Brian Balogh

Historian Isaac Campos traces the origins of the idea that marijuana causes violent madness…and finds the trail leads south, to Mexico.

How prior generations of Americans responded to the threat of infectious disease.

On John Winthrop’s oft-misunderstood use of the phrase “a city upon a hill” to describe the New World.

The 19th century recovery of John Winthrop's sermon, "A City on a Hill."

How nativism and racism shaped the national movement towards Prohibition.

A perusal of Benjamin Franklin’s "Drinker’s Dictionary," and a chat about how the drink of choice in revolutionary America switched from cider to rum.

American Indians and the tumult in their cultures precipitated by the arrival of alcohol.

What does it mean to be Muslim in America? And how has the practice of Islam in the U.S. changed over time?

On the occasion of Halloween, an exploration of previous generations' fascination with ghosts, spirits, and witches.

The legacy of Operation Pedro Pan, a plan to save Cuban children from communist indoctrination by leaving their families and resettling in the United States.

A brief discussion of the fierce 19th century debates over beards, and how booming American cities created the perfect climate for all that facial hair to grow.

A discussion of the patriotic attempt to spurn European fashion and spin cloth at home in the time leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Nasology was a 19th century pseudoscience which claimed to explain personality traits based on the shape of a person’s nose.

When the federal government began to claim a stake in the public’s physical fitness, and the origins of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.

How the mythologizing of the Union Army’s Irish Brigade helped dispel anti-Irish sentiment.

Women in the workplace, from 19th century domestic workers to the Rosies of World War II to the labs of Silicon Valley.

The story of the oil shocks of 1973 and how they continue to shape the world we live in today.

Syracuse University Geography professor Matt Huber discusses the 1930s oil boom in the American southwest, and the military might brought in to control it.

Tracing the evolution of Christmas from a drunken carnival to the peaceful, family-oriented, consumeristic ritual we celebrate today.

A time before “everyone” knew the story of Christopher Columbus, and the role of Washington Irving’s massive biography in creating the heroic Columbus myth.