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&

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Yuval Levin, the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy, to discuss his new book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation―and Could Again. They chat about the Constitution’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America’s fault lines. They also discuss the Constitution’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society.

Get the book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/american-covenant/9780465040742/?lens=basic-books

Show Notes:

The Atlantic: Yuval Levin – “What’s Wrong With Congress (And How to Fix It)”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/congress-reform-filibuster-constitution/678604/

Commentary: Tal Fortgang – “We Are the Reformers We’ve Been Waiting For”
https://www.commentary.org/articles/tal-fortgang/american-covenant-constitution/

The Dispatch: Ben Rolsma – “The Constitution That Binds Us”
https://thedispatch.com/article/the-constitution-that-binds-us/

Law & Liberty: Charles C.W. Cooke – “A Roadmap—If We Want It”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-roadmap-if-we-want-it/

Law & Liberty: John G. Grove – “The Latent Wisdom in Our Constitution”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-latent-wisdom-in-our-constitution/

Law & Liberty: Mark Landy – “How the Constitution Unifies the Country”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/how-the-constitution-unifies-the-country/

Law & Liberty: Scott Yenor – “Can Our Constitutional Order be Revived?”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/can-our-constitutional-order-be-revived/

National Review: Matthew J. Franck – “The Constitution We Still Need”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/08/the-constitution-we-still-need/

Washington Examiner: Michael M. Rosen – “Yuval Levin’s constitutional glue”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/premium/3064559/constitutional-lore/

Washington Free Beacon: - Robert P. George – “A Constitution, If You Can Keep It”
https://freebeacon.com/culture/a-constitution-if-you-can-keep-it-2/

The Washington Post: Ramesh Ponnuru – “The Constitution was supposed to be a uniter, not a divider”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/yuval-levin-american-covenant-review-essay/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Christine Rosen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and media commentary columnist at Commentary, to discuss her new book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. They chat about how digital technologies offer novelty and convenience, but also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real, and what the costs of these technologies are. They also discuss whether face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom are at risk of becoming extinct.

Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393241716

Show Notes:

National Review: Ian Tuttle – “Losing Ourselves in a Disembodied World”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/12/losing-ourselves-in-a-disembodied-world/

The Wall Street Journal: Meghan Cox Gurdon – “‘The Extinction of Experience’ Review: Devices and Distraction”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-extinction-of-experience-review-devices-and-distraction-398139bc

Washington Examiner: Mark Judge – “Being human in a digitally disembodied world”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/3125777/being-human-in-a-digitally-disembodied-world/