Drafting the Past Titelbild

Drafting the Past

Drafting the Past

Von: Kate Carpenter
Jetzt kostenlos hören, ohne Abo

Über diesen Titel

 Drafting the Past is a podcast devoted to the craft of writing history. Each episode features an interview with a historian about the joys and challenges of their work as a writer.© 2025 Kunst Welt
Folgen
  • Episode 87: Andrew Edwards Wants to Make You Feel Something About Money

    Episode 87: Andrew Edwards Wants to Make You Feel Something About Money
    Feb 17 2026

    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.

    Sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    • Andrew David Edwards, Money and the Making of the American Revolution
    • Zotero
    • Eelco Runia, "Presence," History and Theory 45, no. 1 (2006), 1-29
    • Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings
    • Martha Sandweiss, The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West and Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Isabela Morales also mentioned Martha Sandweiss' history writing course in her episode of Drafting the Past)
    • Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History
    • R. F. Kuang, Katabasis

    Note that bookshop.org links are affiliate links that generate a small commission to support the show if you purchase books using these links.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    50 Min.
  • From the Archive: Isabela Morales Protects the Writer's Spirit

    From the Archive: Isabela Morales Protects the Writer's Spirit
    Feb 10 2026
    Note that bookshop.org links are affiliate links that generate a small commission to support the show if you purchase books using these links. Sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more. 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: Find Isabela Morales on Twitter, @IsabelaWritesEvernote, the software Isabela uses for organizing her researchTiya Miles, Ties that BindMartha Sandweiss, Passing StrangeErik Larson, The Devil in the White CityHilary Mantel, Wolf Hall and A Place of Greater SafetyMartha Hodes, The Sea Captain's WifeDaniel Sharfstein, The Invisible LineSuzanne Lebsock, A Murder in Virginia
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    40 Min.
  • Episode 86: Heather Ann Thompson Evokes the Moment

    Episode 86: Heather Ann Thompson Evokes the Moment
    Feb 3 2026
    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: Heather Ann Thompson, Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White RageHeather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its LegacyHeather Ann Thompson, Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American CityEvernoteThe Fear and Fury audiobook, narrated by Erin BennettHeather Ann Thompson, "How the Bernie Goetz Shootings Explain the Trump Era," The Atlantic, January 26, 2026Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessElliot Williams, Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the NationIsabelle AllendeArundhati RoyW. E. B. DuBoisKimberlé CrenshawElizabeth HintonLaShawn Harris, Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York CityBench Ansfield, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American CityJonathan Mahler, The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 Note that bookshop.org links are affiliate links that generate a small commission to support the show if you purchase books using these links. For a complete transcript, visit draftingthepast.com. Sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    47 Min.
Noch keine Rezensionen vorhanden