Advertise on podcast: The Way of Improvement Leads Home: American History, Religion, Politics, and Academic life.

Early American historian and renowned Thomas Jefferson scholar Francis Cogliano joins us to talk about his new edited collection, The American Revolution at 250: Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding. His collection offers an insightful glimpse into the current state of scholarship on the American Revolution, but he also humanizes these historians by asking them to reflect on what the American Revolution has meant to them. In the course of our conversation we talk about the historical discipline, the 1619 Project, Gordon Wood, and American civil religion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, we talk to historian Marc Stein, the current president of the Organization of American Historians, about the 200th anniversary of the United States. Stein's new book Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s chronicles the Bicentennial celebrations in Philadelphia and throughout the nation.  In the process, we learn more about American urban history, public history and commemoration, and the way diverse and under-represented communities challenged prevailing narratives of American identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This year, our host John Fea has been participating in a new podcast venture on the history of American evangelicalism with historians Daniel Hummel and Maggie Capra. We want listeners to The Way of Improvement Podcast to be aware of this new 12-part podcast series, so we added it to our feed. Enjoy!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After an uneventful one-term presidency, John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives and fought against the institution of slavery. Our guest is Bob Crawford, bass player for the Avett Brothers and author of America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick. We talk about Adams's moral convictions, his relationship with abolitionists, and his distrust of democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did the suburbs shape American Catholicism? Today's guest on the podcast is historian Stephen M. Koeth, author of Crabgrass Catholicism: How Suburbanization Transformed Faith and Politics in Postwar America. Koeth argues that postwar suburbanization revolutionized the Catholic parish, the relationship between clergy and laity, conceptions of parochial education, and Catholic participation in US politics, and thereby was a significant factor in the religious disaffiliation that only accelerated in subsequent decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Annette Laing, a "proper historian" with a Ph.D. in the field, wants to dispel the myth that history education occurs only in the classroom. She is the chief proprietor of "Non-Boring History,"a Substack devoted to bringing the past to bear on the present in a way accessible to history buffs of all ages. If you are a public historian, you do not want to miss this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is the difference between "fortress thinking" and "pilgrimage thinking"? How do these modes of thinking shape the academy today? In this episode, Rhonda and Douglas Jacobsen present a new approach to the Christian intellectual life. They are the authors of Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry: Thinking as Pilgrimage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is a “white liberal” and why do people hate them so much? Conservatives hate them for being so tolerant. Libertarians hate them for believing that the government might have a role to play in advancing a good society. Socialists and others on the left blame white liberalism for promoting capitalism. Our guest on this episode is Kevin Schultz, author of Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our guest in this episode, historian Andrew Hartman, writes, "Americans are thinking about [Karl] Marx to a degree not matched since the 1960s, or perhaps even the 1930s." Join us for a discussion of Hartman's new book, Karl Marx in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our guest on this episode of the podcast is Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He is with us to talk about his more recent book, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America. In the wake of the American Revolution, Hamilton and Jefferson developed contrasting, often clashing visions for balancing liberty and power in the new republic. It is a debate that continues to define–and divide–our country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most of the stories we will tell about the American Revolution during the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026 will take on a feel of American exceptionalism. They will come mostly from within the geographical bounds of what today is the United States, and most of those stories will concentrate on the eastern seaboard—the so-called "13 colonies." Our guest in this episode, University of Maryland historian Richard Bell, encourages us to take a broader view. He is the author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many Americans have heard of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. But did you know that her father was a famous evangelist, her brother was "the most famous man in America," and her sister founded the home economics movement? In this episode, we talk with author Obbie Tyler Todd about the Beecher family, one of the most important families in 19th-century America. Todd is the author of The Beechers: America's Most Influential Family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, we talk with David Waldstreicher, author of the George Washington Prize-winning The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence. We discuss early American poetry as the eighteenth-century equivalent of pop music and tweeting, the influence of evangelical Christianity on Wheatley's poetry, and the tension between slavery and the American Revolution in colonial Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we talk with historian Paul Putz about the history of Christianity and sports in America. This episode is for sports fans, history buffs, and anyone interested in how sports ministries like Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action navigated some of the major social, cultural, and political events of post-World War II America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does it mean to be Black and evangelical—and why has that story been so often overlooked? In this episode, John Fea sits down with Vincent Bacote, co-creator and host of the new documentary Black and Evangelical. They explore the history of Black evangelicals in America, from the Nottage Brothers and the Great Migration to the founding of the National Black Evangelical Association and the unforgettable moment Tom Skinner took the stage at Urbana ‘70. Bacote discusses why this documentary matters today, how white evangelical institutions shaped (and sometimes constrained) Black evangelical life, and the enduring tension between gospel proclamation and confronting systemic racism. Watch the documentary for free at blackevangelicals.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices