The Living Past: Current events explained through history.

Herman Forwood
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture
  • Weekly

To understand the present, look at the past. The Living Past is a history and current events podcast that connects today’s politics, business, culture, and global events with the historical patterns that came before them. Each episode explores modern issues through historical parallels — not to predict the future, but to give context, perspective, and a clearer way to understand the world we’re living in. Because most things we think are new… aren’t. Current events through the lens of history. More at: hermanforwood.com

  1. 3d ago

    Episode 1: Why Can't America Build Anything Anymore?

    In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, America built Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in just a few years. A century later, armed with vastly superior technology, engineering tools, and resources, we struggle to complete major infrastructure projects without years of delays and billions in cost overruns. What happened? In this episode, we explore America's growing infrastructure dilemma through real projects, revealing numbers, and comparisons with other countries. From Boston's infamous Big Dig and New York's multibillion-dollar subway expansions to Honolulu's elevated railway and California's high-speed rail, we examine how ambitious projects became entangled in escalating costs, construction delays, and complicated decision-making. But is the problem really environmental regulation? Labor costs? Government bureaucracy? Political interference? Poor planning? Or is it something more fundamental about how America organizes and manages major projects? The answers are more complicated than any single explanation. And it's not all bad news. America still delivers extraordinary projects. From rebuilding Minneapolis's collapsed I-35W bridge in just eleven months to Utah's massive highway reconstruction and New York's LaGuardia Airport transformation, there are success stories worth examining. We also look abroad, exploring what countries like Spain and China have done differently, and what lessons might apply here without sacrificing safety, environmental protections, or public accountability. Finally, we explore practical ways to improve infrastructure delivery, from better planning and smarter procurement to streamlined approvals, standardized designs, and stronger project management. This isn't a story about a country that has lost its engineering talent. It's about a country that still knows how to build, but often struggles to get things built. And the question is: What will it take to change that? Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Episode 1: Why Can't America Build Anything Anymore?

  2. Season 2 Trailer

    Preview: Why Can’t America Build Anything Anymore?

    America built the transcontinental railroad in six years, Hoover Dam in five, and the Golden Gate Bridge in just over four. Today, major infrastructure projects can take decades and cost billions more than promised. What changed? From California's high-speed rail to New York's troubled subway expansions, we examine why building in America has become so expensive and complicated, what's really causing the delays, and why some projects still succeed. Has America forgotten how to build, or have we made building unnecessarily difficult? Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Preview: Why Can’t America Build Anything Anymore?

  3. Sep 24

    Episode 17: The Power of Delusion

    We usually treat delusion as something dangerous: ignoring reality, overestimating ourselves, refusing to listen when everyone says we’re wrong. And often, that’s exactly what it is. But what if that same psychological trait is also necessary for major leaps forward? Starting with Australian Olympic breaker Raygun, this episode looks at the strange line between self-belief and self-deception. We move through inventors who endured thousands of failed attempts, astronauts who accepted extraordinary risk, artists and actors who survived years of rejection, and entrepreneurs who built companies on ideas that initially sounded ridiculous. Most dreamers fail. Some lose money, careers, relationships, or years of their lives. That cost is real. But hidden among them are the few whose irrational conviction eventually becomes invention, art, discovery, or progress. So before we dismiss someone as delusional, how certain are we that we’re seeing foolishness rather than something the rest of us simply can’t see yet? This episode isn’t an argument for blind optimism. It’s an exploration of why humanity may need people willing to believe before the evidence says they should. Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Episode 17: The Power of Delusion

  4. Season 1 Trailer

    Preview: The Power of Delusion

    What if delusion isn’t just a flaw, but one of the engines of human progress? From Raygun to inventors, astronauts, artists, athletes, and Silicon Valley founders, this episode explores why irrational self-belief can lead to spectacular failure... and occasionally change the world.

    Preview: The Power of Delusion

  5. Sep 3

    Episode 16: Our Strange Relationship With the Truth

    We like to think we are truth-seeking creatures. But are we? From the time we are children, we are surrounded by stories that are comforting, useful, beautiful—and sometimes completely untrue. We teach children to believe in Santa because the illusion creates joy. Families protect myths because the truth would create conflict. People stay loyal to political leaders they know are dishonest because the alternative feels worse. Religions offer meaning and certainty where evidence may be limited or impossible. Nations rewrite history to preserve identity. Companies sell narratives that everyone half-knows are exaggerated. And when reality finally breaks through, we act shocked. In this episode, we explore humanity’s complicated relationship with truth—not to judge it, but to understand it. Why do we prefer narrative over evidence? Why does emotional comfort so often outrank factual accuracy? Why do people defend beliefs that protect identity, family, religion, politics, status, or power? And what happens when powerful institutions decide that one group’s personal beliefs deserve protection while another group’s beliefs deserve punishment? From Santa Claus and family dysfunction to religion, politics, propaganda, national mythology, corporate deception, and collective denial, this episode asks a deeply uncomfortable question: Do we really want the truth—or do we want a story we can live with? Because stories can create real joy, real hope, real belonging, and real meaning. But stories can also create real wars, real injustice, real corruption, and real consequences. And reality has one advantage over every narrative we create: Eventually, it sends the bill. Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Episode 16: Our Strange Relationship With the Truth

  6. Season 1 Trailer

    Preview: Our Strange Relationship With the Truth

    Every Christmas, loving parents deliberately deceive their children. They eat the cookies. Move the presents. Invent the evidence. And everyone calls it magic. That may tell us something important about human nature. We say we want the truth—but when truth threatens comfort, identity, religion, politics, family, or power, we often choose the story instead. In this episode, we explore why humans cling to comforting narratives, why institutions protect certain beliefs while punishing others, and why we are always shocked when reality finally breaks through. Because maybe the real question isn’t: Why do people believe lies? Maybe it’s: What does the lie protect? Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Preview: Our Strange Relationship With the Truth

  7. Aug 12

    Episode 15: The Maxxing Economy: When Good Enough Is Never Enough

    We live in a culture obsessed with improving the final 2% while millions of people still haven't secured the first 80%. From peptides, sleep trackers, greens powders, luxury water, recovery devices, and celebrity wellness routines to credit-card debt, lifestyle imitation, and the endless pursuit of the “optimized” self, this episode explores how marginal improvements became a massive consumer economy. We look at why wealthy people chase tiny gains, how influencers turn those habits into aspiration, and what happens when ordinary people begin treating expensive extras as substitutes for the basics: sleep, exercise, nutrition, preventive healthcare, financial stability, and time. Because the real problem with over-optimization isn't that it's ridiculous. It's that it teaches us to confuse sophistication with importance, and to spend more and more fixing things that may not matter while ignoring the things that do. Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Episode 15: The Maxxing Economy: When Good Enough Is Never Enough

  8. Season 1 Trailer

    Preview: The Maxxing Economy: When Good Enough Is Never Enough

    We’ve somehow reached a point where people worry about sleep scores, peptides, special water, and recovery gadgets while barely sleeping, barely exercising, or carrying credit-card debt. This episode asks how that happened. How did the final 2% become more interesting than the first 80%? And why have we built an entire economy around convincing people that good enough is never actually good enough? Subscribe to be notified when the next episode is released. More at: www.hermanforwood.com

    Preview: The Maxxing Economy: When Good Enough Is Never Enough
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About

To understand the present, look at the past. The Living Past is a history and current events podcast that connects today’s politics, business, culture, and global events with the historical patterns that came before them. Each episode explores modern issues through historical parallels — not to predict the future, but to give context, perspective, and a clearer way to understand the world we’re living in. Because most things we think are new… aren’t. Current events through the lens of history. More at: hermanforwood.com

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