Enjoy our recent episodes at HbN Podcast.

 News:  more Americans are ending up homeless at a record rate  

History Behind News: how did it get so bad? 

• Before recent times, did America suffer from a crisis of mass homelessness? (Hint: Hoovervilles). 
• How does our current homelessness crisis compare to the past? 
• How did we get to this current moment? 
• How did Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton change our attitudes and laws toward homelessness? 
• Is homelessness a Republican or a Democratic problem? 
• As a nation, should we deal with homelessness at the national or local level? 
• Were there studies that showed a larger proportion of homeless people caught COVID in comparison to the general population? 
• Is housing a basic human right? 
• Do homeless children have the right to go to school? 
• Which one is more effective for addressing homelessness: housing or shelters? 
• Does she have any solutions for our homeless problem? 
• If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “homelessness”, what would it be?  

HbN Guest: Prof. Maria Foscarinis

Author of: forthcoming book on the history of homelessness and how to end it

About Our Guest: Prof. Foscarinis is a lecturer at Columbia Law School, where she serves on the Public Interest/Public Service Council. She is the founder and former executive director of the National Homelessness Law Center. 

Listen above. 

 News: Thanksgiving

History Behind News: what was that first Thanksgiving in 1621 like? 

• For how long had the English been attempting to settle the East Coast of America? 
• Did the Wampanoag Indians have contact with the English before Plymouth?  
• Why did the English settle in Plymouth? 
• Why were the Wampanoag Indians "friendly" to the English at Plymouth? 
• How did that first Thanksgiving in 1621 happen? 
• Was there another Thanksgiving feast in 1622? 1623? 
• How did the "friendly" relationship between Wampanoag Indians and the English degenerate into total war within a generation? 

HbN Guest: Dr. David Silverman

Author of: This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving

About Our Guest: Dr. Silverman is a professor at George Washington University's Department of History Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, where his focus is on Early America and Native America. In addition to This Land is Their Land, he has written several books on these subjects.

Listen above. 

 News: the news media's constant coverage of Taylor Swift 

History Behind News: America's Concerts Before Taylor Swift 

• What were music concerts like in the 19th century? 
• Who was Jenny Lind? This "Swedish Nightingale" superstar of the 19th century? 
• Since loudspeakers were not in use back then, these concerts were probably limited in size, correct?
• How were 19th-century concerts advertised around the country? 
• Did the U.S. Civil War have an impact on America’s music? 
• When did loudspeakers and recordings enter the picture? How did they impact music and musicians?  
• When did concerts begin resembling modern concerts?
• What’s the impact of social media on music concerts? 
• What was considered popular music in the 19th century? 
• How do we compare Taylor Swift’s concert to our history of concerts?

Image description: Taylor Swift 2023 MTV Video Music Awards by iHeartRadioCA, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia.org. Also Jenny Lind's 1862 portrait (Public Domain). 

HbN Guest: Dr. James Davis & Dr. Steve Waksman

Author of: Maryland, My Maryland: Music and Patriotism during the American Civil War  (Dr. Davis) &  Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé (Dr. Waksman)

About Our Guests: Dr. Davis is a professor of Musicology and Chair of the Music History Area at the School of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia. Dr. Waksman is the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music and Professor of American Studies; and Chair in  American Studies at Smith College. 

Listen above. 

 News: The Unwanted FIFA Kiss - Rubiales is banned from football-related activities for 3 years

History behind news: In this episode, I ask my guest, Dr. Marta del Moral, the following questions:

•  How did women's conditions and rights in Spain from the 19th century to 1933 compare to other European countries? 
• Were women deemed intellectually equal to men? And if so, were they given the same rights? 
• When did Spanish women gain the right to vote and how did they effectively lose it?
• How did Franco's regime impact women's rights and conditions? 
• What is (was) permiso marital? 
• How were rapists treated in Spain? 
• What was the punishment for a man who killed his adulterous wife?
• How did women's conditions and rights change after democracy returned to Spain starting in 1975? 
• The Unwanted FIFA Kiss - how did this fit within Spanish women's long struggle for equal rights and Spain's "Macho Culture"? 

