Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Frank Trentmann, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, to discuss his latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022. They chat about how a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvented themselves, and by how much.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554959/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann/

Show Notes:

Literary Review: David Blackbourn – “A Mercedes in Every Garage”

https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-mercedes-in-every-garage

New York Review of Books: Timothy Garton Ash – “Big Germany, What Now?”

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/05/23/big-germany-what-now-timothy-garton-ash/

The New Statesman: Brendan Simms – “What it means to be German”

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2023/12/meaning-modern-germany-brenadan-simms

The Times: Oliver Moody – “Out of the Darkness by Frank Trentmann review — how Germans became good (and rather complacent)”

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann-review-9rc5n8kbd?region=global

Times Literary Supplement: Ben Hutchinson – “New moral order”

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/history/twentieth-century-onwards-history/after-the-nazis-michael-h-kater-out-of-the-darkness-frank-trentmann-book-review-ben-hutchinson

The Wall Street Journal: Ian Brunskill – “‘Out of the Darkness’ Review: War Crimes and Remembrance”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/out-of-the-darkness-review-war-crimes-and-remembrance-0b830556

The Washington Post: Bryn Stole – “An ambitious history of Germany interrogates the country’s moral makeover”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/18/out-darkness-germans-nazis-legacy-frank-trentmann-review/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David L. Roll, founder of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, to discuss his latest book, Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World. They chat about Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right after his accidental ascension to the office and how Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690665/ascent-to-power-by-david-l-roll/

Show Notes:

Foreign Affairs: Jessica T. Mathews – “Review: ‘Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged From Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World’”

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/ascent-power-how-truman-emerged-roosevelts-shadow-and-remade-world

Wall Street Journal: Robert W. Merry – “’Ascent to Power’ Review: Harry Truman’s Moment”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/ascent-to-power-review-harry-trumans-moment-e5654cb0

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Harold Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, to discuss his latest book, Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. They chat about the immigration situation in the United States in the 30 years leading up the Civil War, how immigrants forever altered the country’s demographics, culture, and voting patterns, how tensions over immigration broke apart the Whig Party and lead to the formation of the Republican Party, and how Lincoln evolved into a champion for immigration.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558372/brought-forth-on-this-continent-by-harold-holzer/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Brian VanDeMark, professor of history at the United States Naval Academy, to discuss his latest book, Kent State: An American Tragedy. They chat about the context of the divided cultural landscape of America during the Vietnam War and heightened popular anxieties around the country, how the shootings came to take place, the reductive narratives that ensued, the victims of the shooting, and the impact of that day on the Guardsmen who were there.

Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324066255

Show Notes:

Los Angeles Review of Books: Tom Zoellner – “Yelling ‘Fire’ on a Crowded Knoll”

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/yelling-fire-on-a-crowded-knoll/

Los Angeles Times: Chris Vognar – “A meticulous, pain-filled history of the senseless slaughter at Kent State”

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-08-05/brian-vandemark-kent-state-an-american-tragedy

National Review: Paul Baumann – “What Happened at Kent State?”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/10/what-happened-at-kent-state/

Times Literary Supplement: John McMillian – “Civil unrest”

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-features/in-brief/kent-state-brian-vandemark-book-review-john-mcmillian

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David Reynolds, emeritus professor of international history at Christ’s College, Cambridge University, to discuss his latest book, Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him. They reevaluate Churchill’s life by viewing it through the eyes of his allies and adversaries like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, FDR, Chamberlain, Attlee, De Gaulle, and Gandhi, as well as his own family. They also chat about Churchill’s lifelong struggle to overcome his political failures and his evolving grasp of what “greatness” truly entailed.

Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-reynolds/mirrors-of-greatness/9781541620209/?lens=basic-books

Show Notes:

The Wall Street Journal: Robert D. Kaplan – “‘Mirrors of Greatness’ Review: Churchill’s Personal Diplomacy”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/mirrors-of-greatness-review-churchills-personal-diplomacy-c8e300e3

Washington Examiner: Sean Durns – “Making history with Winston Churchill”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2838794/making-history-with-winston-churchill/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Tyson Reeder, assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University, to discuss his new book, Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison's America. They chat about the espionage, shadow diplomacy, foreign scheming, and domestic backstabbing in the formative years of the American republic, and how an infant nation adjusting to rancorous partisan politics, aggravated by the untested and imperfect new tools of governance and the growing power of media, was exploited by foreign powers to advance their own agendas.

Get the book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/serpent-in-eden-9780197628591?cc=us&lang=en&

Show Notes:

Law & Liberty: Sam Negus – “The Old World and the Young Republic”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-old-world-and-the-young-republic/

The Wall Street Journal: Mark G. Spencer – “‘Serpent in Eden’: Foreign Spies and False Allies”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/serpent-in-eden-review-spies-lies-and-false-allies-5a34e6e8

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Richard Carwardine, Emeritus Rhodes Professor of American History and Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University, to discuss his new book, Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union. They chat about how the tensions surrounding the moral quandary of slavery cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, how Lincoln proclaimed more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since, and how these pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/24975/righteous-strife-by-richard-carwardine/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Jeffrey Edward Green, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his new book, Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. They chat about how Green sees Dylan as a modern-day prophet, but a prophet of diremption rather than a prophet of salvation. They also discuss how Dylan has made novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.

Get the book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/bob-dylan-9780197651742?cc=us&lang=en&