Reckoning with Jason Herbert

Sahara had everything going for it: a big cast led by ultra hot actors Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, a devoted fan base of author Clive Cussler’s novels, and a big budget courtesy of Disney. And then it came out and flopped. But that doesn’t mean it’s still not fun and it doesn’t mean that we can’t have real  conversations about history. In fact, the movie gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about artifact recovery and repatriation. Joining me today are Colin Colbourn and Derek Abbey from Project Recover, a nonprofit group dedicated to searching for and locating American MIAs and POWs from conflicts around the world. this is a cool conversation about both the movie and the process of bringing American soldiers home. 

This week Max Perry Mueller drops in to talk about Wakara, a Ute man who shaped the modern American West. We also talk about the complexities of Native American identity, the impact of Manifest Destiny, and the ethical considerations in writing Native history. Max also highlights the importance of cultural exchange, environmental stewardship, and the ongoing struggles for repatriation and rematriation of Indigenous remains.About our guest:Max Perry Mueller (PhD, Harvard University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies. He is also a fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies and teaches in the Department of History, the Honors Program, and the Global Studies program.Mueller is a theorist and historian of race and religion in American history, with particular interest in Indigenous and African-American religious experiences, epistemologies, and cosmologies. The central animating question of his scholarship is how the act of writing—especially the writing of historical narratives—has affected the creation and contestation of "race" as a category of political and religious division in American history.His first book, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017), examines how the three original American races—"red," "black," and "white"—were constructed as literary projects before these racial categories were read onto bodies of Americans of Native, African, and European descent. Choice described Race and the Making of the Mormon People as an "outstanding analysis of the role of race among Mormons." The book was featured in The Atlantic and Harvard Divinity School Bulletin and has been taught at, among others, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford Universities. His next book, Wakara's America, will be the first full-length biography of the complex and often paradoxical Ute warrior chief, horse thief, slave trader, settler colonist, one-time Mormon, and Indian resistance leader.Mueller's research and teaching also connect with his public scholarship. Mueller has written on religion, race, and politics for outlets including Slate, The New Republic, and The Atlantic. He also co-founded Religion & Politics, the online journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, whose mission is to bring the best scholarship on religion and American public life to audiences beyond the academy.

2014's Pompeii is all over the place. Designed to be a Roman apocalypse story with a star making turn by Game of Thrones' Kit Harrington, Pompeii fizzled at the box office. But strangely, it's a phenomenal film to talk about the Roman empire and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Historian and archaeologist Dr. Steven Tuck joins in to talk everything this film gets right and wrong about Roman history. Easily one of our best episodes ever.About our guest:Steven L. Tuck is a professor of classics, who is currently head of classics at Miami University. He teaches many classics courses at Miami University, especially those relating to the arts.He received a Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from University of Michigan in 1997, and he is the author of the textbook A History of Roman Art. In addition to his teaching, he has lectured the general public at Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, Yale University, the University of Puget Sound, Baylor University and for the Getty Villa. He has also appeared in the media discussing classics, including in a 2019 feature for Atlas Obscura on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. and its impact on refugees and migration in the ancient world. For the Vergilian Society, he managed the Villa Vergiliana in Cumae, and organized educational programs there. He is also the author of the brand new book Escape from Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Its Survivors.

How did a small town south of Denver emerge as the center of evangelical capitalism after World War II? Historian Dr. William Schultz explains how evangelicals' faith intertwined with a specific interpretation of Americanism, especially during the Cold War era, and how this allowed them to transition from the margins of society to the epicenter of conservative dialogue.About our guest:William Schultz is a historian of American religion with an interest in the intersection of religion, politics, and capitalism.  Schultz is currently finishing his first book, Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City (under contract with UNC Press), which explains how the confluence of evangelical Christianity and free-market capitalism transformed the city of Colorado Springs into an epicenter of American conservatism. His next project, The Wages of Sin: Faith, Fraud, and Religious Freedom in Modern America, uses cases of financial fraud between the 1920s and 1990s to explore how Americans have struggled with questions of religious authority and authenticity. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Schultz was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty fellow at Harvard University. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. 

