The Last Best Hope?

Adam Smith
  • 4.6 (60)
  • HISTORY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Historian and broadcaster Professor Adam Smith explores the America of today through the lens of the past. Is America - as Abraham Lincoln once claimed - the last best hope of Earth? Produced by Oxford University’s world-leading Rothermere American Institute, each story-filled episode looks at the US from the outside in – delving into the political events, conflicts, speeches and songs that have shaped and embodied the soul of a nation. From the bloody battlefields of Gettysburg to fake news and gun control, Professor Smith takes you back in time (and sometimes on location) to uncover fresh insights and commentary from award-winning academics and prominent public figures. Join us as we ask: what does the US stand for – and what does this mean for us all?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 22H AGO

    Can federalism save American liberalism?

    For much of the twentieth century, progressives in America wanted to expand the Federal Government. They created regulation, bureaucracy, and agencies capable of managing a complex industrial society. And often state governments were the obstacles they had to flatten – that was most obviously true of the movement for racial equality: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 empowered the Federal government to step in and override the racist laws and practices that state governments implemented or failed to prevent. The working assumption of liberal politicians was that rights should be equally protected everywhere – from women’s access to abortion, to criminal justice, to the right to vote – and that idea even justified Federal government action in areas like education, which were otherwise clearly the preserve of the states. But today, things look different. The right is in control in Washington; maybe the states and state courts provide alternative pathways for liberals, in the way that they once were for conservatives? Can states not only resist federal power but also pioneer new forms of governance? Adam is joined by Emily Zackin, Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at Johns Hopkins and currently the Winant Professor of American Government at Oxford. And by Judge Daniel Korobkin, who sits on the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    40 min

  2. FEB 11

    Hillary Rodham Clinton on how America can save itself

    Hillary Rodham Clinton has been at the centre of American public life for thirty years. She has exercised more power from more senior positions than any other woman in American history. Clinton has just co-edited a new book Inside the Situation Room: The Theory and Practice of Crisis Decision-making. and in this special episode, she discusses with Adam a key case study in that book -- the raid in which Bin Laden was killed -- and in doing so, reflects on her idea of what America is and can be.  The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min
  3. New Series Trailer: What’s Coming Next

    TRAILER

    New Series Trailer: What’s Coming Next

    In the new series beginning on the 11th of February 2026, Adam speaks to Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about her vision of America and its place in the world and considers whether “states’ rights” should now become the battle cry of progressives.  And this year of course marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in special two-part documentary, The Last Best Hope explores why the authors chose to use write it in the way they did, and why that matters. "The Last Best Hope is an absolutely brilliant podcast. Thoughtful, clever, engaging and accessible, Adam Smith always gets the best out of his guests, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from every episode. I love it." Dominic Sandbrook, Historian and co-host of The Rest is History “The must-listen US podcast” Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New York The Last Best Hope is a podcast produced by the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. The presenter is Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of US Politics and Political History, and the Producer is Emily Williams. For more information about the Rothermere American Institute and our programme of events visit https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/home The RAI achieves all it does through the generosity of individual benefactors, trusts, and foundations who share the Institute's commitment to world-class research on the United States. If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 min

  4. 11/19/2025

    Why the Gettysburg Address Matters, Part 2

    It is one of the most famous speeches in the English language and one of the most consequential. In this special two-part documentary, we explore Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – why he gave it, what it meant, and its impact at the time and ever since. From the rolling fields of Pennsylvania to Parliament Square in London and the dust of Havana, Cuba, Adam Smith follows the path of the Gettysburg Address and asks why it is has mattered. Contributors: Steve Scafidi, a poet and the author of  To the Bramble and the Briar (University of Arkansas Press, 2014); Richard Carwardine, Rhodes Professor Emeritus at the University of Oxford and author of Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union (Knopf, 2024); Elizabeth Varon, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and author of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2019); Martin P. Johnson, Associate Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio and author of Writing the Gettysburg Address (University Press of Kansas, 2013); and Dr Jared Peatman, George Washington University, and author of The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (Illinois University Press, 2013). Adam's latest book is Gettysburg (Oxford University Press, 2025) The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.uk Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    42 min

  5. 11/12/2025

    Why the Gettysburg Address Matters, Part 1

    It is one of the most famous speeches in the English language and one of the most consequential. In this special two-part documentary, we explore Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – why he gave it, what it meant, and its impact at the time and ever since. From the rolling fields of Pennsylvania to Parliament Square in London and the dust of Havana, Cuba, Adam Smith follows the path of the Gettysburg Address and asks why it is has mattered. Contributors: Steve Scafidi, a poet and the author of  To the Bramble and the Briar (University of Arkansas Press, 2014); Richard Carwardine, Rhodes Professor Emeritus at the University of Oxford and author of Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union (Knopf, 2024); Elizabeth Varon, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and author of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2019); Martin P. Johnson, Associate Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio and author of Writing the Gettysburg Address (University Press of Kansas, 2013); and Dr Jared Peatman, George Washington University, and author of The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (Illinois University Press, 2013). Adam's latest book is Gettysburg (Oxford University Press, 2025) The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.uk Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min

  6. 11/05/2025

    How Will History Judge Joe Biden?

