Happy fifth!! On this special edition of "Axelbank Reports History and Today," we are thrilled to chat with HW Brands to celebrate this show's fifth anniversary. Over the last five years, we have published 180 episodes and profiled books and authors of many stripes. We have done our best to make history relevant to today, and to give our listeners the information they need to get along in their communities and to make informed decisions about protecting American democracy. Thank you for being along for the ride!

Professor Brands joined us to celebrate and to talk about his career in history. He is writing his 31st book - on George Washington, to be titled "American Patriarch" and released in 2026 - and publishes a Substack multiple times a week called, "A User's Guide to History."

HW Brands' substack can be found at https://hwbrands.substack.com/

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From the publisher:

"In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general.

Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the founding of New York to be an invention, the result of creative negotiations that would blend the multiethnic, capitalistic society of New Amsterdam with the power of the rising English empire. But the birth of what might be termed the first modern city is also a story of the brutal dispossession of Native Americans and of the roots of American slavery...

Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York’s origins—boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement—reflects America’s promise and failure to this day."

Russell Shorto's website can be found at https://www.russellshorto.com/

Information on his book can be found at https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881172

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Harriet Tubman is well-known for being a conductor of the Underground Railroad. She helped dozens of people escape the slave-owning south through her bravery, wisdom and skill. But as Edda Fields-Black discovered, she also helped Union troops raid rice plantations in South Carolina and free hundreds of people who were living in some of the worst conditions imaginable. On this episode, we talk with this newly-minted Pulitzer Prize winner about how she wrote "Combee" and how her own family's history is tied to Harriet Tubman.

Edda Fields-Black's website can be found at https://eddafieldsblack.com/

Information on her book from Oxford University Press can be found at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/combee-9780197552797?cc=us&lang=en&

Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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From the publisher: On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews set sail—not to Jerusalem or New York, where many on board had dreamed they would go, but to Texas. The man who encouraged the passengers to go was David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. The journey marked the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when ten thousand Jews fled to Texas in the lead-up to World War I.

The charismatic leader of the movement was Jochelmann’s closest friend, Israel Zangwill, an internationally acclaimed novelist. As antisemitic violence rose in Eastern Europe, Zangwill embarked on a desperate search for a temporary homeland—from Australia to Canada, Angola to Antarctica—before reluctantly settling on Galveston. He feared the Jewish people would be absorbed into the great American melting pot, but there was no other hope.

In a highly inventive style, Cockerell gives us history exactly as it unfolds, weaving letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and interviews into a vivid account. MELTING POINT follows Zangwill and the Jochelmann family through two world wars, to London, New York, and Jerusalem as their lives intertwine with some of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century. As each person chooses whether to cling to their history or melt into their new surroundings, the book ultimately asks what it means to belong, what can be salvaged from the past, and whether a promised land can ever live up to its promises.

Rachel Cockerell's website can be found at https://www.rachelcockerell.co.uk/

Her social media feed can be found at https://x.com/rachelcockerell

Information on her book can be found at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374609269/meltingpoint/

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From the publisher:

Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander Gadson uncovers these episodes of civil unrest and examines how state governments handled them.

Information on his book can be found at https://nyupress.org/9781479828883/sedition/

Marcus Gadson can be reached on social media at https://x.com/MarcusAGadson

Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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From the publisher: The gripping, true, and untold history of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during World War II, told through the stories of four spectacularly courageous women fighters

From underground soldiers to intrepid spies, Women of War unearths the hidden history of the brave women who risked their lives to overthrow the Nazi occupation and liberate Italy. Using primary sources and brand new scholarship, historian Suzanne Cope illuminates the roles played by women while Italians struggled under dual foes: Nazi invaders and Italian fascist loyalists.

Cope’s research and storytelling introduces four brave and resourceful women who risked everything to overthrow the Nazi occupation and pry their future from the fascist grasp. We meet Carla Capponi in Rome, where she made bombs in an underground bunker then ferried them to their deadly destination wearing lipstick and a trenchcoat; and Bianca Guidetti Serra who rode her bicycle up switchbacks in the Alps, dodging bullets while delivering bags of clandestine newspapers and munitions to the anti-fascist armies hidden in the mountains. In Florence, the young future author of Italy’s new constitution, Teresa Mattei, carried secret messages and hid bombs; while Anita Malavasi led troops across the Apennine Mountains. Women of War brings their experiences as underground resistance fighters, partisan combatants, spies, and saboteurs to life.

Dr. Suzanne Cope's website can be found at https://www.suzannecope.com/

Information on her book can be found at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747060/women-of-war-by-suzanne-cope

Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Perhaps the worst punishment that can be inflicted on someone is to be forced away from one's own family. When the slave trade was active in the United States, potentially a million people were sold away from their families either for punishment or profit. After slavery ended, many of those who had not seen their families for years took out ads in newspapers, hoping for a clue that would help them reunite with their families. In "Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families," Dr. Judith Giesberg shows how freedpeople used newspapers to keep their ultimate dream alive and rebuild their families. In this episode, she also describes how her team of researchers have cataloged thousands of those advertisements, in hopes of shedding light on the fight for human dignity, and so that descendants of slaves might learn about what their families went through.

Information on Judith Giesberg's book can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Last-Seen/Judith-Giesberg/9781982174323

The "Last Seen" project can be found at informationwanted.org

Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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In "Red Scare," Clay Risen traces the cultural differences in contemporary America to McCarthyism and the disagreements in the 1940s and 50s over how the United States should respond to Russian efforts to influence American society. He shows how the American political system was weaponized against those deemed worthy of suspicion, and how that destroyed the lives of thousands of people. He also shows how disagreements over the New Deal and how to respond to a growing nuclear threat morphed into culture wars that are still present today.

Clay Risen's website can be found at https://www.clayrisen.com/

Information on his book can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Red-Scare/Clay-Risen/9781982141806

Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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