It's a special podcast here at Reckoning. Early American historians Dr. Liz Covart, Dr. Michael Hattem, and Dr. Craig Bruce Smith joined me to live stream Ken Burns' new series The American Revolution and answer questions from people around the world. It's kind of like a Director's Commentary, only if the director was actually four people with degrees in history. This was a blast.About our guest:Dr. Liz Covart is a historian of the American Revolution, and the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Ben Franklin’s World.  In 2022, she co-founded Clio Digital Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that uses digital media to foster better, more robust understandings of history. And in 2026, she will launch Scholar.DIY, a public benefit company that empowers scholars to transform their expertise into compelling digital stories— building trust, promoting media literacy, and strengthening democracy along the way.Dr. Michael Hattem is an American historian, with interests in early America, the American Revolution, and historical memory. He received his PhD in History at Yale University and has taught at The New School and Knox College. He is the author of The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024), which was a finalist for the 2025 George Washington Prize, and Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020). He is currently the Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.Hattem’s work has been featured or mentioned in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, as well as many other mainstream media publications and outlets. He has served as a historical consultant or contributor for a number of projects and organizations, curated historical exhibitions, appeared in television documentaries, and authenticated and written catalogue essays for historical document auctions.Dr. Craig Bruce Smith  is a professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era, Securing Victory 1781-1783 (out soon), and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons in Ethical Leadership. Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University. Previously, he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), an assistant professor of history, and the director of the history program at William Woods University, and he has taught at additional colleges, including Tufts University.He specializes in American Revolutionary and early American and military history, specifically focusing on George Washington, honor, ethics, war, the founders, transnational ideas, and national identity. In addition, he has broader interests in colonial America, the early republic, leadership, and early American cultural, intellectual, and political history. Smith was named a Jack Miller Center Scholar in 2025 and also serves as a member of their History Advisory Council. He is also the co-host of National Defense University's JAWbone podcast. 

Houston, we have a podcast. Today, Apollo 13 author Jeffrey Kluger drops in to talk about the Apollo missions, what really made it on the film, and his new book, Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story.About our guest:Jeffrey Kluger, editor at large, oversees TIME's science and technology reporting. He has written or co-written more than 40 cover stories for the magazine and regularly contributes articles and commentary on science, behavior and health. Kluger is the co-author, with astronaut Jim Lovell, of Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which was the basis of the Apollo 13 movie released in 1995. He is the sole author of seven other books, including The Sibling Effect, published in 2011, and two novels for young adults. Other books include Splendid Solution, published in 2006, which tells the story of Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine; and the 2008 Hyperion release Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and Why Complex Things Can Be Made Simple). Before joining TIME, Kluger was a staff writer for Discover magazine, where he wrote the "Light Elements" humor column, and he was also an editor for the New York TimesBusiness World Magazine, Family Circle and Science Digest.Kluger, who is also an attorney, has taught science journalism at New York University.

Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world, something that must change, says Ed Morales. Today Ed drops in to talk about the history of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican diaspora, and how colonialism has hurt the island over the last 500 years.About our guest:Ed Morales is an author and journalist who has written for The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and the Guardian. He was staff writer at The Village Voice and columnist at Newsday. He is the author of Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico (Bold Type Books), Latinx: The New Force in Politics and Culture (Verso Books 2018), The Latin Beat (Da Capo Press 2003) and Living in Spanglish (St. Martins 2002). In 2019 Latinx was shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding by the British Academy in London. In 2009, while a Columbia University Revson Fellow, Morales wrote and directed Whose Barrio? (2009) an award-winning documentary about the gentrification of East Harlem. The film was inspired by “Spanish Harlem on His Mind,” an essay published in The Best of the City Section of the New York Times (NYU Press 2005). Morales is also a 2022-23 Mellon Bridging the Divides Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in New York.

