[Abridged] Presidential Histories

Kenny Ryan

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From Yorktown to the Civil War, Pearl Harbor to 9/11, discover the pivotal moments that defined each president's life and legacy and the lessons we can draw from them. New episodes available the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month.

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Top 10 [Abridged] Presidential Histories Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best [Abridged] Presidential Histories episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to [Abridged] Presidential Histories for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite [Abridged] Presidential Histories episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

26.B.) How NY made TR, an interview with Ted Kohn

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

03/21/22 • 48 min

Theodore Roosevelt is one of the biggest personalities to ever inhabit the presidency, so of course he was born in New York City. Roosevelt was heir to one of the city's oldest families and a civil servant at nearly every level - state assemblyman, police commissioner, and governor of the Empire State.
Join me as I talk with Ted Kohn, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norwich University and author of Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt, on how Roosevelt's years in New York shaped him into the President we know.

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13.) Millard Fillmore 1850-1853

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

02/01/21 • 44 min

When Millard Fillmore became president, the country was on the verge of collapse. President Taylor had just died, the Compromise of 1850 appeared dead, and southern secessionist were organizing a convention to plot disunion. The nation looked to Fillmore to save it.
And he totally whiffed.
Follow along as Fillmore uses the scapegoating of minorities to rise to power, postpones Civil War for a decade with the Compromise of 1850, destroys the Whig party with his overzealous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, and runs for president with the Know Nothings - a nativist secret-society-turned-political-party that dreamt of building an America where immigrants, catholics, and minorities are second-class citizens.
Bibliography
1. Millard Fillmore – Paul Finkelman
2. Zachary Taylor – John D. Eisenhower
3. Heirs of the Founders – H.W. Brands
4. Abraham Lincoln – David Herbert Donald
5. Franklin Pierce – Michael F. Holt

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03.) Thomas Jefferson 1801-1809

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

05/01/20 • 46 min

Thomas Jefferson was once regarded as the greatest of Founding Fathers, and It's easy to see why. He wrote the Declaration of Independents, founded the nation's first political party, and acquired the Louisiana Purchase.
But in recent years, his standing has taken a hit. There's his embrace of partisan politics, his embargo policy that caused the nation's first economic depression, and his long-running affair with Sally Hemings, his dead wife's half-sister who was 30 years younger than him and, oh yeah, also happened to be his slave.
A mixed legacy, to say the least.
From the Continental Congress to revolutionary France and the Louisiana Purchase, we'll follow Thomas Jefferson as he outmaneuvers his political rivals in pursuit of power to mold the nation's destiny, and does just about whatever else he pleases along the way.
Bibliography
1. Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meacham
2. James Madison - Richard Brookhiser
3. The Last Founding Father, James Monroe and A Nation’s Call to Greatness - Harlow G Unger
4. John Adams - David McCullough
5. John Quincy Adams - Harlow G Unger
6. Washington, A Life - Ron Chernow
7. Hamilton - Ron Chernow
8. The Life of Andrew Jackson - Robert V. Remin
9. The Presidents Fact Book - Roger Matuz

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25.) William McKinley 1897-1901

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

01/03/22 • 53 min

Once upon a time, the United States stuck to its shores and big business largely stayed out of politics.
Then came William McKinley.
William McKinley took the United States international in a big way, carrying the American flag to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and China; he revolutionized political campaigning by leveraging the power of big business against a progressive populist threat and building a national campaign that was a quantum leap forward in political organization; and he crafted a international Chinese policy that is a big part of the reason we still have a China on the map, and not some carved up mess of former European colonies like we have in the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
Follow along as McKinley serves in the Civil War, enters politics, becomes a champion of big business, rewrites the political playbook in a successful campaign for the presidency, and dives head-first into the modern era of American overseas imperialism, only for his life to be cut short by an assassin driven by the one looming problem McKinley had not solved - the rampant economic inequality of the Gilded Age.
Bibliography
1. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century – Scott Miller
2. T.R. the last Romantic – H.R. Brands
3. Grover Cleveland – Henry F. Graff
4. Benjamin Harrison – Charles W. Calhoun
5. William Howard Taft – Jeffrey Rosen

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25.A.) How William McKinley revolutionized politics, an interview with Christopher McKnight Nichols

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

01/17/22 • 56 min

When William McKinley ran for president in 1896, he out-raised his opponent 7-to-1, printed more campaign literature than all previous GOP presidential candidates combined, and organized what is often called the first modern presidential campaign. How'd he do it?
Join me as I talk with professor Christopher McKnight Nichols, director of the Oregon State University Center for the Humanities; an expert on the Gilded Age, Progressive Era, World War I, and the 1918 flu pandemic; and author of Promise and Peril, America at the Dawn of the global age, to discuss what made McKinley's 1896 campaign such a game changer and how he pulled it off.

