For the Ages: A History Podcast
Explore the rich and complex history of the United States and beyond. Produced by The New York Historical, host David M. Rubenstein engages the nation’s foremost historians and creative thinkers on a wide range of topics, including presidential biography, the nation’s founding, and the people who have shaped the American story. Learn more at nyhistory.org.
Episodes
143 episodes
America’s Ongoing Reconstruction
Lasting from 1865 to 1877, Reconstruction in the American South was an aspirational endeavor that brought with it newly enshrined rights for Black Americans, including Black male suffrage, birthright citizenship, and equal protection under the ...
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Season 4
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Episode 21
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27:11
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
As the man who led the effort to create the most violent weapon in the history of mankind with the invention of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer is a divisive figure in American history. From his childhood in New York City to his career a...
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Season 4
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Episode 20
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27:11
Justice by Means of Democracy
John F. Kennedy advised Americans to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. Scholar Danielle Allen argues that civic engagement such as Kennedy was suggesting is the only true path to a just soci...
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Season 4
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Episode 19
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27:06
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was called “the most elegant writer, the most sagacious politician, and celebrated patriot” by John Adams, his second cousin, and was applauded by other colleagues such as Thomas Jefferson. A mastermind behind the Boston Tea Party ...
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Season 4
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Episode 18
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27:09
Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America
In a time when crossing political party lines can seem as treacherous as crossing a fault line during an earthquake, it could be difficult to believe that Abraham Lincoln, in a country even more divided than our contentious present-day one, rep...
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Season 4
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Episode 17
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27:14
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
What did “the pursuit of happiness” mean to our nation’s Founders, and why was it included in the Declaration of Independence? Listed as one of America’s unalienable rights, this phrase finds its roots in the classical works of the Greek and Ro...
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Season 4
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Episode 16
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27:08
Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement
Prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, oppressive voter registration literacy tests disenfranchised Black voters across the United States. In direct response to these restrictions, community organizers and activists launched an underground Cit...
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Season 4
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Episode 15
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32:33
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
Seeking to wrest control of New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the English King Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, appointed Richard Nicolls to lead a flotilla to conquer Manhattan Island. Nicolls, with a blend of might and diplom...
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Season 4
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Episode 14
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32:03
A Conversation with James Patterson
James Patterson is one of the most popular storytellers of our time. The creator of some of the most popular characters and series in fiction, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Smith, and Maximum Ride, he has also written on f...
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Season 4
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Episode 13
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32:22
The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President
President Theodore Roosevelt is often described as an icon of American masculinity. From his military past as a Rough Rider to his history of undertaking dangerous wilderness expeditions, Roosevelt’s image has been associated with rugged braver...
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Season 4
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Episode 12
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33:22
President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier
When President James Garfield assumed the office of the presidency in March 1881, he stood at the helm of a deeply polarized and fragmented nation. Known as a reformer as well as a broker of compromise during his time in Congress, Garfield woul...
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Season 4
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Episode 11
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37:17
The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency
In the eyes of the nation and the world, the American presidency is a steadfast institution, one that symbolizes the United States' enduring strength and international leadership. In reality, the presidency is ever-evolving, as the contours of ...
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Season 4
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Episode 10
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30:09
American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own
Donald Trump’s so-called “hush money” trial was a historic episode in Trump’s unprecedented political career. The trial provided unique insight into the freedoms and limitations of the American presidency, and how our political system is and is...
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Season 4
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Episode 9
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33:47
The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter
The complex legacy of Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency remains poorly understood by the American public. Often wholly overshadowed by the era-defining Reagan administration that would follow, Carter’s four years at the nation’s helm reflect a...
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Season 4
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Episode 8
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27:08
Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe
An almost mythic figure in American sports history, Jim Thorpe is remembered for his unrivaled athletic talents. He was an Olympic gold medalist, an All-American football player and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and a Major League Ba...
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Season 4
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Episode 7
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31:18
Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
Once a dedicated general of the Confederate army, risking his life in defense of slavery, James Longstreet’s life took an unprecedented turn in the years after America’s bloody civil war. After fighting alongside Robert E. Lee at the Battle of ...
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Season 4
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Episode 6
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29:52
The British Are Coming
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Rick Atkinson joins David Rubenstein to uncover the untold stories and moral conflicts—from both the American and British perspective—of the first 21 months of the Revolutionary War. Through the lens ...
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Season 4
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Episode 5
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34:08
The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
The women’s suffrage movement was a hard-fought, decades-long campaign to extend that most essential of democratic rights to all Americans regardless of sex. That protracted struggle would rapidly come to a head in August of 1920 in Tennessee, ...
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Season 4
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Episode 4
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27:13
The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future
Joe Biden’s legacy as America’s 46th president is still in the making. President Biden took office shortly after the attempted coup on January 6th, during the cresting of one of the most fatal waves of COVID-19, and in a period of severe econom...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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27:01
One Nation Under God: A History of Religion in America
Enshrined in our Constitution and etched into our currency, religion is inextricable from the fabric of American political and social life. The ubiquity of religion in our national history has also made it an elusive, at times contradictory, fo...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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26:48
Under the Dome: Politics, Crisis, and Architecture at the United States Capitol
The US Capitol building is a powerful physical symbol of representative democracy, with its famous dome one of America’s most iconic architectural feats. The solidity and dependability of that symbol, however, belie the dynamic history of the e...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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31:28
A Conversation with Henry Louis Gates Jr. (RE-RELEASE)
Please enjoy this re-release of a past episode of For the Ages. New episodes will return Fall 2024. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has helped reshape the nation’s collective understanding of the legacy of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction...
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43:15
One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 (RE-RELEASE)
Please enjoy this re-release of a past episode of For the Ages. New episodes will return Fall 2024. In 1924, Congress put in place strict quotas that impacted national immigration policy for decades. Interweaving her own family’s story, New...
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27:18
A Conversation with Walter Isaacson (RE-RELEASE)
Please enjoy this re-release of a past episode of For the Ages. New episodes will return Fall 2024. Walter Isaacson discusses his career as a preeminent historian and biographer, how he chooses the people he writes about, and why he is f...
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27:14
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle (RE-RELEASE)
Please enjoy this re-release of a past episode of For the Ages. New episodes will return Fall 2024. The fight for LGBTQ civil rights is long and hard-fought—and it still continues today. Award-winning author and renowned scholar Lillian ...
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27:18