The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work

UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy
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"The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work" connects past to present, using historical analysis and context to help guide us through modern issues and policy decisions. Then & Now is brought to you by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. This podcast is produced by David Myers and Roselyn Campbell, and features original music by Daniel Raijman.

  1. 1D AGO

    Why Does US-Iran Hostility Persist?

    In this episode of The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work, host David Myers speaks with Dalia Dassa Kaye on why U.S.–Iran relations constitute the longest-running hostility in American foreign policy. Dalia argues that while Iranian actions and the regime’s post-1979 anti-American ideology are central to the conflict, U.S. policy narratives have also played a decisive role. Repeatedly framing Iran as a permanent rogue state has narrowed the American policy imagination, raised the domestic political costs of engagement, and foreclosed opportunities to test alternative approaches. Across administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, there has often been strategic interest in easing hostility, yet entrenched discourse, fear of appearing “soft,” and political risk have consistently blocked change. Dr. Kaye emphasizes that trauma from the 1979 hostage crisis alone cannot explain policy rigidity, noting moments such as Iran-Contra and post-9/11 cooperation that reveal recurring, if fragile, openings shaped by strategic necessity. Turning to recent developments, she traces today’s accelerated escalation to the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the regional consequences of October 7th, and the June 2025 Israel–Iran confrontation, arguing that these events fundamentally altered deterrence attempts without producing clear paths to stability. Dr. Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and director of its Initiative on Regional Security Architectures. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dalia is an internationally recognized expert on geopolitics and Middle East policy. She has received numerous awards and held previous positions at an array of research and public policy institutions, including as a Fulbright Schuman visiting scholar at Lund University. She is the author of dozens of articles and policy reports, as well as three books, including most recently Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy (Stanford University Press, 2026).

    51 min

  2. JAN 21

    The Living Legacy of the Grateful Dead

    In this episode, host David Myers interviews Jim Newton, renowned political journalist and UCLA lecturer, on his recent book on musician Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, the iconic American band.  Newton reflects on his personal and professional pathway to writing about the Dead. He traces his first serious recognition of “Deadhead culture” to the 1982 US Festival, where the band’s community stood out sharply against the broader music landscape. The conversation emphasizes the Dead’s “unique alchemy”: a convergence of Bay Area time and place, the improvisational ethos, the band’s eclectic musical catalogue, and the formative social experimentation of the Acid Tests. Newton argues that the band’s unusually porous relationship with its audience, rooted in these early LSD gatherings where the Dead were not the central attraction, helped produce a distinctive form of loyalty and collective identity that endured long after the scene expanded beyond its intimate origins. Newton frames the Dead as culturally radical but not conventionally political, aligning the band more with a bohemian ethic of lived values than an evangelical politics of persuasion. The Dead, Newton suggests, modeled community, freedom, and “collective bliss” as a refuge in both the late 1960s and the Reagan-era 1980s. Turning to Jerry Garcia, Newton offers a sober epitaph: an obsessive musical genius with vast curiosity and a deep resistance to responsibility, ultimately undone by addiction and isolation. Yet the episode closes on the enduring afterlife of the Dead through successor acts and cover bands, arguing that the phenomenon persists because it meets persistent social needs that are captured, for Newton, most powerfully in the song “Ripple.” Jim Newton is a veteran journalist, author and teacher. In 25 years at the Los Angeles Times, Newton worked as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, columnist and, from 2007 through 2010, editor of the editorial pages. He is the recipient of numerous national and local awards in journalism and participated in two staff efforts, coverage of the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Newton began working at UCLA full-time in early 2015, teaching in Communication Studies and Public Policy and founding Blueprint, a new UCLA magazine addressing the policy challenges facing California and Los Angeles in particular. He serves as the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Newton also is a respected author of important works of history including Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, Eisenhower: The White House Years, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace, and his 2020 release Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown, and most recently: Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and an American Awakening.

