representative. That experience inspires much of his writing, including two books, magazine articles, and op-eds in numerous outlets. His first book was Tell the Bosses We're Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century. His second book, which came out in 2025, is We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers' Union, 1912-1953. In addition to being an enthusiastic labor historian, Shaun has a personal connection to this history, as a onetime member of one of the union's featured in the narrative. We talked about how that perspective shapes his work, how he found his way to writing history after years as a labor organizer, and why he's determined to write books that other labor organizers will want to read.

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For links to the books we talked about and a complete transcript, visit draftingthepast.com. Sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more.

Mentioned in this episode:

· Shaun's website: https://shaunrichman.com/

· Shaun Richman, Tell the Bosses We're Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century

· Shaun Richman, We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers' Union, 1912-1953

· Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist

· Ray Ginger, The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs

· George Orwell, A Collection of Essays

· Michael Harrington

· Ahmed White, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America and Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers

In this episode of Drafting the Past, you'll hear from a historian who had to figure out how to wrangle narratives from twenty different countries to tell a new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But keeping track of all those threads wasn't her only formidable challenge.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Renata Keller.

Dr. Keller is a professor at the University of Nevada and a historian of Modern Latin America. She is the author of two books, Mexico's Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution, and The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War. I was eager to talk with Renata about how she grappled with the wide-ranging source material for The Fate of the Americas, but I also wanted to talk with her about another challenge: writing a book while dealing with the isolation of new parenthood, the struggle of postpartum depression and anxiety, and the exhaustion of balancing parenthood and research. In this conversation, you'll hear how she made space for herself and her writing, both physically and mentally, while working on her book.

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This is the first episode of 2026, which means that we are at the beginning of the fifth season of this show. That's a lot of great conversations about writing history, and I want to thank you for being here for them. There are many more to come this year!

First up, in this episode I'm talking with Dr. Jeff Roche, author of the new book The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right.

Jeff is a professor of history at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Along with his new book, he is the author of Restructured Resistance: The Sibley Commission and the Politics of Desegregation in Georgia and the editor of two additional books. I'll confess to you that I wasn't entirely sure about this book when the press first reached out to tell me about it, but it blew me away. The history is fascinating, but even more, Jeff's writing is lively, smart, and often funny. I was excited to get to ask Jeff about how the book came together and how he has developed such an engaging writing voice. You'll even learn why he considered '90s hip-hop and Texas country music to be essential to his writing process.

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Welcome back to Drafting the Past, and to the final episode of 2025. This episode is all about you! I asked listeners to call in and share the best history books they read in 2025, and they delivered. We've got history books covering a huge range of subjects. Some were published recently, some as long as 90 years ago. Some are about huge subjects, others about tiny places. We even let one historical novel sneak into the mix. It's a reminder that the Drafting the Past community is awesome, full of thoughtful, smart listeners who love talking about great history writing just as much as I do. In this episode, you'll hear from some of those listeners, and, if you're anything like me, you'll add a bunch of new books to your reading list.

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I have a soft spot for historians who follow their curiosity through a range of subjects that might, at first glance, seem unrelated. So I was especially delighted to get to interview this episode's guest, Dr. Amy Erdman Farrell. Amy is a professor and endowed chair of American Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College. Her first book was Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism. From there, she wrote a second book titled Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture, followed by an edited collection, The Contemporary Reader of Gender and Fat Studies. For her newest book, out earlier this year, she turned her focus to an American institution: the Girl Scouts. The book is called Intrepid Girls: The Complicated History of the Girl Scouts of the USA. I was eager to talk more with Amy about how she has come to each of her books, how her publishing career has unfolded, and especially her decision to sign with an agent to represent her most recent book.

A little extra note for this episode: Amy followed up after we spoke to tell me that she forgot to add an additional important note about her organization and research process. Here's what she had to say: "The key for me is: my paper notebook! For both Fat Shame and Intrepid Girls I have always carried a paper notebook (turned out to be two for Intrepid Girls) in which I would take notes along the way, jotting down the date, where I was doing research, and perhaps more detailed notes depending upon the archive and the context. It was really fundamental to my process. I carried it everywhere. I referred to it constantly in doing my writing, revising, thinking, confirming footnotes, following leads. It's so important I can't believe I didn't mention it." An excellent idea for research--a project notebook!

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Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. For this one, I'm joined by historian of science Dr. Alex Wellerstein.

I've been a fan of Alex since at least his first book, Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, which came out in 2021. But I was first introduced to Alex's work, like many people are, through his NUKEMAP project, which is a web-based nuclear weapons effects simulator. It's a great—and terrifying—teaching tool, and just one of many projects that Alex has worked on as not only a historian but also a computer programmer. Alex is an associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and he's currently also a visiting researcher at the Nuclear Knowledges program at the Center for International Studies in Paris. You can also find Alex's writing on his blog and his Substack newsletter, both of which I'll link in the show notes. He has also written extensively for popular publications. Today, we're talking about his brand-new book, The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age. This was a fascinating and wide-reaching conversation into how Alex researches and writes and how he sees his work. You'll hear about everything from why he does not recommend programming your own research database to why he has to talk himself out of italicizing every other word when he writes.

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Welcome back to Drafting the Past. For this episode, I'm thrilled to be joined in this episode by historian Dr. Edward Watts.