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01.) George Washington 1789-1797

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

03/30/20 • 44 min

Everyone knows George Washington was the first president of the United States. But that little phrase, "First president of the United States," hides a big story. Washington entered an office imbued with few clear powers or expectations and responsible for a young nation surrounded by potential enemies. Luckily for us, Washington had nerves of steel.
From his youth as a frontier warrior to his campaigns as a revolutionary general and his two terms in the White House, we'll follow Washington as he learns from his shortcomings and grows into the father of a nation.
Bibliography
1. Washington, A Life - Ron Chernow
2. Hamilton - Ron Chernow
3. John Adams - David McCullough
4. Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meacham
5. James Madison - Richard Brookhiser
6. The Last Founding Father, James Monroe and A Nation’s Call to Greatness - Harlow G Unger
7. The Presidents Fact Book - Roger Matuz

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05.) James Monroe 1817-1825

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

07/01/20 • 55 min

James Monroe has been called the Forrest Gump of Founding Fathers - he just keeps showing up everywhere! But that doesn't mean he isn't sharp. Monroe dropped out of college to fight in the revolution, and his life rarely slowed down after that. He'll dine with emperor's, oversee wars, and destroy his political opponents In a globe-trotting career that takes him from nearly being orphaned to the White House.
From his service In Washington's army during the Revolutionary War, to Valley Forge, to his vote against ratifying the Constitution, to his signing of the Louisiana Purchase, to his leadership as Secretary of State and War during the War of 1812, and finally the presidency, we'll follow Monroe as overcomes setbacks and learns from his mistakes to become one of the most influential presidents and Founding Fathers our country ever produced.
Bibliography
1. The Last Founding Father, James Monroe and A Nation’s Call to Greatness - Harlow G Unger
2. James Madison - Richard Brookhiser
3. Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meacham
4. John Quincy Adams - Harlow G Unger
5. The Life of Andrew Jackson - Robert V. Remin
6. Martin Van Buren and the American Political System - Donald B. Cole
7. The Presidents Fact Book - Roger Matuz

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02.) John Adams 1797-1801

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

04/05/20 • 42 min

John Adams is the Devil's Advocate of the Founding Fathers. A revolutionary turned international diplomat turned President who was never afraid to stand alone if he was convinced that standing alone was the right thing to do.
From the Boston Massacre to the Continental Congresses to the Treaty of Paris and the Quasi War with France, we'll follow Adams as he charts the unique path of a man who refused to be carried by the tides of history, and instead sought to control them.
Bibliography
1. John Adams - David McCullough
2. John Quincy Adams - Harlow G Unger
3. Washington, A Life - Ron Chernow
4. Hamilton - Ron Chernow
5. Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meacham
6. James Madison - Richard Brookhiser
7. The Last Founding Father, James Monroe and A Nation’s Call to Greatness - Harlow G Unger
8. The Presidents Fact Book - Roger Matuz

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15.) James Buchanan 1857-1861

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

04/01/21 • 50 min

In 1857, the debate over slavery had fractured Kansas, national political parties, and even national churches. It's easy to see why the country turned to James Buchanan, a man with one of the strongest resumes ever put in the white house.
Unfortunately, he inherited 31 states, and left behind 27, as the pre-civil was secession crisis overwhelmed the nation during his final months in office.
Follow along as Buchanan develops an affinity for southern slave culture, then vigorously advances that cause as a congressman, senator, minister abroad, secretary of state, and president, engages in all sorts of corruption to strengthen slavery as a president, and then sits by and does nothing to stop the secession of the south and the rapidly oncoming civil war.
Bibliography
1. James Buchanan – Jean H. Baker
2. Bosom Friends – Thomas Balcerski
3. Polk: The man who transformed the presidency – Walter R. Borneman
4. Millard Fillmore – Paul Finkelman
5. Abraham Lincoln – David Herbert Donald
6. Franklin Pierce – Michael F. Holta
7. Embattled Rebel – James M. McPherson

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14.) Franklin Pierce 1853-1857

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

03/01/21 • 45 min

"We Polked you in 44, we're Pierce you in 52!"
Franklin Pierce may have my favorite campaign slogan yet. But in terms of presidencies, wow, this guy is a total disaster. I mean, Millard Fillmore just nuked the only major opposition party into oblivion. Governing should be easy, right? Not when you're Pierce, who do his best to one-up Fillmore and wreck the Democratic party on the bloody shoal known as "Bleeding Kansas."
Follow along as Pierce falls hilariously short in his pursuit of military glory in the Mexican-American War, gets elected president anyway when Democratic partisans can't agree on any of the more-qualified candidates, and then triggers a mini Civil War in Kansas after he passes the Kansas-Nebraska act.
By the time Pierce leaves office, we'll be four years away from The Civil War.
Bibliography
1. Franklin Pierce – Michael F. Holt
2. Millard Fillmore – Paul Finkelman
3. Bosom Friends – Thomas J. Balcerski
4. James Buchanan - Jean H. Baker
5. Abraham Lincoln – David Herbert Donald