Episode 2225: Katherine Epstein on how American Historians are Killing History

Early today, we posted a conversation with Celeste Marcus, LIBERTIES Quarterly managing editor, about her hard-hitting “Hate Lands” essay in the Fall 2024 issue. In the same issue, there’s an equally hard hitting piece by the Rutgers historian, Katherine C. Epstein. But whereas Marcus goes after Trump and Putin, Epstein’s ire is reserved for her fellow American historians who, she believes, are, literally, “killing history”. And Epstein doesn’t pull her punches in this conversation either. America, she told me, is the “world’s teenager” in terms of (not) making sense of its own historical narrative. Meanwhile, “the donkeys are leading the donkeys” inside American history departments, creating a crisis of this most essential academic craft.

Katherine C. Epstein is associate professor of history at Rutgers-Camden.  She is currently working on her second book, which examines government secrecy, defense contracting, intellectual property, and the political economy of power projection.  Her first book, Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (Harvard University Press, 2014), examined these issues through the lens of torpedo development before World War I.  In 2018-2019, she held an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  Her work has appeared in various academic journals and edited collections, as well as in the Wall Street Journal and American Interest.  She teaches courses in US history, military history, diplomatic history, and historical methods.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe