It's another episode of A-Z, and the lucky letter is J! On the menu this week:

John Birch Society

Jacobs, Harriet

Jackson

Japanese Internment

Jazz Singer, The

And many more!

Thanks again for listening and we'll be back soon with our brand new series on the US and the Middle East!

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

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Following a delay thanks to strikes, illness, and a furious effort to finish writing a book, we're back with the final episode of our Lyndon Johnson's America series!

We discuss the various legacies of Johnson, his Great Society, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and the long Sixties.

And we also provide a preview of our NEW upcoming series - tune in to find out what we'll be discussing next!

Thanks a lot for listening to this series and we look forward to bringing you the next one.

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

Books/Articles

Mark McLay, 'Reflecting or reshaping?: Landmark anniversaries and presidential legacy'. In: Cullinane, M. P. and Ellis, S. (eds.) Constructing Presidential Legacy: How We Remember the American President (2019)

Robert H. Wilson, Norman J. Glickman, and Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. (eds.), LBJ’s Neglected Legacy: How Lyndon Johnson Reshaped Domestic Policy and Government (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015).

Bernard von Bothmer, Framing the Sixties: The Use and Abuse of a Decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010)

Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Harvard UP, 2018)

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It's our fifth episode of A-Z, where we take a letter from the alphabet and use it to take a journey through American History for 30 minutes.

And on this occasion it's the letter T! Among the topics discussed on this episode:

• Truman
• Three Mile Island
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Tupperware
• Tobacco

We hope you enjoy and we'll back next with our final episode of the LBJ's America series.

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

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It's the penultimate episode of our LBJ's America series!

On this episode we round out 1968, which sees Richard Nixon win the presidential election and be on his way to the White House. We chat about Nixon's record and how, after promising to bring the American people together, he ended up driving them further apart.

Also, was LBJ really trying to be a hippie in his final years before dying 1973? We answer this question and much more.

The final episode will dissect the legacy of LBJ's America and we hope you'll join us again.

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

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On this month's A-Z, we tackle the letter 'W' for 30 minutes, including discussion of:

World War I & II

Watergate

The West Wing

Victoria Woodhull

And even, William Wallace.

We hope you enjoy and we'll be back soon with the penultimate episode in our LBJ's America series.

Cheers,

Mark

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It's the fourth installment of our series on Lyndon Johnson's America and we are into crisis mode. 

We pick up the story in mid-1967 and discuss how Vietnam, racial violence, and a host of other contentious issues rise to the fore and overwhelm Lyndon Johnson, leading to his eventual withdrawal from office.

Along the way we compare 1967/8 with today's political climate, discuss race riots, Tet, the media, the counterculture, second-wave feminism and much more. 

Thanks again for listening.

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

Reading List

Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (2014)

Amy Wedlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s. (1993)

Daniel Hallin, The 'Uncensored War':The Media and Vietnam (1986)

Christopher Gair, The American Counterculture (2007)

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It's the third in our series of 30 minute discussions of random US history topics beginning with a letter of the alphabet. 

Today - it's R!

Republicans

Rambo

Red Scare

Republican Motherhood 

...are just a few of things that we chew over.

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm 

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It's Part 3 of Lyndon Johnson's America and we arrive at the event which arguably shaped LBJ's presidency more than anything else - the Vietnam War.

In this episode, we cover the early years of the conflict (1964-67) and discuss:

- Why Vietnam?

- Why does Johnson escalate in 1965?

- What role do race and gender play during the Vietnam War?

- The early anti-war movement

- American strategic mistakes in Vietnam

In next month's episode we'll examine The Downfall as Johnson's America comes apart as a result of events at home and abroad.

Thanks again for listening!

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

Reading List:

Heather Stur, Beyond Combat: Women and gender in the Vietnam War era  (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Daniel Lucks, Selma to Saigon:  The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War (University of Kentucky Press, 2014)

Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012)

Paul Thomas Chamberlin, The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace (New York: HarperCollins, 2018)

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It's the second of our episodes where we discuss a series of events, people, and places drawn at random that begin with a specific letter. And today's letter is H!  

Fannie Lou Hamer

Adolf Hitler 

Jimi Hendrix 

Hollywood

and many, many more!

We'll be back next month with another episode of A-Z!

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

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On the second episode of Lyndon Johnson's America, we encounter an optimistic America. A United States prospering and beginning to deal with its original sin of racism. We delve into civil rights victories and Johnson's pursuit of a Great Society. But we also discuss the rise of television, the British Invasion led by the Beatles, and America's pursuit of putting a Man on the Moon.

This episode will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. Enjoy it, things are about to hit the proverbial fan.  

Cheers,

Mark and Malcolm

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(OUR APOLOGIES FOR THE SOUND QUALITY ON THIS EPISODE - ROGUE MICROPHONE ISSUE)

We're back!

And we're embarking on a six part series examining 'Lyndon Johnson's America'. Essentially, we're using the life and times of LBJ to examine and explore the United States over which he presided in the tumultuous 1960s.

This episode, however, explores the ascent of Johnson up the political ladder, while simultaneously discussing a host of interesting events and developments between 1936-1963. We discuss the Cold War Consensus, the use of the Atom Bomb, the 'loss of China', the Kennedy-Johnson relationship, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and much more!

In the next episode we'll be talking all about the Civil Rights Movement and the early success of Johnson's presidency. Moreover, as the series goes on, we'll get stuck into the societal and cultural developments that shook America in the 1960s. 

Thanks for sticking with us after our hiatus and we'll be back regularly in your podcast feeds with both this series and our new A-Z podcast!

Cheers

Mark and Malcolm

Reading list:

Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson series (Knopf, 4 Books)

Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)

Paul Thomas Chamberlin, The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2018)

Audra J. Wolfe, Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)

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