What feels like a modern fight over Confederate monuments began at Gettysburg in the 1880s. In this episode of the Public History Podcast, Codie Eash shows how veterans battled over memory, treason, and power - and how the Lost Cause was challenged by US veterans from the start on America’s most famous battlefield. Read the full story.
My 2025 reading list leans hard into the big, difficult stuff - atomic fire over Japan, mass graves in Rwanda and Bosnia, the Molly Maguires, Irish soldiers in blue, and one unforgettable novel about a single patch of New England ground. These are the books that shaped his thinking this year about memory, violence, grief, and how we tell stories. Read the full story.
This holiday episode of the Public History podcast revisits It’s a Wonderful Life as more than a Christmas classic. We unpack the war trauma behind Jimmy Stewart’s performance, the clash between Bedford Falls and Potterville, and why Frank Capra’s critique of power still feels uncomfortably relevant today. Read the full story.
In 1929, Schuylkill County author Joseph H. Zerbe lamented how living recollections of the Civil War were slipping away as veterans passed on. He feared younger generations, detached from personal stories and tangible reminders, might lose connection to their county’s important Civil War legacy. Read the full story and essay.
In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the state of World War II history in popular memory and the 80th anniversary of D-Day.