Breaking History

Why the Future of Education Won’t Come from the Ivy League

Peter Berkowitz returns to the show to trace the slow collapse of liberal education in America, all in his new book, Reclaiming Liberal Education in America. In this epis

The Slow Death of Journalism, with Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi has spent the better part of a decade documenting one of the most underreported stories in American media: how the federal government built a shadow infrastru

How the Democratic Socialists Conquered New York City

Back in October, we traced the founding of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in our episode “Beautiful Losers: Mamdani & the End of Socialism’s Losing Streak.” N

Iran’s Favourite Washington Pundit

Journalist Jay Solomon is back on the show this week to discuss his latest explosive investigation into Trita Parsi, the Iranian-born, Swedish-raised lobbyist who spent 2

Who Owns the Declaration of Independence?

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, a quiet war is being waged over what the Declaration of Independence really means — with some on the new righ

A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies

Hi Breaking History listeners! My colleague Joe Nocera has launched a six part series about the Lindbergh kidnapping. Enjoy episode one here and then head on over to The

What the Founders Really Meant to Say

Robert Parkinson is a historian at SUNY Binghamton who has spent 25 years studying the American Revolutionary period. His new book, Tyrants and Rogues, arrives just in ti

Roald Dahl: Genius and Bigot

For tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, click here and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.  Roald Dahl gave the world Matilda,

Eli Lake and David Rose: The UK Censorship Machine Eats Itself

David Rose is the director of policy and research at the Free Speech Union (FSU), a UK-based nonpartisan organization that campaigns for freedom of speech. The FSU will p

Is This War Justified? Eli Lake Debates Iran with Robert Wright

Eli Lake joins Robert Wright over at his podcast NonZero, which offers “conversations with a series of people who have nothing in common except that program host Robert W

Why Iran’s Reform Movement Failed

Arash Azizi lived through the democracy movement in Iran before he wrote about it. Now a historian at Yale, he joins Eli Lake to trace the arc from former president Moham

Eli Lake and Haviv Rettig Gur on Why Iran's Regime Is Hard to Kill

What does it actually take to break a regime built on martyrdom? Eli Lake sits down with Haviv Rettig Gur — host of Ask Haviv Anything and one of the deepest thinkers on

When ‘Good Kids’ Go Radical: A Breaking History Special

What drives someone from an ordinary background into extremism? In this Breaking History special, journalist Jay Solomon joins Eli Lake to discuss his investigation into

Eli Lake and Andrew Sullivan Debate the Iran War

This week I joined The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, who has generously agreed to let us share the conversation here. Andrew and I go way back, and few people are as wil

Modern Terrorism Was Born in the 1970s

Breaking History producer Poppy Damon sits down with Guardian security correspondent Jason Burke to unpack his new book, ⁠The Revolutionists⁠, a sweeping history of the 1

The Reluctant Prince: Can Reza Pahlavi Lead Iran’s Future? Q&A with Eli Lake

As Iran’s regime faces mounting internal pressure, one name keeps resurfacing: Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last shah. But is he a viable future leader, or simply

The Making of Modern Iran (Part 2) | The Red-Green Alliance

In our last episode, we traced the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty and the forces building toward Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. In Part 2, we turn to the man who brought th

The Making of Modern Iran (Part 1)

Breaking History dives into the paradox at the heart of modern Iran: How a nation born in revolt, from the tobacco protests of the 1890s to the 1979 Revolution, has time

A History of Tough Jews

After October 7, Jews around the world were reminded of an old, unsettling truth: Governments do not always protect minorities when mobs turn violent. From Bondi Beach to

From the Archives: Why Jews Wrote Your Favorite Christmas Songs

Did you know the soundtrack of Americans’ Christmas was written largely by . . . Jews? Most of the composers behind the holiday canon were the children of immigrants who