Construction history is entirely unfamiliar to most scholars, and yet it is a crucial part of urban history. Alexander Wood joins the show to discuss how New York City was built from blueprints to scaffolding to demolition.

Essential Reading:

Alexander Wood, Building the Metropolis: Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880–1935 (2025).

Recommended Reading:

Joanne Abel Goldman, Building New York's Sewers: Developing Mechanisms of Urban Management (1997).

Gerard Koeppel, City on a Grid: How New York Became New York (2015).

Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (2017).

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Context is crucial and perspective is everything. Dr. Tommy Jamison's debut book about the growth of naval power in the Pacific is a wonderful addition to our understanding of Gilded Age security. We discuss the impact of Chile, Peru, China, and Japan on geopolitics and the US Navy.

Essential Reading:

Thomas Jamison, The Pacific's New Navies: An Ocean, its Wars, and the Making of US Sea Power (2024).

Recommended Reading:

William D. Riddell, On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924 (2023).

Marilyn Lake, Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform (2019),

Rolf Hobson, Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power, and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875-1914 (2002).

Elting Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (1968).

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Who are the people who unearthed Egyptian antiquities and brought them to Western museums? Besides the countless male archaeologists we've heard about, several important women dug in the sands and their stories are an intersectional revelation. Kathleen Sheppard joins the show to talk about her book Women in the Valley of Kings.

Essential Reading:

Kathleen Sheppard, Women in the Valley of Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age (2024).

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The Spanish-American War has a central place in the history of American empire; it also launched the careers of Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and Richard Harding Davis. It propelled the Lost Cause mythology and set American ambitions for the century to come. Matthew Bernstein joins the show to discuss his latest book on the subject, Team of Giants.

Essential Reading:

Matthew Bernstein, Team of Giants: The Making of the Spanish American War (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Evan Thomas, The War Lovers (2010).

John Offner, An Unwanted War (1992).

Warren Zimmerman, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made their Country a World Power (2002).

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With the holidays upon us, let's take a closer look at the Gilded Age traditions that define Christmas and other end-of-year celebrations. Joining me is Ken Turino and Max van Belgooy the co-authors of Interpreting Christmas and one of the book's contributors, Lenora Henson. Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites takes a look at how the nation's cultural centers celebrate the holidays.

Essential Reading:

Ken Turino and Max van Belgooy (eds.), Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites (2024).

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The Great War transformed the world order, and it also revolutionized societies and individual experiences. In one of the year's most interesting books about the war's impact, Dr. Evan Sullivan explores the lives of blinded veterans and how their injuries completely changed the way we think about disability. Evan joins the show to discuss his book and the wider implications of disability studies for historical scholarship.

Essential Reading:

Evan Sullivan, Constructing Disability after the Great War: Blind Veterans in the Progressive Era (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Beth Linker, War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (2011).

Audra Jennings, Out of the Horrors of War: Disability Politics in World War II America (2016).

Catherine J. Kudlick, "Disability History: Why We Need Another 'Other'," American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 2003).

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With the industrial revolution came a revolution in the education of Americans. In this episode, Connie Goddard discusses her latest book on the industrial education system that taught Americans how to do trades, skilled labor activities, and generally find work in factories and industrial jobs.

Essential Reading:

Connie Goddard, Learning for Work: How Industrial Education Fostered Democratic Opportunity (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Kelly Ann Kolondy, Normalites: The First Professionally Prepared Teachers in the United States (2014).

Christopher J. Lucas, Teacher Education in America: Reform Agendas for the Twenty-First Century (1997).

Helen Proctor and Kellie Burns, The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling (2023).

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