Is the strange truer than fiction, and are nations weirder than their staid mythologies? This episode we put that question to the test by considering some of the mind-bendingly strange truths of the more distant past, as well as the nutty history happening in real time right outside our windows. So who you calling strange anyway? You better take a good look in history’s mirror with your HAG hosts and our very special guest this episode, to see how it all reflects. Sarah Schneewind, distinguished scholar of Chinese history at UC San Diego, joins us to chat about her textbook, and why preparing students to confront the very strange in history builds empathy and bolsters critical thinking, altogether a good skill set for managing the strangeness of our contemporary world.

History Against the Grain

Opening Theme by Jesse DeCarlo

Music Interludes:

Nick Shoulders, "All Bad"

Cindy Lee, "Diamond Jubilee"

Like rock climbers scaling a big wall, Josh and Chris take on the towering crag of higher education. Josh finds perspective on this adventure in tackling a monumental read, Peter Heather’s Christendom, a story of how paradise was lost in the orthodoxies and power drive of the hulking monolith known as the Roman Catholic Church. Wary of such heights, Chris stays closer to ground and belays the discussion, releasing the climber’s narrative rope with the story of David Walker’s Appeal, a saga from the early days of the radical freedom movement. In this episode, tall tales that might otherwise leave you lost in the thin alpine air, are safely and expertly scaled by your sure handed HAG guides, who promise to meet you at the summit of historical insight.

Website: HistoryagainsttheGrain.com

Email us: HistoryagainsttheGrain@gmail.com

Opening theme by Jesse DeCarlo

Music Interludes:

Gil Scott Heron and Makaya McCraven, "I'm New Here"

Mach-Hommy, "Magnum Band Remix"

AI needs copper. Yes. Sure. Okay. But what happens next? We live in a world of banal narrative - news media, politics, advertising - wherein our lives are curated with messages and stories of progress and performative empathy (think “thoughts and prayers” or “appreciate your patience and understanding”). Much of this gospel of progress and toxic positivity contradicts our own lived experiences - we know things don’t work, and the system sets up to screw us. History narratives often work that way too, with big national stories of shiny continuity and advancement, where the occasional “road bumps” — say, environmental destruction and labor impoverishment due to the strip mining of, oh, copper — get written off as collateral damage. Just aberrations in the narrative, with stories of people and places lost in the folds of a map, and unremembered lives hidden in the shadows of the archives. And the beat of progress goes on. Want the truth? Demand better stories about the past. Forget about “objectivity,” “both sides,” and god knows, “fair and balanced,” and make your inquiries avowedly truthful and ethical. Look into the shadows, examine the folds, investigate the cracks in the storytelling, because like Leonard Cohen said, cracks are where the light comes in.

When is a war not a war, but a police action? When is killing not killing but a “pragmatic, managerial militarism”? If you guessed, when the war criminal represents a liberal democracy, you win the cheese! If you simply said, “Henry Kissinger,” you win the whole wheel of cheese! “A perfect expression of American militarism’s merry-go-round” is what historian Greg Grandin calls Kissinger’s tautology of justifying wars in the present by appealing to wars in the past. And here at HAG, we have our own name for it. We call it, the narcissism of power. With narcissists of power, it can be pretty hard to tell the heroes from the villains, especially when they all use the same AI-generated come on. But as Frank Herbert reminds, you better think twice before accepting the doe-eyed kid with the perfect locks and curls is a messiah, cause he might just be a pissed off, spice-sniffing, megalomaniac with a rising body count out to settle some scores. Our advice? Ask to see his publicity photos first, and find out what’s going on his statue before signing over your soul.

Sell the story and people will buy the product, so goes a hallowed principle of marketing. It works so well in advertising that corporations will spend 7 million dollars on a 30-second Super Bowl commercial, peppered up with shilling celebrities, just to sell a donut. And what works for donut companies works for nations. Wrap the story in enough celebrity mythology - let’s call it history - and a nation can sell almost anything: bad deeds become star-spangled reveries, while the supposedly sacred symbols veil the product’s toxic contents.

Join us with our special guest Ricardo Catón, as we ponder the past, from the banal to the just plain bad, and the marketing schemes known as national history.

Having tried and failed (repeatedly) in their anger management counseling, and with league fines no longer an effective deterrent, Josh and Chris decided to give history one more try. And in this holiday season of miracles, what they delivered in shiny holiday packaging is a brand new episode of History Against the Grain. Clio the gift-giving muse has come through once again: their indefinite suspension for repeated instances of unsportsmanlike podcasting is lifted, and both of your favorite HAG hosts are back on the court, in their old school shorts and Converse All Stars, podcasting with the same reckless abandon that has won them so many past championships. Some podcasting pundits and doubting Thomases say those championships are in the past, but HAG fans do not despair, because it is in the past where Josh and Chris do their best work. So join them on a victory lap, as your indefatigable HAG hosts run circles around the perils of nationalism and expose the really messed up stories they inspire.

We may experience life in the eternal present, but history rides along with us. And the history inside our classrooms this semester at American River College was suddenly and without warning upended by the history under our feet: our primary classroom building, Davies Hall, was shuttered upon being declared a seismic risk. As mismanagement and managerial hubris combine to drive us deeper into an unthinkable administrative boondoggle, we once again pause to take ground readings, and assess the risks of collapse in the histories so often told. Concerned for the well-being of our students, we have declared several of these stories to be seismically unfit. From Davies Hall to the Haitian Revolution, and the great universe of storytelling beyond, join us for another rambunctious episode of History Against the Grain.

Hey Florida, oh well, whatever never mind - you take the leprosy we’ll take the truth. Here on HAG we got the narratives that liberate, you dig? A good for what ails you cure for the summertime blues, wherever you may be in the thermal dome. Tune in, turn on, and get ready for a cool refreshing dip in history with a very special guest to quench your summer thirst with stories that matter. Special guest Bram Hubbell of Liberating Narratives