    45 min

  3. 11/26/2025

    The Future of History Part 2: Special Episode

    In the second part of then & now’s special presentation of the panels from the “Future of History” conference, David Myers, host of then & now, moderates a conversation on the precarious state of history, democracy, and cultural institutions in the United States. The panelists include Lonnie G. Bunch III, the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Athena N. Jackson, UCLA’s Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian; and Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and holder of the Gary B. Nash Chair in American History at UCLA. Lonnie Bunch warns that today’s political climate poses an unprecedented threat to cultural institutions, from politicians claiming historians can be replaced by AI to direct pressure on the Smithsonian. Extending these concerns to the university, Athena Jackson highlights mounting challenges to libraries and archives, including politically driven limits on collecting and anxieties over corrupted digital data. Robin Kelley situates these pressures within a long history of attacks on curriculum, public knowledge, and racial justice, insisting that scholars must continue to expose structural inequality and resist resurgent fascism. David Myers is the host of then & now, director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy, and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA. He also directs the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate. He has written extensively in the fields of modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history. He previously served as chair of the UCLA History Department and as director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies. Athena N. Jackson became the Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian in March 2024, marking her return to UCLA after previously serving as director of UCLA Library Special Collections. She is an active member of the Association of Research Libraries and she served as chair of the Association of College and Research Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Section executive committee. Lonnie G. Bunch III is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian. His most recent book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, chronicles the making of the museum that would become one of the most popular destinations in Washington. In 2021, Bunch received France’s highest award, The Legion of Honor. Robin D.G. Kelly is Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. He is currently completing two books, Making a Killing: Cops, Capitalism, and the War on Black Life (Henry Holt, 2027) The Education of Ms. Grace Halsell: An Intimate History of the American Century (in progress, Henry Holt).

    1h 11m

  4. 11/19/2025

    The Future of History Part 1: Special Episode

    This episode of then & now features a panel from the “Future of History” conference moderated by UCLA Professor Brenda Stevenson, an award-winning historian of race, gender, slavery, and community. She introduces three UCLA historians whose work spans the U.S. and the globe: Professor Kelly Lytle Hernández, a MacArthur Fellow and leading scholar of race, immigration, and mass incarceration; Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Distinguished Professor and global historian of the early modern world; and Professor Vivien Tejada, a rising scholar of 19th-century African American and Native American history. Lytle Hernández details her public-facing work, including Million-Dollar Hoods and Mapping Deportations, and her efforts with the Zinn Education Project to support teachers nationwide. Subrahmanyam draws on experiences teaching in Europe, South America, and India to outline global anxieties about the U.S. academy. Tejada emphasizes how the abrupt reversal of post-2020 hiring initiatives threatens future scholarship in Black, Native, and Latinx history. Together, the panelists explore the role of historians in shaping public narratives, covering topics such as “patriotic history,” big-data projects, archival access, controversy around AI, and the teaching of writing and critical literacy. They reflect on internal debates within the field: DEI backlash, community engagement, shrinking academic resources, objectivity, “woke-ism,” and the legacy of the Ginzburg–Hayden White debate.  Brenda Stevenson holds the inaugural Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History at St. John’s College, Oxford University and the Nickoll Family Endowed Chair in History at UCLA. She is an internationally recognized scholar whose work bridges race, slavery, gender, family, and community in the United States and beyond. Her most recent book What is Slavery? was published by Cambridge University Press. Professor Kelly Lytle Hernández holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of many award-winning books including Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands. For her historical and contemporary work, Professor Lytle Hernández was named a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow.  Sanjay Subrahmanyam is the Distinguished Professor of History and Irving & Jean Stone Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA. A specialist of the early modern period (15th-18th centuries), his work ranges between studies of India and the Indian Ocean, the early modern European empires, and reflections on global history as a field of research. In 2024, he published Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2024), with UK and Indian editions.  Vivien Tejada is an Assistant Professor of U.S. history at UCLA. She is a scholar of the nineteenth-century United States with a focus on the Civil War era. Her research interests lie in the intersections between Native American history and African American history. Her current project, “Unfree Soil: Empire, Labor, and Coercion in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, 1812-1861,” examines the relationship between slavery and conquest in the Upper Midwest.

