American West

American West

episodes

Interviews with scholars of the American West about their new books.

Paul Stangl, "San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

July 17, 2026

San Francisco Seafood

Paul Stangl
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

For early San Franciscans, seafood was an important source of nutrition and a feature of social life, inspiring culinary developments that remain comp…

Mary E. Mendoza, "Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border" (UNC Press, 2026)

July 11, 2026

Deadly Divide

Mary E. Mendoza
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

As many as ten thousand people attempt to illegally cross the border between the US and Mexico each month, braving deserts, rivers, and other environm…

Jonathan L. Friedmann, "Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West" (U Wisconsin Press, 2025)

July 4, 2026

Chai Noon

Jonathan L. Friedmann
Hosted by Marci Mazzarotto

Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish …

John Wills, "Doom Town, USA: The Nevada Test Site As Ground Zero of 1950s American Culture" (UP of Kansas, 2026)

June 30, 2026

Doom Town, USA

John Wills
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In March 1953 and May 1955, government officials—including the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), the US Department of Defense, and the Atom…

173* Novel Dialogue Crossover: Aaron Gwyn goes West (Sean McCann, JP)

June 18, 2026

173* Novel Dialogue Crossover: Aaron Gwyn goes West (Sean McCann, JP)

RTB's sister podcast, Novel Dialogue, spoke recently with Aaron Gwyn. He is the author of four novels: The World Beneath, Wynne’s War, and, most rece…

Robert Suits, "The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants" (Princeton UP, 2026)

June 16, 2026

The Hobo

Robert Suits
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communiti…

Javier Arbona-Homar, "Explosivity: Following What Remains" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

June 8, 2026

Explosivity

Javier Arbona-Homar
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Offering a novel approach to contemporary landscape studies,⁠ ⁠⁠Explosivity: Following What Remains⁠ (U Minnesota Press, 2025) unearths the hidden leg…

Kristian Williams, "Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from Settlement to Uprising" (AK Press, 2026)

June 7, 2026

Policing the Progressive City

Kristian Williams
Hosted by Michael Stauch

Kristian Williams, longtime activist and writer, joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book ⁠Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from S…

Robert B. Marks, "Deep Time in the Mono Lake Basin: Nature and History Over the Last 10,000 Years" (U California Press, 2026)

June 7, 2026

Deep Time in the Mono Lake Basin

Robert B. Marks
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

"Deep Time," a way of understanding the distant past popularized in the late 20th century by the writer John McPhee, changes our perspective on histor…

Ann Carlson, "Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air" (U California Press, 2026)

June 6, 2026

Smog and Sunshine

Ann Carlson
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Los Angeles and smog have been synonymous for decades. From the 1940s through the 1980s, children breathed air so heavy with lead that their blood…

S5E9 A Divine Comedy: On Hollywood, Creativity, and Religion with Rob Long

June 3, 2026

S5E9 A Divine Comedy

Rob Long
Hosted by Ryan Shinkel

Here in Episode 9 of Season 5, I interview Mr. Rob Long. A longtime Hollywood professional, he was a writer and producer for the classic sitcom Cheers…

Craig Fehrman, "This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark" (Simon & Schuster, 2026)

May 31, 2026

This Vast Enterprise

Craig Fehrman
Hosted by Raymond Williams

In 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their journey—having led the Corps of Discovery across eight thousand miles of rapids, mo…

Frontier Films for America250: On the Western Genre and Beyond with Matthew J. Franck

May 6, 2026

Frontier Films for America250

Matthew J. Franck
Hosted by Ryan Shinkel

Here in Episode 7 of Season 5, I interview Dr. Matthew J. Franck. A senior contributing fellow at Public Discourse, a visiting lecturer in the Departm…

Kaitlin P. Reed, "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" (U Washington Press, 2023)

April 27, 2026

Settler Cannabis

Kaitlin P. Reed
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Despite it's centrality to a hippie counterculture which claimed an environmentalist ethos, California's "green rush" of cannabis growing from the mid…

Caste and Race: Ambedkar and King with the Ambedkar King Study Circle

April 27, 2026

Caste and Race

S. Karthikeyan and S. Subbulakshmi

This episode features S. Karthikeyan and S. Subbulakshmi, the Convenor and Secretary of the Ambedkar King Study Circle, an anti-caste organization bas…

David-James Gonzales, "Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California" (Oxford UP, 2025)

April 14, 2026

Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation

David-James Gonzales

On March 2, 1945, five Mexican American families and their Jewish American lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against four school districts in Orange…

Karen McNally ed., "Women in Hollywood's Dream Factory: Tales of Inequality, Abuse, and Resistance" (U Illinois Press, 2026)

March 18, 2026

Women in Hollywood's Dream Factory

Karen McNally
Hosted by Priyam Sinha

The #MeToo revelations put a twenty-first-century stamp on the age-old story of women’s mistreatment in Hollywood. In Women in Hollywood's Dream Facto…

Paul Gillingham, "Mexico: A 500-Year History" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)

March 7, 2026

Mexico

Paul Gillingham
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Mexico is among the most unique nations in the world, writes Northwestern University historian Paul Gillingham in Mexico: A 500-Year History (Atlantic…

Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons, "The Sons of Gunshooter:  A Navajo Resistance Story" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

February 26, 2026

The Sons of Gunshooter

Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons
Hosted by Mary Reynolds

In 1919, the brother of one of the West’s most famous Indian traders was shot to death in a remote corner of the Navajo Nation. Part history, part…

Fred Turner on Countercultures, Cybercultures, and Californian and Texan Ideologies

February 25, 2026

Countercultures, Cybercultures, and Californian and Texan Ideologies

Fred Turner
Hosted by Lee Vinsel

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Fred T…