This week historian Oscar Winberg joins in to talk about the origins of All In The Family and how the politics of the 1970s were filtered through television's biggest show.About our guest:Dr. Oscar Winberg is a postdoctoral fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies and the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku working on modern political history and mass media. He holds a PhD in history from Åbo Akademi University.In the United States, he is affiliated with the American Political History Institute at Boston University where he has been fortunate to spend time as a visiting researcher. His work has appeared in PS: Political Science & Politics, European Journal of American Studies, Finsk Tidskrift, Lähikuva, and Wider Screen, as well as popular publications, including The Washington Post, Svenska Dagbladet, Helsingin Sanomat, and Hufvudstadsbladet.He is a regular analyst of American politics and culture for various media outlets in Finland and Scandinavia.

Have you ever wondered what else was happening during the American Revolution? It turns out that the conflict was waged far beyond the shores of North America. Historian Richard Bell joins in today to talk about the unexpected participants in and ramifications of the American Revolution across the globe.About our guest:Richard Bell received his PhD from Harvard University and his BA from the University of Cambridge. His research interests focus on American history between 1750 and 1877 and he welcomes enquiries from graduate students working in this period. Visit his website. Download his CV.Bell’s most recent book is The American Revolution and the Fate of the World. Published by Penguin/Riverhead in 2025, it received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. It reveals the full breadth and depth of America’s founding event. The American Revolution was not only the colonies’ triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England; it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos. Repositioning the Revolution at the center of an international web, this  narrative ranges as far afield as India, Africa, Central America, and Australia. As Bell's lens widens, the “War of Independence” manifests itself as a sprawling struggle that upended the lives of millions of people on every continent and fundamentally transformed the way the world works, disrupting trade, restructuring penal systems, stirring famine, and creating the first global refugee crisis. Bell conveys the impact of these developments at home and abroad by grounding the narrative in the gripping stories of individuals—including women, minorities, and other disenfranchised people. The result is an unforgettable and unexpected work of American history that shifts everything we thought we knew about our creation story.Bell is the recipient of more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He is also one of the conveners of the Washington Area Early American Seminar, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, an elected member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. On campus, Bell serves as Chair of the UMD United Kingdom Fellowships Committee and was a founding member of The 1856 Project. He lives in University Park, MD, with his wife and two daughters.

Toe pick! If you don't love The Cutting Edge, something is seriously wrong with you. This week Dart Adams and Paul Gagliardi drop in to talk about the history behind the 1992 cult classic and why we love it so damn much. About our guests:Dart Adams is a historian, journalist and a lecturer from Boston, MA. His work has appeared in various online & print publications including Complex, NPR, Mass Appeal, Okayplayer, DJ Booth, Hip Hop Wired, The Urban Daily, The Vinyl Factory, uDiscover Music, Urban Legends, LEVEL, Ebony, Rock The Bells, Andscape (ESPN), Bay State Banner, Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston Magazine. He's also the owner/operator of independent imprint label Producers I Know/Fat Beats and host of Dart Against Humanity and the Boston Legends Podcast.Dr. Paul Gagliardi is an associate teaching professor at Marquette University. His primary fields of research are twentieth-century American cultural studies, drama and performance studies, labor studies, and film studies.  And his research focuses on the intersection between economic calamity, theories of work and labor, and the performative art people produce during eras like the Great Depression.  In his courses, he emphasizes understanding the historical, social, and cultural context of texts, but also now our contemporary readings problematize literature.  He also fosters interdisciplinary dialogue between all fields in his courses, and supports students with both their academic and professional goals.His book, All Play and No Work:  American Work Ideals and the Comic Plays of the Federal Theatre Project (Temple University Press, 2023), examines how select comedies produced by the federal government during the Great Depression portrayed complicated norms of working and labor.  I argue that many plays actually subverted norms of traditional labor or promoted alternative forms of working to audiences during the 1930s.  My writing on the Federal Theatre Project and other subjects, such as confidence artists and literature or other theater studies, has appeared in such outlets as Journal of American Drama and Threatre, Middle West Review, and Howlround, and I have a forthcoming chapter on portrayals of unions in pro wrestling.  My current research project examines the cultural history of ice-skating shows in the United States and Canada in the 20th Century, focusing on how shows like the Ice Follies and Ice Capades intersected with sports and theater, as well as how they promoted and challenged gender norms.