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Send us Fan Mail Find me @ bookclues.com The Mississippi looks familiar on a map, but it gets weird fast when you stop treating it like a single line and start treating it like a living system. I’m joined by writer and nature critic Boyce Upholt  boyceupholt, author of The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi, to ask a deceptively simple question: where does the Mississippi actually begin? The answer opens into “thinking like a watershed” and realizing that a million-plus square miles of rainfall, tributaries, and human choices all belong to the same river story. If you enjoy natural history, American history, climate risk, and big landscape stories, subscribe, share this conversation, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. Find Boyce Upholt's beautiful magazine  Southlands Find the The Free Press here thefp.com

Send us Fan Mail Europe looks peaceful right up until you inventory what’s actually ready to fight. After spending months in Europe, Professor Andrew Michta joins us to lay out a sober strategic picture: a continent still disarmed, a defense industrial base that will take years to rebuild, and a NATO alliance split by radically different threat perceptions from the Baltic Sea to the Sahel. We get specific about what modern war is teaching in Ukraine. Drones are changing everything, but Andrew explains why tanks and armor still matter because wars are ultimately decided by mobility and control of terrain. The real breakthrough, he argues, is not just more unmanned systems, but restoring maneuver through electronic warfare and spectrum dominance so soldiers can move without being hunted on a transparent battlefield. We also unpack the hard math behind “arrow vs arrow” economics and what that means for sustainable deterrence. From there, we zoom out to NATO’s Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative and the urgent need for allies to take ownership with concrete regional planning, exercises, and capabilities. Andrew connects that to a bigger US problem: a crisis of simultaneity across Europe, the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and Korea, at a time when force structure and supply chains are stretched thin. We close with a plainspoken answer to the question many Americans ask: why should anyone in a town far from Europe care about Poland, Finland, or the Baltics? Because Europe and Eurasia shape US prosperity, shipping lanes, and homeland security, and because strong alliances are how democracies avoid fighting alone. If this conversation sharpens your thinking, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Send us Fan Mail bookclues.com. Find me! Looking for a big timely summer read? Dad book extraordinaire! This is it.  From LaSalle to Thomas Jefferson, the story of how our country was made in the grand sweep of time.  A true American tale as bold as the people who lived the story. Native Americans, Immigrants and enlsaved people. Lives coming together to establish a nation.  Four cents an acre. The greatest real estate deal in history. A clean swap that doubled the United States overnight. Those lines are catchy, and they’re also wildly incomplete. We sit down with historian Alexander Mikaberidze, author of The Louisiana Purchase: The Grand Bargain and the Making of America, to rebuild the story from the ground up and follow the long chain of events that made 1803 possible. We start where most retellings don’t: the Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian War) and the imperial scramble it triggered across North America. From LaSalle’s sweeping 1682 claim over everything west of the Mississippi River to the hard reality that Indigenous nations already held sovereignty, Louisiana begins as a gigantic, poorly defined idea. That ambiguity fuels decades of rivalry among France, Spain, and Britain and turns places like Natchez and New Orleans into high-stakes borderlands where diplomacy, trade, and military power collide. If you like early American history, Napoleonic history, constitutional debates, and the real origins of US continental expansion, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a fellow history reader, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. Find Professor Alexander Mikaberidze https://www.amikaberidze.com/

Send us Fan Mail Connect at bookclues.com What is conservatism?  How can conservative principals replace MAGA and populism in the Republican Party  Connect with Our Republican Legacy ourrepublicanlegacy.com The Republican Party is headed for a reckoning, and the real battle is not going to be fought on cable news. It is going to be fought in precinct meetings, county conventions, state parties, and the delegate math that decides who gets to call themselves “conservative” in 2028. We dig into the mission of Our Republican Legacy and why it is organizing inside the GOP rather than building a third party or another think tank. You will hear the five principles they want to unify around: peace through strength, free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, national unity, and the Constitution and the rule of law. We also talk NATO and alliances, tariffs and free trade, and how rapid tech change and AI pressure-test both free enterprise and civil liberties.  Politically homeless?  but still care about constitutional government, this conversation gives you a concrete path to engage before the 2028 presidential cycle accelerates. Subscribe for more idea-driven conversations, share this with a friend who argues in good faith, and leave a review with the principle you think the country can’t afford to lose.

