Politics & Public Policy Episodes

Historian Geoffrey Plank joins Jennifer Robin Terry to discuss his new book, The Last Place in Europe: A History of Gibraltar, and how one tiny territory became a crossroads of empires, cultures, commerce, and contested borders. Gibraltar has almost no natural resources, yet empires have fought over this tiny territory for centuries. Its importance lies in its geography, where Europe meets Africa and the Mediterranean opens into the Atlantic. Geoffrey Plank traces this contested crossroads fr...

Historians Sergio M. González and Lloyd D. Barba join Jennifer Robin Terry on The Clio Dialogues to discuss their book, Sanctuary in America: How Activists Defied the Government and Defended Immigrants—And Why It Still Matters. They explore how an ancient tradition of sacred refuge became a modern movement challenging state power. In 1982, congregations began opening their doors to Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing political violence, even as the U.S. government denied them asylum. Facing a...

What does the rise of authoritarianism look like while it is happening in real time? Historian Pamela Toler, author of The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany, joins The Clio Dialogues to tell the remarkable story of Sigrid Schultz, the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau chief who reported on the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Toler and host Jennifer Robin Terry discuss how economic and political in...

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Why is one of America's most successful anti-hunger programs suddenly at the center of legal and political controversy? Recent battles over restrictions on purchases through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation's largest government food assistance program, have reignited debates over nutrition, personal choice, and the proper role of government. But as Christopher Bosso explains, those debates are far older than they appear. Bosso takes listener...

What if almost everything you've heard about the history of American immigration is missing half the story? Less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship with its decision in Trump v. Barbara, historian Anna O. Law joins The Clio Dialogues to explain why today's debates over birthright citizenship reach back centuries. Rather than beginning with modern immigration policy, Law takes listeners into colonial America, the expansion of slavery, Native American disposses...