    A year on, what does Trump’s comeback say about Biden’s understanding of the country he led? Was his vision of America already obsolete — a relic of the bipartisan consensus forged in the 1950s when young Joe was coming of age?  In this episode, we trace Biden’s life through the long arc of American politics over the last 80 years, examining the forces that shaped him and the decisions that defined his time in office, his personal story—tragedy, perseverance, and decades of political ambition—and his commitment to a particular vision of America, as the last best hope of earth.   In the end, what do Biden’s undoubted successes and ultimate, era-defining failure tell us about that optimistic, exceptionalist vision of America in which he so passionately believed?  Adam Smith is joined by Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future. And Bruce Schulman, William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University, and pre-eminent scholar of American political history. The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.uk Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    50 min

  7. 10/29/2025

    The Myth of the Frontier

    If America is the last, best hope of earth, one reason is the frontier. The frontier has been imagined as the place—or perhaps the process—through which the American character is forged—rugged individualism, the possibility of acquiring land and wealth, where happiness is pursued. For the historian Frederick Jackson Turner in the 1890s, the frontier was what made Americans different. Democracy was not born of a theorists dream, Turner said, nor was freedom something transplanted by Puritans from England, it was forged every time Americans found new frontiers. The frontier gave Americans a restless, nervous energy, a sense of purpose and direction. The frontier was, perhaps above all, a way that Americans, uniquely, could escape the bounds of history, the constraints of resources, of space of land that hampered less favoured nations – it was therefore a way of talking about the future and the endless barrelling forward of their raucous, capitalist, populist society. But where did the myth of the frontier come from? How does it relate to the reality of western expansion, if it does at all? And what of today? How does the optimistic myth of a frontier as a place of possibility fare in a world of ICE agents and border walls. Rather than the endless expansion promised by the myth of the frontier, is America closing in? Adam Smith is joined by two great historians: Patrician Nelson Limerick, professor of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, one of the founders of the “New Western History” and author of Legacy of Conquest: the unbroken past of the American West. And Greg Grandin, Professor of History at Yale, and the author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2020. The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.uk Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min

  8. 10/22/2025

    Trump’s Second Term Foreign Policy in Historical Context

    Beneath the chaos of Donald Trump’s second term foreign policy—the bluster, bravado, back-handers and backdowns—is there something else going on? Has the United States reached a turning point in its relationship to the rest of the world? The era in which the United States constructed multilateral alliances to defend western Europe and advance a global free trade agenda appears to be over. Listen to the people around Trump and you will hear them talking in quite different ways – contempt for Western Europe, admiration for the audacity of Putin in reasserting Russia’s regional sphere of influence. It is as if the United States has decided to retrench geopolitically – controlling Greenland, fantasising about annexing Canada, realising total domination of the northern part of the western hemisphere with all its mineral wealth and, with climate change, new strategically vital sea-lanes? But if this is a new American foreign policy, is it one that has more than an echo of the pre-Second World War past? After all, it was a commonplace of nineteenth-century US politicians to make fiery speeches threatening to annexe Canada, and they actually did annexe half of Mexico and threaten much more. So, are there ways in which pre-1941 ideas about the US’s role in the world are relevant to understanding the US’s current geopolitical choices? And what does that tell us about the future? Adam Smith speaks to Daniel Drezner, Distinguished Professor of International Politics and Academic Dean at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University., prolific writer and author, among many other books and article, of The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump teaches us about the modern presidency and to Jay Sexton, President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Rich and Nancy Kinder Chair of Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri, also a prolific writer, among his influential books is The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth Century America The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. For details of our programming go to rai.ox.ac.uk Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min
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About

Historian and broadcaster Professor Adam Smith explores the America of today through the lens of the past. Is America - as Abraham Lincoln once claimed - the last best hope of Earth? Produced by Oxford University’s world-leading Rothermere American Institute, each story-filled episode looks at the US from the outside in – delving into the political events, conflicts, speeches and songs that have shaped and embodied the soul of a nation. From the bloody battlefields of Gettysburg to fake news and gun control, Professor Smith takes you back in time (and sometimes on location) to uncover fresh insights and commentary from award-winning academics and prominent public figures. Join us as we ask: what does the US stand for – and what does this mean for us all?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Adam Smith
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    80
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2022 The Last Best Hope?: Understanding America from the Outside In
  • Show Website
    The Last Best Hope?

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