Send us Fan Mail bookclues.com. Find Michele  American Revolution | Historical Fiction | Thomas Paine | George Washington | Revolutionary War What does courage look like when you don't feel brave? George Washington “vaccinated” soldiers by giving them smallpox on purpose, and it may have saved the Revolution. That jaw-dropping history is just one of the realities we dig into with author Katherine Goodwin Tone as we explore her debut novel, The King’s Broad Arrow, an American Revolution adventure that doubles as a coming-of-age story about courage. In this episode of Cross Word Books, we speak  about Sam Nevins, a 14-year-old boy living in Revolutionary-era Maine who believes he's the only person with no desire to fight and no courage to offer. Through Sam's journey, we explore how courage is often less about personality and more about the choices we make when fear would rather send us home. Drawing on years of working with children and teaching, Katherine discusses themes of responsibility, friendship, happiness, and moral growth. We also dive into the world of Revolutionary America, exploring the impact of the printing press, censorship, banned books, Enlightenment thought, and the influence of Thomas Paine and his famous pamphlet Common Sense. If you enjoy historical fiction, young adult novels, American Revolution history, or thoughtful conversations with authors, this episode is for you. Cross Word Books — Where Cultural Clues Lead to the Truth of the Word.

Send us Fan Mail find Cross Word Books at bookclues.com Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World,  Dan Werb published by crown books of penguinrandomhouse.com Smart nature writing, urban planning ideas, and clear-eyed conversations about conservation and public health Nature is moving into the city, and it is not waiting for our permission. I sit down with award-winning writer and epidemiologist Dan Werb to talk about Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World, a book that reframes urban life as something far more alive than we usually notice. Once you learn the word synanthropy, you start seeing it everywhere: wild species living “together with humans,” adapting to our buildings, our routines, and our blind spots.  Why are cities are no longer “biological deserts,” and why urban is ecology  forcing a correction in how we think about biodiversity and conservation?. Dan shares stories that make the science feel personal, from bats thriving in the built environment to the startling discovery that giant Pacific octopus can be more common near the most industrial parts of Seattle’s waters. That leads to a bigger realization: the reach of urban development does not stop at the shoreline. Our roads, rail, and waste reshape land and water, and that reshaping creates winners, losers, and unexpected new neighbors. Because Dan is also an infectious disease researcher, we also talk openly about zoonotic disease spillover, outbreaks, and what pandemic surveillance can realistically do to reduce risk without turning wildlife into a scapegoat. We keep coming back to practical coexistence: why garbage is often the real “wildlife management” issue, how simple infrastructure changes reduce conflict with rats, raccoons, baboons, bears, and coyotes, and why fortress conservation alone cannot solve human-wildlife tension in a crowded world. If you enjoy , subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What wild animal have you noticed in your own neighborhood lately? tell us about it at bookclues.com

Send us Fan Mail bookclues.com. Connect. You Visited Me.  Grace and Healing in the Modern Medical Center By Dr Robert Collins, MD            Ignatius Press    ignatius.com A cancer doctor who lives by evidence and protocols tells a story that begins with an interruption he can’t explain: a question, heard like a voice in a lab, that challenged the idea that reality is only matter and chance. Dr. Robert Collins joins us to talk about his work in leukemia and lymphoma care, his journey from teenage skepticism to Christianity and Catholicism, and why he now sees hope as something sturdier than optimism. If you’ve ever searched for faith and medicine, prayer and healing, or what “whole person care” really means in a hospital, this conversation meets you right where you are.  We dig into what medicine is actually for, beyond fixing organs and chasing numbers. Dr. Collins explains healing as restoring wholeness, which means treating a patient as a person with relationships, fear, responsibilities, and a spiritual life that shapes how they face illness. He shares how prayer functions in his daily routine and in clinical practice, from quick hallway prayers before entering a room to the rare moments when he prays with a patient, always rooted in presence rather than performance.  Then we go to the hard ground: miracles and suffering. Dr. Collins offers a wider definition of miracle that includes the quiet work of grace, timely words, and the mysterious overlap of the spiritual and the material. We also wrestle with the question everyone asks sooner or later, why a good God allows suffering, without turning it into bullet points. A patient story of redemptive suffering and a son drawn back to faith shows how love can gather around a person at the end of life.