Ed is a professor of history at the University of California San Diego. He is the author of seven books, including Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny, and The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea. He has published extensively in academic journals and his work is regularly featured in the popular press. You can also check out his YouTube channel, Rome's Eternal Decline, where he shares bite-size facts about Roman history. Ed's newest book is The Romans: A 2,000-Year History, which came out earlier this year with Basic.

I was excited to talk with Ed about how he tackled such a vast subject. I was also eager to hear how he gets so much writing done. But above all, I really wanted to dig into his style and talk about what goes in to making such a huge history so enjoyable to read. Let me tell you, he did not disappoint. Even if you focus on history far removed from the Roman Empire, you're going to get a lot out of this one. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Edward Watts.

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This episode's guest and I share a last name (no relation, though), but that's not the only thing we have in common. We both grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where our history education left out most of the violence by white settlers against the region's Indigenous people. It was his righteous anger over the differences between what he had learned and what he read in the archives that prompted my guest today to write first a dissertation and now a book about that violence and the efforts of historians to cover it up. You're listening to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in this episode I'm joined by Dr. Marc James Carpenter.

Marc is an associate professor at the University of Jamestown in North Dakota. His first book, out with Yale University Press, is The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest. I was delighted to have him on the show to talk more about how he dealt with layers of deceptive source material, the research loops he employed to work through those sources, and how a dash of humor is a vital ingredient in this and other dark histories. Here's my conversation with Dr. Marc James Carpenter.

Want to give me a little holiday gift this year? Consider taking a minute to leave a review for the show on your favorite podcast app. It helps new people find the show, and it makes me do a little happy dance in my office.

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Fair warning, listeners: in this episode of Drafting the Past, my guest and I geeked out pretty hard for a minute about our favorite pens. I'm hoping a lot of you can relate, but if not, you'll just have to forgive our moment of office supply nerdiness. I'm Kate Carpenter, the host of this podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, I'm thrilled to be joined by Karin Wulf. Karin is a historian and the current director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, as well as a professor at Brown University. Previously, she was the director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She writes and speaks regularly for public audiences. Her new book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Politics of Connection in British America, 1680-1820, came out this summer. In this episode, you'll hear me talk with Karin about what it was like to research a book whose sources were scattered in many different archives, and how she keeps her research and writing alive even in the midst of a very busy schedule. She also told me about a little archival challenge that she likes to give herself that I think will make you smile. Let's be real, we're all nerds here, at least when it comes to history.

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I've heard from many academics that writing their second book can be even harder than writing their first book. That might be surprising, especially if you're still struggling with the first book. But with less free time and without the support of a dissertation adviser, some historians find that second book to be more challenging than they expected. But today's guest turned that struggle into an opportunity for herself and other writers by launching a workshop specifically for writers of second books. I'm Kate Carpenter, and this is Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Jessica Lepler.

Jess is an associate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire. Her first prize-winning book was The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creations of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis. Her second book came out this year. It's called Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions. It's a history of the ultimately failed effort to build the world's first interoceanic canal in the 1820s. Even though it was published a decade after her first book, I was surprised to learn that she actual started working on it alongside her dissertation and first book. We talk more about that research process in our interview. You'll also hear more about starting a second-book workshop, and why some of her best ideas come in the swimming pool.

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I've talked to many historians who have interviewed sources in order to write their histories over more than 70 episodes of Drafting the Past, but I don't think any has spent quite as much time getting to know their subject in person as today's guest. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in this episode I'm joined by Dr. Mary Frances Phillips to talk about her first book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins.

Mary is an associate professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and considers herself a historian and scholar-activist. Black Panther Woman is the first biography of Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins, emphasizing Huggins' use of spiritual wellness practices to care for herself and her community during her unjust incarceration and following her release. Mary and I talked about what it was like to write a book about a subject she had gotten to know so well. And while Black Panther Woman shared a subject with Mary's dissertation, in many ways it was an entirely different project. We talked about that change, how she keeps a sense of joy and play in her writing even when the subject is difficult, and I pushed for details on her accountability system, because I know many of us could use ideas for keeping our writing projects on track.

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Historians never quite know what kind of discoveries will enable them to write a history. For today's guest, the list of things that contributed to his most recent book included a long-shot grant proposal, an elementary school fundraiser, and the rise of digitized genealogical records.

On this episode of Drafting the Past, Kate spoke with Dr. Tyler Anbinder. Tyler is an emeritus professor history at George Washington University. He is the award-winning author of four books, including Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum, and City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York. His most recent book, which came out last year, is Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York. You'll hear Tyler talk about how each of his research projects led to the next, how he works to blend remarkable detail with compelling writing, and how he tries to teach writing skills to his students—including one featured on a previous episode of Drafting the Past. We also talked about the humbling process of having his book reviewed by a fact checker.

For show notes and a transcript of this episode, visit DraftingthePast.com.

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Even though Dr. Joanne Paul had wanted to be a writer for a long time, she had lost sight of that identity and had to find her way back to it. But now, she has embraced creativity and imagination as a historian, and is here to encourage you to do the same. I was thrilled to be joined in this episode by Dr. Joanna Paul. Joanne is a historian of the Renaissance and Early modern periods, especially of their political, intellectual, and cultural histories. In addition to two academic books, she is the author of two books for a general audience. The first The House of Dudley, was published in 2022. It follows the Dudley family's history alongside that of the Tudors, telling the story of the family's proximity to the throne and, as she puts it, "revealing some of the period's most talented, intelligent, and cunning individuals." Her most recent book, out this year, is Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England. In it, she tells the story of one of the most infamous figures in English history in a fascinating biography on this complicated man. I can tell you that both of these books are genuine page-turners, and I loved getting to ask Joanne more about how she wrote them.

