Episode O: Introduction

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Hello, and welcome to the American History podcast: episode 0, Introduction. My name is Shawn Warswick, your host for this podcast which will explore the history of the United States.In this first episode, my goal is to simply lay the foundation for the podcasts which will follow, and to answer two simple questions. What is this and why? This is a podcast about the history of the United States, starting BEFORE the political entity known as the United States existed. We will cover many of the familiar topics of American history, but also many things which, perhaps, are not so well known. And we certainly will be covering them in far more depth than what is often done in say, a history course in school.The second question, why am I doing a podcast, is quite easy to answer. Just as probably almost every other history podcaster, I love history and have since I can remember. I loved going on family vacations to places like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon and stopping along the way at different historical locations.As a teacher, I really hate being answerable to some distant education board and having to teach the things they say are important. The beauty of this podcast is that I can focus on what I think is important and interesting. I can also go at my own pace. Furthermore, as a professional historian and teacher, I despise how oftentimes the mainstream culture, and even some of my own professionals, caricature people and events, boiling them down into almost a cartoon version of history.In general, I love podcasts, and have been inspired by both podcasters in general and history podcasters specifically. First, I need to thank Tom Woods. He has been an inspiration when it comes to podcasting, and if it weren’t for his advice, this show would not exist. Hopefully I do him justice. Secondly, the folks at podcastwebsites deserve a major bit of my gratitude. There is certainly no way this show would exist without their technical expertise. I might know history, but I do NOT know the technical aspects of the internet. They have been amazingly helpful with things I knew nothing about. Finally, some of the history podcasters who’ve inspired me are Robin Pearson of the History of Byzantium podcast, which, if you haven’t listened to, you really should. Others include Jaime Jeffers of the British History Podcast and the History of English podcast’s Kevin Stroud.The way the show will work, at least the plan of the way it will work, is for a new episode to come out once a month, on the 1st of the month, so you will have a new episode quite soon. The reason for the month delay is to allow me to research and write the episode. While I lecture on these things all the time, I want to make sure I’ve given you a narrative that is in depth and worth your time. I also hope to do some bonus episodes from time to time on subjects that are either a. not covered in the narrative or b. a topic that is going to be covered in the narrative at some far off future date. Ideally, if the interest is there, I’d like to do two episodes each month at some point. But for now I’m able to commit to one per month.I’d also like to mention the website, theamericanhistorypodcast.com. Every episode will have a page with the show notes as well as links to any sites which I mention as well as a list of resources used to create the episode. I also would like to invite you, when you visit the site, to sign up for email updates on the show.So, a little about myself and my credentials. I’m a historian. I have a B.A. and an M.A. in history and I’m currently two courses away from finishing coursework on my Ph.D., also in history. I teach history at the high school level. The courses I’ve taught are Geography, World History, U.S. history, US Government, Economics, Advanced

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