    1h 14m

  5. 11/05/2025

    Plenary Address from the Urban History Association: Special Episode

    In this week’s episode of then & now, David Myers moderates a panel discussion from the recent Urban History Association meeting in Los Angeles.  The panel discussed two important questions: What is distinctive about Los Angeles as an urban experience and experiment? And what does L.A. tell us or teach us about urban life at this critical moment in U.S. history? Panelists included a mix of distinguished experts and commentators: historian Becky Nicolaides, L.A. Times journalist Gustavo Arellano, architect Brenda Levin, and political scientist Raphael J. Sonenshein.  Historian Becky Nicolaides traces L.A.’s evolution beyond its classic “sunshine and noir” dichotomy, highlighting its history as a sanctuary for immigrants, a hub for labor rights, and a place where grassroots activism reshaped civic life. Journalist Gustavo Arellano examines L.A. as a city under political siege, describing how Angelenos have united against authoritarian overreach through local organizing and cultural solidarity. Arellano argues that multiculturalism is L.A.’s future and that its people “el pueblo no se raja” (do not back down). Architect Brenda Levin explores L.A.’s constructed environment as both memory and reinvention, showing how landmarks like the Griffith Observatory and Grand Central Market embody the city’s ongoing negotiation between preservation and progress. Finally, political scholar Raphael Sonenshein portrays Los Angeles as a proving ground for urban reform and “home rule,” arguing that local governance may be the last firewall for American democracy.   Dr. Becky Nicolaides is an expert on the history of the 20th century, and author of several award-winning studies of suburban life in America, including The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945, came out in January 2024.  Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California, the West, and beyond.  Brenda Levin is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. AIA / Los Angeles selected her to receive the 2010 Gold Medal. Levin studied architecture at Harvard and founded Levin & Associates architecture and urban design firm in 1980. Dr. Raphael J. Sonenshein is the executive director of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.

    1h 13m

  6. 09/25/2025

    Important Update for Then & Now

    We are redesigning Then & Now to better reach you, our listeners! Please fill out this survey before October 15, 2025, to let us know how we can improve, and be entered to win a FREE copy of Dr. Myers' book The Stakes of History. We look forward to your feedback! Survey link: https://tinyurl.com/Then-and-Now-Podcast-Survey

    1 min

  7. 09/03/2025

    Race, Industry, and Resistance: A Conversation with Jennifer Klein.

    In this week’s episode of then & now, guest host Dr. Ben Zdencanovic is joined by Dr. Jennifer Klein, the Bradford Durfee Professor of History at Yale University, to explore Cancer Alley, the stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. Spanning roughly one hundred miles, Cancer Alley is densely packed with chemical plants, hazardous waste sites, and prisons, resulting in some of the highest rates of pollution in the country. Drawing together questions of environment, community health, and economic development, Jennifer considers how industrialization and environmental racism have shaped the lived experiences of residents along the Mississippi River corridor, while also illuminating broader debates about capitalism, geography, and inequality in American life. Jennifer Klein is the Durfee Professor of History in the field of 20th-century U.S. history at Yale University. Jennifer’s research spans the fields of U.S. labor history, urban history, social movements, and political economy.  Her publications include Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press, 2012), co-authored with Eileen Boris, which was awarded the Sara A. Whaley book prize from the National Women’s Studies Association; and For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America’s Public-Private Welfare State (Princeton University Press, 2003)

    33 min

  8. 08/20/2025

    The Challenge to University Autonomy in an Illiberal Age: A Conversation with David N. Myers and Ben Zdencanovic.

    In this week’s episode of then & now, LCHP Director Professor David N. Myers is joined by Dr. Ben Zdencanovic to discuss their collaborative work on a new LCHP report, The Challenge to University Autonomy in an Illiberal Age: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Compiled over the past year as higher education in the U.S. faces heightened scrutiny and mounting political pressures from the U.S. government, this report situates present debates within a longue durée of institutional vulnerability to political pressures. The report analyzes historical case studies from the U.S. in which universities were subjected to external intervention alongside contemporary international examples of academic institutions confronting encroachments by illiberal regimes. Through historical precedent, cross-national analysis, and policy recommendations, David and Ben illuminate both the recurring struggles between universities and political powers and consider the strategies by which universities and academics might preserve autonomy, defend academic freedom, and fulfill their civic responsibilities in the present.   You can read the full report on our LCHP website here.  David N. Myers is a Distinguished Professor of History at UCLA and the Director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate. A leading scholar of Jewish history, he has authored six books and edited thirteen others, including The Stakes of History: On the Use and Abuse of Jewish History for Life (Yale University Press, 2018). His research addresses Jewish intellectual and cultural history, with a focus on how historical narratives shape identity, politics, and social movements. Ben Zdencanovic is a Postdoctoral Associate at the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. Ben is a historian of the United States in the world, domestic and international politics, and economic and social policy. He has a particular interest in the relationship between U.S. global power and the politics of redistribution and the welfare state. Ben is currently working on two book projects: Island of Enterprise: The United States in a World of Welfare, 1940–1955 (forthcoming, Princeton University Press), and The Cold War on Poverty: Race, Labor, and Manpower in the U.S. Warfare/Welfare State.

    27 min
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"The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work" connects past to present, using historical analysis and context to help guide us through modern issues and policy decisions. Then & Now is brought to you by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. This podcast is produced by David Myers and Roselyn Campbell, and features original music by Daniel Raijman.

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