For links to the books and other subjects mentioned in this episode and a complete transcript, visit draftingthepast.com.

How do you write a history if you're not quite sure which—if any—of your sources is telling the truth? All historians have to deal with sources who exaggerate, or mislead, or just come from differing perspectives. But my guest in this episode had to wrestle with this question on a whole different level for his newest book. Were his subjects performing miracles, or conning people with magic tricks? And in the end, does it really matter?

This is Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in today's episode I'm joined by Dr. Raphael Cormack. Raph is an editor, writer, and translator, as well as an assistant professor of modern languages and cultures at Durham University in the United Kingdom. He is the author of two books. The first, Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult in 2021 and is now available in paperback. And his newest book, out earlier this year, is Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s. In it, he follows two charismatic and mysterious faith leaders who emerged in the uncertain interwar period in both Europe and the Middle East. We talked about how he dealt with those deeply unreliable sources, why the narrative structure that came so easily to one book didn't work for the second one, and, well, his mother. You'll see what I mean.

For complete show notes, visit draftingthepast.com. For updates on the show and more on writing history, sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter.

I talk to a lot of history professors on this show, of course, but I'm always excited when I get a chance to talk to someone who is writing great history but working outside of a university setting. And my guest today didn't even start out as a historian, she found her way to narrative history after writing in other genres and venues first. Dr. Tracy Slater joins me in this episode to talk about her path as a writer and the challenges and freedoms of writing outside the academy while also balancing the work of a caregiver. Tracy has a PhD in English and American literature. You'll hear more about her career path shortly, which includes some adjunct teaching, a freelance writing career, and founding a literary series called Four Stories that took place in both Boston and Japan, where Tracy is now based with her family, although she was temporarily living in Toronto when I spoke with her this summer. Her first book was a memoir about her marriage, her struggle to start a family, and establishing a life in Japan called The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World. Her newest book is a work of narrative history called Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp. It's a history that is both intimate and expansive and, unfortunately, continues to have increasingly relevant connections to our present-day experiences.

For complete show notes, visit DraftingthePast.com.

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This is Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history, and I'm your host, Kate Carpenter. In each episode, I'm joined by a historian to dig into their writing process and find out how they bring history to the page. This time around, I'm happy to get to chat with Dr. Andrew Hartman.

Dr. Andrew Hartman is a professor of history at Illinois State University. Before that, as you'll learn in this episode, he was a high school social studies teacher, and he specializes in teaching future social studies teachers. He is the author of three books: Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School; A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars; and his newest book, Karl Marx in America. He has also written extensively in publications like the Washington Post, Slate, Jacobin, Bookforum, and more. You'll hear how Andrew tackled such a huge project, a decade in the making, how he became a subject in his own history, and why being an endurance athlete might help if you're a writer.

Find show notes and a transcript here.

In this episode, I'm thrilled to be joined by historian Dr. Ruby Lal.

When I first started thinking about this interview more than a year ago, I read Ruby's book Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan. I was swept away by the book, which is a history biography of Princess Gulbadan in the early decades of the Mughal Empire. Ruby is also the author of Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, another remarkable narrative about a remarkable woman in the Mughal Empire. But before I had a chance to interview her, Ruby came out with another project: Tiger Slayer, which she describes as an illustrated remix of Empress for a young adult audience. I can't tell you how excited I was to talk about all of these projects, and how Ruby brings these narratives from hundreds of years ago to life in such vibrant, enchanting books.

Dr. Ruby Lal is a professor of South Asian History at Emory University. In addition to the books I've already mentioned, she is also the author of two academic books, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World, and Coming of Age in Nineteenth Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness. And as you'll hear in the episode, she thinks deeply and beautifully about crafting historical narrative and the stakes of bringing these stories to readers of all ages.

Stephanie Gorton is a writer, editor, and journalist whose work has been published in a range of outlets including The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and Paris Review Daily. She has worked in editorial roles at several independent presses, and her first book came out in 2020, titled Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine that Rewrote America. Her second book, which came out in November, is The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry that Brought Birth Control to America. It's a fascinating dual biography that brings to life two complicated leaders of the birth control movement in the early 1900s, and the lasting impact of their actions and interactions. We spoke early this year, and I loved getting to hear more about Stephanie's research and writing process, especially how she thought about narrative structure and revising with feedback.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Padraic Scanlan. Padraic is an associate professor at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the history of labor in Britain and the British empire. He's the author of three books, including Freedom's Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolutions and Slave Empire: How Slavery Made Modern Britain. His newest book, out this year, is called Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine, and it offers a reinterpretation of the Irish Great Famine of the mid-1800s that shows how massive income inequality, debt, housing prices, precarious employment and more contributed to the disaster. I spoke with Padraic about how he thinks about writing for a general audience, his work with a developmental editor and why he loves editors, and his writerly inspirations.

