This is the final conversation between CJ & US Army Veteran BT about BT’s military service and his ordeals since getting out. (Please excuse a little bit of minor audio issues. As you’ll hear, we had some sporadic Skype hiccups, as well as a slightly-longer-than-usual delay, probably because BT has moved since our last conversation,…
Category: Dangerous History
Ep. 0161: “Disregarding the Laws of God and Man”: The Not-So-Civil War, Part 11
The end (of this non-consecutive series) is starting to come into sight, as the Union increasingly relies on ‘total war’ to completely crush the spirit of resistance among Southern civilians, regardless of any moral considerations.Join CJ as he discusses: Confederate General Jubal Early’s raid into Union territory, which reached the outer defenses of Washington D.C.…
Ep. 0160: “Remember the Maine!” & The Pageantry of American Aggression
Here’s a big beast of a DHP episode, dealing with the Deep History of the sinking of the USS Maine, the origins of the Spanish-American War, and what relevance this story might have to recent events.Join CJ as he discusses: The explosion of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898 A brief description of the…
Ep. 0159: A Modern-Day Grunt’s Perspective, Part 3
Once again, CJ is joined by US Army veteran BT to talk about BT’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.Join CJ & BT as they discuss: Thoughts on various people using veterans (or “the troops”) as pawns in their ideological narratives, such as the NFL/kneeling-during-the-anthem controversy Some stories from BT’s first deployment to Iraq, during which…
Ep. 0158: Talking National Security Cinema with Tom Secker
For this episode of the DHP, CJ is joined by researcher, writer, and podcaster Tom Secker, the man behind the website SpyCulture.com and the podcast Clandestime, in a conversation primarily about Tom’s research into the national security state’s massive influence on movies and television.Join CJ & Tom as they discuss: Being a ‘moderate conspiracy theorist’…
Ep. 0157: “I was killed.”: The Not-So-Civil War Part 10
I was originally going to do one massive episode on the coming of ‘total war’ in 1864, but it was getting too unwieldy so I decided to break it into 2 episodes, one covering Grant’s campaign in Virginia and another covering Sherman’s campaign in Georgia. Here is the first of those.Join CJ as he discusses:…
Ep. 0156: A Modern-Day Grunt’s Perspective, Part 2
This is the second part of my conversation with BT, a US Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, about his experiences. (Be sure to check out last episode – #155 – for part 1 of this if you’ve not already done so.)Join CJ & BT as they discuss: BT’s first deployment to Iraq, including the…
Ep. 0155: A Modern-Day Grunt’s Perspective, Part 1
This episode is part 1 of CJ’s discussions with a longtime DHP listener & US Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, a guy who goes by “BT” on the internet. Not only does BT himself have a lot of personal experiences in these conflicts, he’s also done a lot of research about these…
Ep. 0154: Orwell Your Orwell with David Ramsay Steele
In this episode of the DHP, CJ talks to David Ramsay Steele, author of many books including his most recent, Orwell Your Orwell: A Worldview on the Slab, which is the subject of this DHP episode. Dr. Steele is a libertarian speaker and writer, and is Editorial Director of Open Court Publishing Company. (Big thanks…
Ep. 0153: Mike Resnick
In this episode of the DHP, CJ and Joshua of The Dusty Den Podcast talk to Mike Resnick, author of (among many, many other things) the novel Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future,which CJ & Joshua reviewed and discussed on the last DHP episode (#152). (Big thanks to DHP listener Jake for putting us…
Ep. 0152: Discussing Mike Resnick’s Santiago in the Dusty Den
In this episode of the DHP, CJ talks to Joshua of The Dusty Den Podcast about the excellent scifi Space Western novel Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future by author Mike Resnick (first published in 1986), a great book with a cult following that deserves to be much better known, especially among libertarianish types.…
Ep. 0151: American Public Schooling & Inner-City Schools with Mike K.
In this DHP episode, CJ talks to Mike K., a DHP listener and former teacher with extensive knowledge of inner-city education based on both research and firsthand, real-world experience. Join CJ & Mike as they discuss many topics related to education, including: Mike’s background, including his studies in education (through the Ph. D. level) and…
Ep. 0150: In the Shadows of the American Century with Alfred McCoy
CJ is joined in this episode by Professor Alfred McCoy, who holds a Ph. D. from Yale University in Southeast Asian history, and currently holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of many books, including The Politics of Heroin, Policing America’s Empire, and A Question of Torture,…
Ep. 0149: War Machine: A DHP Movie Review with Scott Horton
Scott Horton (author of Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, host of the Scott Horton Show, and founder of the Libertarian Institute) returns for a third time to the DHP, this time to help CJ do a Dangerous History movie review of the 2017 Netflix film War Machine. Join CJ & Scott…
Ep. 0148: 2017 DHP Halloween Special, Part 1
Join CJ as he shares the following poems & stories: “Hallowe’en” by John Kendrick Bangs “The Outsider” by H.P. Lovecraft “Richard Cory” by Edward Arlington Robinson “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving “The Vampire” by Madison Julius Cawein “Winter’s End” by C.J. Killmer Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon CJ’s official DHP…
Ep. 0147: The Sparring of the Amateur Boxer: The Not-So-Civil War Part 9
This episode fills in the gap between Gettysburg/Vicksburg in the summer of 1863 and the beginning of Ulysses Grant & William T. Sherman’s total war campaigns of 1864, including some lesser-known (but still important) campaigns and battles. Join CJ as he discusses: William Rosecrans’ Tullahoma Campaign The Battle of Chickamauga The siege of Chattanooga Grant’s…
Ep. 0146: The Grunt’s-Eye Perspective: The Not-So-Civil War Part 8
We mostly get the view from the top when it comes to the American Civil War – that is, the view from the political leaders and generals. We usually get only scattered glimpses of what it was actually like to be an enlisted man or lower-level officer in a Civil War Army. In this episode,…
Ep. 0145: Fool’s Errand: Scott Horton on America’s War in Afghanistan
In this episode, I’m happy to welcome Scott Horton back to the Dangerous History Podcast. Scott is managing director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio and the Scott Horton Show, and opinion editor at Antiwar.com. He has conducted more than 4,500 interviews since 2003. (BTW, My apologies for the audio quality of my…
Ep. 0144: Rise of the Cane Kingdom, Part 2
Join CJ as he discusses: An overview of American sugar politics since 1959. A detailed look at the Fanjul family, who escaped Castro’s revolution, came to Florida, and (with a LOT of political entrepreneurship) built a sugar empire that eventually overtook even the U.S. Sugar Corporation Big Sugar’s labor problems from the ’60s through the…
Ep. 0143: Rise of the Cane Kingdom, Part 1
Over the past century, large-scale sugar cane cultivation was developed in what became known as the Everglades Agricultural Area, the region just south of Lake Okeechobee, historically a part of the Everglades ecosystem which was drained in the early- to mid-twentieth century. However, making sugarcane cultivation in this area feasible & profitable has required massive…