Episodes

In 2010, the United States ranked 20th in the world on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. Pretty good. Today, we're 64th out of 180 — officially "problematic." That's a strange place to land for the country that put freedom of the press in the very first amendment to its Constitution. So this episode traces exactly how we got from "this is one of the most important rights we can give people" to "problematic" — through jury nullification, a president who made it illegal to critic...

Welcome to Emily Teaches World History — a new series where we go all the way back to the actual beginning, starting with the discovery that changed everything: farming. This episode covers the Neolithic Revolution (aka the invention of agriculture, aka the reason you're not currently living in a small nomadic hunting tribe), why it probably wasn't invented by any one person or culture, and why it happened almost everywhere on Earth within a few thousand years of each other with zero communicat...

"The parties switched" is the most confidently repeated, least accurately explained sentence in American political history. Sometimes a party shifted its platform over time to hold on to core voting groups. Sometimes a voting bloc switched to another party. But there was never a simple "Switch." This clip is a segment from one of my live monthly History Lecture Party sessions — the Patreon series where subscribers get a full deep-dive lecture plus live Q&A every month. This session, we traced t...

There are adults walking around right now, almost old enough to rent a car, who weren't alive on September 11, 2001. And a lot of the rest of us watched it happen live and never actually went back to learn it as history. We lived through it. We never studied it. This episode covers both halves of that problem. First, the basics of what happened that morning — the timeline, the casualties, why historians are seriously discussing whether 2001 marks the start of an entirely new era of human histor...

George Washington's Farewell Address is basically a 1796 subtweet aimed at the entire rest of American history. He warned the country against "the baneful effects of the spirit of party" — and by the time he finished writing it, political parties had already formed. Nobody listened. Nobody has ever really listened. This clip is a segment from one of my live monthly History Lecture Party sessions — the Patreon series where I do a full deep-dive lecture (plus live Q&A) for subscribers every month...

The TradWife trend is not new. We just used to call it the Cult of Domesticity — and back then it didn't come with a ring light. Every few decades, America falls back in love with the idea that women, especially moms, belong at home. It's happening again right now with linen aprons and homemade sourdough, but if you've sat through a U.S. history class with me, you already know this movie. I've seen this film before, and I didn't like the ending. In this video I'm tracing the very old, very rep...

The national debt just hit $40 trillion. If the U.S. decided to pay that off at a cool $1 billion a year, we'd be debt-free in about 40,000 years — so, cool, normal, not concerning at all. This week we're digging into how we actually got here. Turns out America has basically never not been in debt — we owed money before we even finished writing the Constitution. We'll trace the whole wild ride: how Alexander Hamilton picked a fight with half the founding fathers over who should pay for the Revo...

Welcome to a special episode I've created for my Historical Travel Society members who are traveling to Egypt! Click here for my History of Egypt TIMELINE to follow along

Henry George was a guy with two first names and a Progressive dream to level the growing inequality through a land value tax. Mr. Beat (of YouTube fame) teaches me everything I never knew I needed to know...

This week I force Seema Rao (@artlust) to hear me explain the incredible pop art / indigenous design elements of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, because SOMEONE besides me should read my graduate thesis... Follow Seema for all things aesthetic and art history on TikTok!

This week Seema Rao (@artlust) is explaining to me why they entire freakin' world wanted porcelain so badly they conquered whole continents for a nice tea set. Follow Seema for all things aesthetic and art history on TikTok!

This week I'm joined by Jonathan Katz, author of Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire. On today's episode we talk about ALL of it: American imperialism, the Bonus Army March of WWI vets, an attempted fascist coup against FDR, and the Imperialist-With-A-Heart-Of-Gold (?) at the center of it all: Smedley Butler.

I'm joined this week by Ernest Crim III who teaches me about a 19th c. local Black history icon: Sam Harris of Williamsburg, Virginia. Follow Mr. Crim on TikTok and Instagram for more deep dives into Black history!

I'm joined this week by Ernest Crim III who teaches me about a 19th c. local Black history icon: Sam Harris of Williamsburg, Virginia. Follow Mr. Crim on TikTok and Instagram for more deep dives into Black history!

This week I'm joined again by Dara Starr Tucker who is going to learn all about the Nullification Crisis as our best case study of whether or not a Civil War could have been fought without slavery as the main issue. Follow Dara on TikTok, Instagram, or see her live at an upcoming show!

This week I'm joined by Dara Starr Tucker who is going to help me understand Abraham Lincoln and his complicated views on Black Americans during his lifetime. Follow Dara on TikTok, Instagram, or see her live at an upcoming show!

The Emilies went to Latvia and fell in love! Join us as we share all the history, fun facts, and personal revelations we discovered in our new favorite European city: Riga. Follow Emily Pool for all things European History on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and check out her AP European History Ultimate Review Packet to get ready for the exam! www.snipfeed.co/antisocialstudies

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Listen. Never have I felt older than this moment, in which I am lecturing via podcast about the historical epoch that is the 1990s (or, as the kids refer to it, “The late 1900s.”) So, what were the 1990s about? It was confusing. We didn’t have a clear “enemy” in the world anymore. The internet boom glossed over rising inequality. The world became “globalized” and the country became obsessed with talking about “multiculturalism” and whether that was a good or bad thing. The 1990s are a hodge-pod...

Support the show on Patreon! Emily tries to avoid comment trolls as she covers the Reagan years, the AIDS Crisis, trickle-down economics, and whatever the HW Bush presidency was all about.

It's 1968. White middle-class Americans are tired. They’re tired of everyone complaining - it’s “systemic racism” this and “unjust war” that. Can’t we all just be happy? Isn’t it time we all just calmed down and got back to work? It’s time for some tough love and Nixon is the man to drag us out of the 1960s kicking and screaming… Today’s episode is all about the 1970s or “If an entire decade were the middle child.” This is Anti-Social Studies; I’m Emily Glankler: settle in and let’s go back in ...

This episode is sponsored by the National Archives Foundation and their exhibit, "All American: The Power of Sports." Visit the exhibit in DC at the William G. McCowan Theater through January 2024, subscribe to their YouTube channel and check out their website for more history content and educator resources. CORRECTION: The Cincinnati Reds name comes from the red color of their stockings and was not a reference to indigenous Americans.

Before we move on in time from LBJ to Nixon, I want to pause so that we can talk about the PLETHORA of social movements that were ongoing throughout these two presidencies. Today we’re talking about Civil Rights and Protest Movements of the 1960s and 70s or, “Free At Last? Check out www.choices.edu and use the code ANTI-SS for 15% off your purchase of educational materials!

This episode of Anti-Social Studies was sponsored by the LBJ Presidential Library and Foundation. If you're in the Austin area, visit the LBJ Library & Museum. If not, check out www.LBJLibrary.org to explore their eMuseum, digital archives, and educational resources. If JFK was the optimism of what the 1960s could be, then LBJ was the realism of what it actually was. Does that sentence make sense? I’m sure it will by the end of this episode. Remember last episode when I said that the 1960s wer...