Drafting the Past is a show about the craft of writing history, hosted by historian and writer Kate Carpenter. In this episode, Kate is joined by historian Dr. Omar Valerio-Jiménez. Omar is a professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he is also an associate dean for graduate studies. He originally worked as an engineer before going back to school to become a historian. His work focuses on histories of Mexican American civil rights, citizenship, education, and memory. His first book was called River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands, and his second book, which is the focus of this interview, is Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship. Remembering Conquest explores the collective memories of the U.S.-Mexico War and how those memories motivated civil rights campaigns among several generations of Mexican Americans. Omar is a pleasure to speak with, and his thoughtful approach to his work came through in our conversation. Keep an ear out especially for his work log system, which I might have to try out myself.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast where we talk all about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter and for this episode, I'm delighted to be joined on the podcast by Dr. Emily Herring. As you'll hear, I've been following Emily's career for a while now, and I was eager to ask about her first book and her shift from academia to full-time writing. Her book is called Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People. It's an intellectual biography of philosopher Henri Bergson, who achieved remarkable fame in the early 1900s, and it's a genuinely fascinating and pleasurable read. Let's dig into it. Here's my interview with Dr. Emily Herring.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past. I'm Kate Carpenter, and this is a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, I'm joined by historian and writer Dr. Surekha Davies. Surekha is a former history professor who now writes full-time, and she can also be found speaking about history and consulting on monsters. In fact, monsters have played a major role in much of her research. Her first award-winning book was titled Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps, and Monsters. Her second book, which is aimed at a general audience, is out now; it's called Humans: A Monstrous History. The book looks at, as she puts it, how people "have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way." I spoke with Surekha about how she made the switch to full-time writing, her newsletter, Notes from an Everything Historian, and how she organized what could have been an unruly book. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Surekha Davies.

In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Lyndal Roper. Lyndal is a professor at the University of Oxford and the author of six books on gender, religion, witchcraft, and German history. Her newest book out this year is a history of the sixteenth-century German Peasants' War titled Summer of Fire and Blood. The book follows the movement, beliefs, hopes, and actions of the peasants in this mass uprising. I loved the opportunity to talk with Lyndal about how she wrote about such a massive and relatively obscure event for a general audience, the way her own movement across the land shaped her work, why she prefers the screen to the handwritten page, and much more.

In this episode of Drafting the Past, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Judith Giesberg. Dr. Giesberg is a historian and professor at Villanova University. She is the author of six books focused on the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath. She is also an active digital and public historian, and her newest book is the culmination of these interests. Inspired by an ongoing digital project, Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families draws on advertisements placed by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War—in some cases, long after—attempting to find loved ones who had been stolen away from them when they were sold by enslavers. It's a fascinating book, at turns heartbreaking and inspiring, and I was delighted to get to ask Judy more about the project and her research process.

In this episode Kate is joined by writer and historian Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham. Rebecca is a post-doctoral research associate at Brown University, but before that she taught high school history, an experience that we talk a lot more about in this episode. Her first book, out now, is called Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany, and it is not only a compelling history but holds valuable lessons for readers now. I also asked Rebecca to dig into her approach for publicizing a recently released book, and I think her advice will be a big help for other authors.

This is Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian Dr. Marlene Daut. Marlene is a professor at Yale University and is the author of four books, as well as an editor of several more. The most recent two of those books are Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution, which was a winner of the 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. She is also the author of many articles and essays in places like The New Yorker, Harper's, Essence, The Nation, and more. Our conversation covers some burning questions about Marlene's work, including how she works on more than one book at a time, why you might find her typing into her phone at the grocery store, and she is inspired by the work of investigative journalists. Enjoy Kate's conversation with Dr. Marlene Daut.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. James Tejani. James is an associate professor of history at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His first book, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America came out last year with Norton, and it's a fascinating history that covers Western settlement, slavery, the Civil War, science and engineering, and much more. Our interview ranges from how Tejani came to think of himself as a writer to how developing tendonitis changed his writing practice.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a show about the craft of writing history. In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews historian Dr. Seth Rockman. Seth is a historian at Brown University. His first book was called Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, and he is also the co-editor of the volume Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. He does a great deal of interesting interdisciplinary work on labor history, and he has even been called on to share his research findings on slavery and capitalism with the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. His new book, out now, is called Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. You'll love Seth's responses about how challenging the writing process can be, the joys of archives and the need for deadlines to drag us out of them, and why his dissertation adviser's advice is always in his ear while he writes.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Drafting the Past.You can visit draftingthepast.com to find notes from this and every episode of the show. Until next time, remember that friends don't let friends write boring history.

Hello there, this is Drafting the Past, and I'm Kate Carpenter. In each episode, I interview a historian about their writing process, and today I'm joined by Duke University historian James Chappel. James is the author of two books. His first book is titled Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church, and it focuses on the transformation of the Catholic church in twentieth century Europe. But for his second book, which is out now, he has gone in a bit of a different direction. The new book is called Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age. We'll get into how he moved between subjects, why he says he's always writing, and how he took a mountain of fascinating research on the history of old age and retirement and turned it into one interesting and easy to read book.

Find show notes, subscribe to the newsletter, and more at draftingthepast.com.