Send us Fan Mail You can find out more about Cross Word bookclues.com. The Forgotten World WarExploring the Secret History of the American Revolution, from Spain to India and Back Again by Derek Baxter  published by  Source Books  Follow the American Revolution far beyond the 13 colonies and trace how diplomacy, logistics, and foreign interests shape independence. We talk with author Derek Baxter about the overlooked allies and global battlefields that turn a colonial revolt into a true world war. • Mercy Otis Warren as a trailblazing historian with a front-row view of the war • The Declaration of Independence as a strategic message to foreign powers • Gunpowder, artillery, and naval weakness as the Patriots’ early crisis • The failed Canada campaign as a lesson in diplomacy and homework • Bernardo de Galvez and Spain’s decisive Gulf Coast victories • Comte de Vergennes and Lafayette driving French support and public momentum • St Eustatius as a Dutch smuggling hub and the first foreign salute to the US flag • The Channel Islands and the failed France Spain invasion threat that pins Britain down • The Mysore Kingdom in India and the rocket technology tied to later British warfare • Why these stories fade from US memory and why the global view matters now Go to bookclues.com and look at some of the great books that we have been discussing on this podcast. Buy the book. Go to Source Books to discoer more great books. If you could be so kind to like and subscribe to my podcast, it would really be appreciated.

Send us Fan Mail Alito The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution by Mollie Heningway The Supreme Court doesn’t just decide cases; it teaches the country what power is allowed to do. Today on Cross Word Books, Michele McAloon talks with Molly Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist and Fox News contributor, about her book on Justice Samuel Alito and why his originalism sits at the center of America’s biggest constitutional fights. They discuss judicial activism, the rise of originalism, religious liberty, free speech, the Voting Rights Act, and how Supreme Court opinions are actually built behind the scenes. If you care about the Constitution, judicial restraint, and how the Court really works, this episode will give you a clearer framework and sharper questions. Subscribe, share with a civics-minded friend, and leave a review. Check out Basic Liberty Publishing! Find Michele at bookclues.com

Send us Fan Mail Contact Michele at bookclues.com The Declaration of Independence isn’t just a set of famous lines we quote every July. It’s a battered physical object that survived close calls, a national symbol that took decades to become sacred, and a cultural artifact that ended up on walls, plates, and posters. As the United States heads toward the 250th anniversary and the semi-quincentennial conversation ramps up, we wanted to ask a simple question with huge consequences: how did this document actually become America’s “national treasure”? We sit down with historian Michael Auslin, author of National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, to follow the Declaration through its surprising timeline. We talk about Jefferson’s fast draft, Congress cutting and reshaping it, and the small edits that carried outsized meaning, including the shift toward “one people.” From there we move into the printing race that produced the Dunlap broadsides, the later parchment engrossing by scribe Timothy Matlack, and the long-running mysteries about when the signing really happened and how myths replaced messy reality. If you care about American history, civic education, and the meaning of rights and responsibilities, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What line from the Declaration do you think we most need to wrestle with right now? find more great books at avidreaderpress.com

Send us Fan Mail Find Michele at bookclues.com The world you take for granted is younger than you think and it was never guaranteed. We sit down with Patrick Wyman, creator of Tides of History and Past Lives and author of Lost Worlds; How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World to trace the volatile 10,000-year span after the last Ice Age when farming, herding, villages, social hierarchies, and writing begin to reshape human life. Along the way, we confront a simple driver behind almost everything: the hunt for calories and the constant fear of starvation that organized societies for millennia. Patrick explains why the Neolithic period isn’t a clean “before and after” moment, but a messy overlap of experiments, migration, and collapse. Ancient DNA technology, isotope analysis, and paleoenvironmental research now let historians see population replacement, unexpected ancestry, and the ways demography responds to perceived scarcity. We talk about the Anzick child in Montana and what one 13,000-year-old burial reveals about the deep roots of Indigenous history across North America. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a history-loving friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. Find Patrick at  instagram.com/wyman_patrick/