⁠Dr. del Moral⁠ is a professor of gender equality at the Complutense University of Madrid. She directs the Research Group: Gender Relations in the Contemporary World: an interdisciplinary perspective from History, Geography and Law, where she has investigated women's participation in local governments. 

She has received many awards and prizes for her research. And also obtained many teaching awards, including the Student's Union "You're Awesome Award" at the University of Bath, England. 

Also, be sure to visit HbN's Women's Rights Series. 

Listen above. 

 News: Israel-Gaza Conflict, part of HbN's Middle East Scholar Series 

History behind news: In this episode, I ask my guest, Dr. Howard Lupovitch, the following questions:

•  What’s the difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews? 
• So, why didn't the Jews of the diaspora speak Hebrew? 
• What is the story of the Medieval Jewish Kingdom of Khazar?
• What is this Jewish jurisdiction in Russia? 
• Why is the story of Jews in Spain the focus of so much attention? 
• How did Jews end up in Poland? And how did they thrive there (relatively speaking)? 
• What is so special about Persian Jews? 
• How important was conversion to the Jewish experience? How does one convert to Judaism anyway? 
• What did Jews call the countries in which they lived during the diaspora?
• What are some legacies of the Jewish diaspora - aside from the horrific experiences of persecution and the Holocaust? 
• If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “the Jewish diaspora”, what would it be?   

Dr. Lupovitch is a professor of history and the director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University. He specializes in modern Jewish History, specifically the Jews of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy.  He recently completed a history of the Jews of Budapest and is currently writing a history of the Neolog Movement, Hungarian Jewry's progressive wing.

He is the author of Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Budapest Jewish Community, 1738-1938. 

By the way, the image in the video below, which we have stretched vertically to amplify details, is by Sodabottle - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, on Wikimedia. 

Listen above. 

 News: Israel's ground invasion of Gaza. 

History behind news: In this episode, I ask my guest, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Walters, the following questions:

• When did this term, urban warfare, enter our lexicon?  
• Does urban warfare give one side a boost, an advantage that they might not have otherwise had in open terrain warfare?  
• Are there special urban warfare military tactics?  
• Does the U.S. military have special units specifically trained for urban warfare?  
• You've conquered a city - what next? How do you get out?  
• What are some salient examples of modern warfare?  
• Are there rules of engagement when it comes to urban warfare?  
• How do hostages complicate urban warfare?  
• In history, do we have examples of urban warfare in which the dominant party refrained from bombarding cities?  
• What lessons can we glean from the history of urban warfare for the potential urban war in Gaza?  
• If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “urban warfare”, what would it be?    

Dr. Walters is an Assistant Professor of Military and Security Studies in the Department of International Security at the Air Command and Staff College. She received both her MA and PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Dr. Walters is currently working on an oral history project exploring Operation Allies Welcome, the U.S. military support for the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans spanning 2021-2022. 

Her second book project, Hospitality is the Law of the Mountains: The 1999 Kosovo War, examines how Albanians – motivated by the Albanian concept of hospitality – took strangers into their homes and communities and changed the course of the refugee crisis. 

Listen above. 

News: Gaza and Israel - violence & war

History behind news: In this episode, my guest, Dr. Michael Ptylik, tells the story of the origin of the Jewish people. We have invited and will soon have guests to tell the story of the Palestinian people. 

Topics in this conversation: 

• From when were the Jewish people called Jewish?
• What was their land called?  
• When did Jews form a polity? 
• So, was it Judaism or Yahwism? 
• When did Judaism become a religion? 
• When did Jewish people begin to leave Israel? 
• How much of the Bible about the Jewish people is myth? And how much of it is history? 

Dr. Michael Pytlik, HbN's guest, is a professor of in Anthropology and Judaic Studies, Director of Judaic Studies, and Director of the Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies at Oakland, University, in Rochester, MI. 

To learn more about him, you can visit his ⁠academic homepage⁠. Also, here is his dissertation on ⁠Imagining  David, the Man and King⁠, and also a paper on the⁠ Canaanite and Judean Cities of Lachish, Israel⁠.

Listen above. 

News: President Biden pickets along UAW members

History behind news: On the balance, have labor unions benefited American labor?

 Dr. Masters is a professor of business in the Department of Management and Information Systems at the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University. He is the author of several books, including The UAW: An Iconic Union Falls in Scandal.

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