Episode 55 features Dr. Robin Bernstein. Robin is a cultural historian who specializes in race and racism from the nineteenth century to the present, and is the Dillon Professor of American History at Harvard University. Her first, award-winning book was Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, and she has written essays and articles on a wide range of subjects. Her new book is called Freeman's Challenge: The Murder that Shook America's Original Prison for Profit, and it's truly remarkable. I had a hard time putting it down, so I was especially delighted to find out more about how Robin researched, wrote, and revised to reach the finished product.

In this episode I'm so happy to welcome historian Prithi Kanakamedala to talk about writing with me. Prithi is a professor of history at Bronx Community College CUNY, and is also a faculty member at CUNY Graduate Center. She is an active public historian, who has worked with a wide range of cultural organizations. One of the projects she worked on as a historian and curator for a wide-ranging public history project called In Pursuit of Freedom, which included an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Out of this project emerged Prithi's new book Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough. I was so excited to talk with Prithi about the relationship between her writing and her public history work, and how she sees her role as a historian in relationship to the communities she studies. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala.

Drafting the Past is created, hosted, and produced by Kate Carpenter.

Welcome to Drafting the Past, a podcast all about the craft of writing history. I'm Kate Carpenter, and in each episode I talk with a historian about the practices, archival frustrations and joys, drafts and revisions and more that go into writing history. In this episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Andrew Kahrl. Andrew is a professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Virginia. His third book was published by the University of Chicago Press earlier this year, titled The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America. Andrew is especially interested in issues of housing and real estate, land use and ownership, and local tax systems. He is the author of two additional books, The Land Was Ours: African American Beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South, and Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America's Most Exclusive Shoreline. In addition to his books, Andrew regularly writes for public outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and more. In our conversation, we talked about how Andrew wrestled the research for his latest book into a compelling narrative argument, and why he firmly believes in the importance of history that speaks to present-day issues. He also shared some unexpected writing advice from his dad that I think you'll enjoy hearing about. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Andrew Kahrl.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter welcomes someone a little bit different to the podcast: writer and writing coach Helen Betya Rubinstein.

Helen is neither a historian nor a writer or history herself, but she has been working as a writing coach for the past six years, often with historians and other academics. If you remember my conversation with Anna Zeide in episode 29 last year, Helen was the writing coach that Anna and her co-editors brought in to a workshop to help book contributors work on writing essays aimed at wider audiences. I'm delighted to have the chance to talk more with Helen about what exactly a writing coach does and the kinds of conversations she finds herself having with historians. In addition to her work as a coach and teacher, Helen is a writer with MFA degrees from Brooklyn College and the University of Iowa, and her essays and fiction have appeared in publications including The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review Daily, and Literary Hub. She is the author of a book of lyric fictions and also has a forthcoming book about writing, teaching, and publishing.

In this episode, Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, a historian of the presidency, political culture, and the government, and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library. Her first book, which came out in 2020, was The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. She's also the co-editor of the book Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, and she writes regularly for the public and appears on podcasts and news coverage as an expert on presidential history. Her new book is out now. It's called Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. Listen now to learn about Lindsay's approach to writing and revising narrative history, why she's an evangelist for writing groups, and how her revision process was inspired by Taylor Swift.

Drafting the Past is a podcast about the craft of writing history hosted by Kate Carpenter. If you've been listening for a while, you know that oral histories have come up pretty frequently on the show, and that I also work with oral histories in my own current research project. So I was delighted when the opportunity came up to talk with today's guest, Clara Bingham. Clara is a journalist, and her two most recent books have been works of oral history that let the subjects speak for themselves. Her most recent book is The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973. It is a follow-up to her previous book Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost its Mind and Found Its Soul. Clara has had a fascinating career as a political reporter, writer, documentarian, and more. I'll let her tell you about it all. I know historians are occasionally a little skeptical about journalists who write history, but I think we have a lot to learn from each other. That was definitely the case in this interview, and I loved hearing from Clara about how she tracked down people to interview, the ways she wove their accounts together, and why she thinks of herself as more of a historian than a journalist these days. Enjoy my interview with Clara Bingham.

In this episode Kate interviewed not one, but three authors: Robert Alpert, Merle Eisenberg, and Lee Mordechai. Together, Robert, Merle, and Lee are the co-authors of a new book, Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics, and Zombies in American Movies. Robert Alpert is a lawyer and film scholar who teaches at Fordham University and has written extensively about film following his career as a practicing attorney. Merle Eisenberg is a historian of late antiquity and the early middle ages and a professor at Oklahoma State University. Lee Mordechai is a historian of the eastern Roman Empire and a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Together, Merle and Lee also host a podcast called Infectious Historians, all about the history of disease, pandemics, and medicine. Kate talked with all three about what it was like to write a book together, which comes with one more wrinkle: Robert and Lee are also father and son!

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by historian, writer, and podcaster Dr. Neil J. Young. Neil has been a prolific writer in venues like The Atlantic, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and many more, a contributing columnist to the HuffPost and The Week, and he is also one of the co-hosts of the terrific history podcast Past Present. He also helped to create and produce the podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy, with historian Natalia Petrzela, who joined me on a previous episode of the show. Neil is the author of two books. His first was We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics, and his new book this year is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. I was excited to have the chance to talk with Neil about how his oral history interviews changed the project, what differed between his first and second books, and how he wrote a history that was driven by characters.

Hey DTP listeners! I'm sharing an episode of Historians at the Movies, a podcast by Jason Herbert, in which I was the guest historian! If you like what Jason is doing, check out historiansatthemovies.com.

Historians At The Movies features historians from around the world talking about your favorite movies and the history behind them. This isn't rivet-counting; this is fun. Eventually, we'll steal the Declaration of Independence.

This week Kate Carpenter drops in to talk about the new film Twisters along with her research on the history of modern-day storm chasing. We get into what they got right, what liberties they took, the role of climate change in the spread of tornado alley, and exactly how crazy are tornado chasers anyway. If you feel it, ride it. About our guest: Kate Carpenter is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science at Princeton University. Before that, she earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Master of Arts in History (with an emphasis in public history) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In between, she has been a writer, copy editor, designer, screenprinter, farmers' market volunteer and communications officer, and occasional history consultant. When she's not hosting and producing Drafting the Past, she is working on a dissertation about the history of tornado science and storm chasing in the second half of the twentieth century.

I'm delighted to introduce you to my guest today, historian of science Dr. Kathleen Sheppard. Kate is a professor at Missouri S & T University, and the author of three books, as well as the editor of two books of correspondence. Kate is a historian of Egyptology, and her first book was a biography of Margaret Alice Murray, the first woman to become a university-trained Egyptologist in Britain. The second was Tea on the Terrace: Hotels and Egyptologists' Social Networks, which was released in paperback this summer. And her newest book is out right now. It's called Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age. I was excited to talk with Kate about the difference in writing a book for a trade press, how she has found each of her book subjects, her old school research methods, and how her agent coached her in writing for a public audience. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Kate Sheppard.

My guest in this episode is Dr. Tore Olsson, associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee.

Dr. Olsson's first book, Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside, is an award-winning scholarly book. But his new book does something quite different. Titled Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and American's Violent Past, the book opens a window on American history through the lens of Red Dead Redemption, the wildly popular video game franchise. I talked with Tore about how his pandemic video game habit changed the direction of his career, how teaching an undergraduate class on this topic shaped the book, and how working with his agent and editor made for a completely different publishing experience this time around.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past. This is a show about the craft of writing history. In this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviewed historian and web developer Dr. Jason Heppler.

Kate has been following Jason's work and career path for some time now and was so excited to talk with him about his new book, Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism, which came out earlier this year. Jason is a developer-scholar at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. He has worked on a whole bunch of cool digital projects, which you can explore more on his website, as well as the co-editor of the book Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy. We talked about the evolution of his work alongside his career, the digital tools he uses in his own projects, the relationship between coding and writing, and much more.

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter speaks with the brilliant and delightful Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Dr. Carter Jackson is a professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, and a prolific speaker and writer, with essays everywhere from The New York Times to the Atlantic and Los Angeles Times, and appearances in documentaries and countless podcasts and news programs. She is executive producer and host of the podcast You Get a Podcast: The Study of the Queen of Talk, and a co-host of the podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History. Her resume is extensive, so we're just hitting the highlights here!

Dr. Carter Jackson's first book was the award-winning Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. Her newest book is We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. It's out now, it's incredible, and it's going to have a lot of people talking.

For this episode Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Margaret O'Mara. Margaret is a professor of modern American history at the University of Washington, and the author of multiple books, including Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley and Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century. Her most recent book is The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. I was a huge fan of this book and have recommended it to so many people, so I was thrilled to get to ask about what went into writing it. Margaret has also co-authored a history textbook, written many pieces for places including The New York Times, WIRED, and many more, and is an active public speaker. We talked about how she keeps track of so many different projects, the way her past work in the Clinton administration affects her writing, and much more.

In this episode, I was thrilled to welcome historian—and fellow Missourian—Kimberly Harper to the show. I am especially delighted by this episode because I get many requests to feature guests who have written history books while off of the tenure track or outside of academia, and Kim is a great example of that. I find guests for the show in a lot different ways – sometimes they are people I am a longtime fan of, other times I see books getting some press, or they pitch themselves for the show or other people suggest them. But I also scan catalogs of upcoming books to make sure I'm catching things that might otherwise get overlooked, and that's how I first learned about Kimberly Harper. I spotted her new book, Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America in the University of Arkansas Press catalog, and got to read an early copy. I was so impressed by the research and storytelling that I knew I had to reach out right away, and lucky for us, Kim agreed to come on the show. Kimberly Harper earned a master's degree in history from the University of Arkansas, and she is an editor for the Missouri Historical Review. Her first book, White Man's Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909, came out in 2010, and it received the Missouri Humanities Council's Distinguished Achievement in Literature award. Kim and I spoke about how some key mentors helped her find her way as a historian and writer, how she is learning to balance her day job, writing, and family life, and how you deal with sources for a book in which everyone is lying. Enjoy my conversation with Kimberly Harper.

In this episode, Kate welcomes historian Dr. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Nathan is a professor history at the University of Southern California. His first book, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution, came out in 2015. His new book just came out this month, February 2024, from Basic Books. It's called The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It, and it tells the history of the revolutionary era from 1760 to 1825 across multiple nations and many individual lives. Nathan and Kate talked about the merits of messy outlines, how historians could borrow the techniques of fiction writers, and why his new book was a bit like making cheese – you'll just have to listen to find out what that's all about.