Send us Fan Mail Find out more at bookclues.com Two men got the highway signs—but the real Lewis and Clark Expedition story was a crowded canoe. We sit down with Craig Fehrman to discuss This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis and Clark and why the expedition only comes into focus when we follow the people history usually pushes to the margins—and when we take Native nations seriously as powers, not scenery. If you care about American history, primary sources, archival research, and how interpretation changes when new evidence appears, this episode is for you. We explore Thomas Jefferson as the “mainspring” behind the mission, the mistaken dream of an easy water route to the Pacific, and the hard reality of distance, terrain, and the Rocky Mountains. We also dive into diplomacy and danger along the Missouri River, where the Lakota Nation and other Native powers were making strategic decisions of their own. Fehrman’s rotating point-of-view method makes familiar moments feel new by asking what the same event looked like from the other side. We discuss leadership and military culture in 1804—why Lewis and Clark’s style of discipline, trust, and shared responsibility differed sharply from Army norms—and how figures like John Ordway helped make the expedition function day to day. We also confront the hardest truths, including York under enslavement and Sacagawea as a teenage survivor whose role became indispensable. Subscribe, share with a history-loving friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What famous American story should be retold from another point of view next? Reach Craig Fehrman atcraigfehrman.com Check out Avid avidreaderpress. Reader Press Send me a picture of you reading the Book @. bookclues.com

Send us Fan Mail Find Michele McAloon @ bookclues.com Andrew Jackson is one of those American names people think they understand until they look closer. We sit down with historian David S. Brown, author of Andrew Jackson: The First Populist, to walk through the life that turned “Old Hickory” into a national symbol, a political weapon, and a permanent argument. From a hazy birthplace and a brutal frontier childhood to a self-made legal career in Tennessee, Jackson’s story is built on loss, ambition, and a fierce need to command respect. We talk about the traits that powered his rise and damaged his reputation: the duels that served as public proof of status, the moments of questionable judgment such as the Aaron Burr affair, and the social explosion of the Peggy Eaton controversy that effectively broke a cabinet. Brown also explains why Jackson’s actions in Spanish Florida created an international crisis, and how the Battle of New Orleans locked in a celebrity aura that followed him into national politics. This is early American history as a lesson in how fame and force can merge into leadership. From there, we dig into the big structures Jackson helped reshape: Jacksonian democracy, the expansion of presidential power, the veto as a governing tool, the nullification crisis, and the Bank War against the Second Bank of the United States. We also face the hardest parts of his legacy head-on, including Indian removal and the fact that there was opposition to it even in Jackson’s own time. We end by testing modern comparisons and what “populism” really means when you put policy, personality, and power in the same frame. If you care about US presidents, American populism, or how the bully pulpit was born, listen now, then subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Send us Fan Mail Find Michele at bookclues.com The Westerners MythMaking and Belonging on the American Frontier We talk with historian Megan Kate Nelson about how the American West gets turned into a story and how that story shapes who counts as a “real” Westerner. We follow seven lives that expose the networks, conflicts and choices that the frontier myth often hides. • Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis and why it dominated US western history • Historians as mythmakers along with novelists and filmmakers • Movement in every direction and the West as a web of networks • Sacagawea’s real work on the Lewis and Clark expedition and why communities claim her • Jim Beckwourth as a larger-than-life connector and why parts of his story stay disputed • Maria  Barcelo’s Santa Fe gambling empire and her use of courts and capital • Little Wolf and Dull Knife’s strategy to protect the Northern Cheyenne and return home If you like the interview, please  like and subscribe. And you can find out more about me at bookclues.com. Guys, run to the Amazon store and get this book. Scribner Publishing

Send us Fan Mail Find out more about this podcast at https://www.bookclues.com/ Wisdom from the CrossHow Jesus' Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die) Well Holy Week can feel familiar until you slow down and listen to what Jesus actually says while he’s dying. Those final phrases from the cross, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ, are not random last breaths. They’re a compressed guide to forgiveness, trust, love, and what a good life looks like when everything is stripped away. We sit down with writer and editor Casey Chalk, author of a short but densely packed book from Sophia Institute Press, to translate two thousand years of Christian reflection into modern language without flattening the mystery. We talk about why the Seven Last Words appear across all four Gospels, how thinkers like Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Augustine read them, and why these sayings can be a surprising entry point for Catholics, Protestants, and curious listeners who aren’t sure what they believe. Along the way, we wrestle with the line that troubles nearly everyone: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Casey connects it to Psalm 22 and to the lived experience of the silence of God.  If this conversation helps you see Good Friday, Easter, and your own hard seasons with clearer eyes, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find it. Buy the book  https://sophiainstitute.com/ any questions for Casey Chalk.  https://www.caseychalk.com/