For Episode 40, Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Grace is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia, and the author of four books. Her two most recent are Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture, which was published by UNC Press in 2020, and In the Pines: A Lynching, a Lie, a Reckoning, published by Little Brown in 2023. In the Pines is a remarkable book that combines Grace's investigation into her own family's history and her expertise as a scholar of white supremacy to investigate the pervasive racial terror of the Jim Crow South and its lasting impact. Grace joined me to talk about how she put the book together, the joy of great editing, and much more. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale.

Welcome back to the third season of Drafting the Past! I'm thrilled about the lineup of historians that I'll get to bring to you this year. I know you're going to love them. That includes today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Park. Ben is an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University, and the author of three books. His first two were American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, and Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier. His newest book, which came out just this month, is called American Zion: A New History of Mormonism. I was excited to have the chance to talk with Ben about how he tackled a book with such an impressive scope, how he stays disciplined about what to leave in and what two cut, and two pieces of really excellent, practical writing advice from his editors. You'll have to listen until the end for those.

At the end of the year, a flurry of "best books of the year books hit publications. For the last episode of 2023, I wanted to try something a little different on Drafting the Past. Rather than come up with my own best books list, I asked listeners to call in and leave a message with the best history book they read in 2023 (it didn't have to be published this year). I loved hearing about the books you guys have been reading, and I hope you enjoy these reading recommendations, too. Should we make it an annual tradition?

In this episode, Kate spoke with historian Dr. Martha Hodes. Dr. Hodes is a professor of history at New York University and the author of multiple previous books focused on the nineteenth century, including The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century, and Mourning Lincoln, which won multiple awards and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her most recent book, however, has a very different focus. My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering, is an account of her experience as a 12-year-old hostage aboard a hijacked airliner in 1970. We talked about what it was like to write such a different type of history book, and the experience of mining her own unreliable archive for information. You'll also learn how she ends up with as many as 20 or 25 drafts and why the best way to start a project is to pick a favorite document and just start writing about it.

For this episode I was lucky enough to speak with a historian and writer I have long admired, Dr. Catherine McNeur. Catherine's first book, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, first came out in 2014, and it is one of my favorite environmental histories. So I was more than a little excited to learn about her new book out this year, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science. I couldn't pass up the chance to talk with Catherine about how the book emerged out of a different book project, the techniques she uses for bringing place so vividly to the page, and the writing process that results in prose that is such a pleasure to read. Plus, this book has one of the best stories of serendipitous archival discovery I have ever heard.

For this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Tanisha C. Ford. Tanisha is a writer, historian, and professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of three books and many articles on subjects at the intersection of politics and culture, and especially on Black fashion and social movements. Her first book, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul, was published in 2016, and in 2019 she released her second book, Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion. Her newest book, Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement came out just last month. It's a fascinating biography of famed Black fundraiser and activist Mollie Moon that takes readers into the world of an overlooked aspect of the civil rights era. Kate's conversation with Tanisha covers how she brought the world of Mollie Moon to life, her methods for organizing her sources--the "oldest of old school"--and why she's glad she was an English major.

In this episode Kate is joined by historian Dr. Bruce Dorsey. Bruce is a professor of history at Swarthmore College. In 2002, he published his first book, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City, and he is also the co-editor of the book Crosscurrents in American Culture. His new book is called Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime that Captivated a Nation. In it, Bruce tells the story of the death of factory worker Sarah Cornell, the trial of the Methodist preacher who was accused of her murder, and the public frenzy over the trial and its aftermath. I was thrilled to have the chance to talk with Bruce about how a historian tackles true crime, and our conversation covers how this book originated in a college course, as well as the challenge of weaving historical analysis a gripping drama.

In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Sarah McNamara, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University, about her new book, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South (UNC Press, 2023). From her website:

"McNamara is dedicated to sharing her scholarship with broad audiences through public history and community engagement. She developed the project, "Nuestra Historia," an historical memory and preservation project that unites public art with historical markers within the City of Tampa. The first site of this project commemorated the 1937 Antifascist Women's March of Ybor City and unveiled in Tampa during Women's History Month of 2023. McNamara regularly collaborates with community groups to coordinate history programs that range from historical photography exhibits to educational events for adults and works on K-12 curriculum development and teacher training through organizations such as the National Humanities Center.

McNamara's work has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association for University Women, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the American Historical Association, and the Tulane Center for the Gulf South. In recognition of McNamara's commitment to teaching and student mentorship at Texas A&M University, she has received the Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Award, the Early Career Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching. Sarah McNamara is a native of Tampa, Florida and her family is from Ybor City."

In our interview we talk about the process of writing and rewriting that book. We also talk about the marvels and challenges of doing oral histories—especially with family members—and the ways that Sarah has worked to make sure that the history she writes in her book is also alive in the community of Ybor City.

This episode features Dr. Samantha Muka, whose enthusiasm for her work is pretty much guaranteed to improve your day. Sam's first book is Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea, in which she investigates how a community of aquarium users have created and shared knowledge about how to take care of marine life in captivity. Sam is an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and she is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters about the history of marine science, including essays in Slate and The Atlantic. We talked about how her enthusiasm translates into her writing voice, keeping track of non-traditional sources, and what Sam has in common with a horse (you'll just have to listen to know what that's about).

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Katrina Phillips. Katie Phillips is an associate professor of history at Macalester College. She is the author of Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and Performances of Native American History, which focuses on the past and present of three Western performances that purport to show Indigenous history, but do so from the perspective of white settlers. Katie is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She is also a public historian and consultant, and, to my delight, she has also published multiple children's books about Indigenous history. Our conversation covers the importance of making history accessible, the value of an intellectual community that says things like "this has to be in the book," and how writing for kids lets her reach a whole new set of readers.

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. I'm your host, Kate Carpenter, and this is the 30th episode of Drafting the Past! In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd about the process of writing and revising her debut book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars (UNC Press, 2023). Lauren is a historian of higher education, and she teaches at the University of New Orleans. We had this conversation early this year when Lauren was still in the process of going over final page proofs, so you'll hear us talking about that stage of publication. But the book is out now, and you can find it at any bookseller. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy our conversation about the hard work of turning a dissertation into a book, interdisciplinarity and imposter syndrome, and how to organize the results of a smash and grab archive trip, something I think a lot of us can relate to. Here's my conversation with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd.

My guest this week is historian Dr. Anna Zeide. Anna is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, where she is also the founding director of the food studies program, as well as the author of two books. The first, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry, won a James Beard award, and her most recent book, U.S. History in 15 Foods, was published earlier this year. Incidentally, reading that book inspired me to plant corn in my home garden for the first time ever, so stay tuned on that experiment. She is also a co-editor of an anthology called Acquired Tastes: Stories About the Origins of Modern Foods. In our delightful conversation, we talked about everything from putting together a writing outline to taking a metaphorical—or literal—wander through the woods as part of the writing process.

In this episode, it was my pleasure to interview science journalist Melissa Sevigny about her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Colorado River. She is the science reporter for Arizona Public Radio as well as the author of two previous books, Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest, and Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets. Her work has also appeared in many places, including Orion, The Atavist Magazine, Science Friday, and more. I spoke with Melissa about writing a book while working a full time job as a reporter, how she created such detailed scenes, and the helpful metaphor she used to think about the book's narrative structure.

For Episode 27 of Drafting the Past, I was delighted to be joined by historian Dr. Carly Goodman.

Carly is a historian, a senior editor for the Made by History section at the Washington Post, and the Communications Coordinator for Nationalities Service Center, an immigration agency. Her first book, Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction, came out in May from the University of North Carolina Press. I was so excited to talk with Carly earlier this spring about her research and writing, how her work as an editor has impacted her own writing, and the excellent craft advice she has to offer other historians.

In this episode, I was so excited to finally talk with writer and historian Dr. Aaron Sachs. Aaron researches and teaches environmental history at Cornell, and he is the author of four books and one edited collection. I've been eager to talk with Aaron for several years, ever since I first heard about the Historians are Writers! group that he led at Cornell (should out to Daegan Miller and Laura Martin who mentioned the group to me). We talked about that and the two books that Aaron has recently published: Up From the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Recovery in Dark Times, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. And in April he published Stay Cool: Why Dark Comedy Matters in the Fight Against Climate Change. He is also the author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism and Arcadian America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition. With John Demos, he also published the edited collection Artful History: A Practical Anthology.

In this episode Kate Carpenter interviews writer and historian Dr. Kidada Williams. Dr. Williams' most recent book is I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction, which came out with Bloomsbury this year. She is also one of the co-creators of #CharlestonSyllabus, which began as a collection of resources on Twitter in response to the racist massacre at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and is now available as a collection of readings on race, racism and racial violence through the University of Georgia Press. Her first book, They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, was published by New York University Press in 2012. In addition to her writing, Dr. Williams is also the host and co-producer of Seizing Freedom, a podcast about African Americans' fight for liberty and equality during and after the Civil War. In addition to being an associate professor of history at Wayne State University, she also makes many public appearances and consults with projects to help the public engage with history. You are guaranteed to walk away from this interview inspired and encouraged -- be sure to share it with a friend!

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Louis Moore. Lou is a sports historian and a professor of history at Grand Valley State University. He has published two books: We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality, and I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915. He also writes essays for many outlets and, along with fellow historian Derrick White, hosts an excellent podcast called The Black Athlete. If that all wasn't enough, he has also produced two audio courses that you can find on Audible, called African-American Athletes Who Made History and A Pastime of Their Own: The Story of Negro League Baseball. We talk about all of that, what he's working on now – and why sports history comes with it's own unexpected set of challenges.

For a transcript and links to everything we mentioned in the show, visit draftingthepast.com.

For this episode, Kate Carpenter spoke with Dr. Andrew Wehrman, an associate professor of history at Central Michigan University. Andrew's first book, The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution, came out in December 2022, and he has also published many essays and op-eds on the subjects of epidemics, public health, inoculation and vaccination. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and, since our interview it was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in history. Our conversation gives an excellent look into the long process of writing this book, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed talking with Andrew.

Host Kate Carpenter interviews author Lyndsie Bourgon. Lyndsie is a journalist and oral historian, and her first book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods, was published by Little, Brown Spark in 2022 and examines the past and present of tree poaching. More broadly, Lyndsie writes about the environment and its entanglement with history, culture, and identity. I was delighted to have the chance to ask Lyndsie about her approach to oral histories in this book, bringing empathy to a complex topic, and how she her background as a journalist and training as an oral historian come together.