In this episode of "Public History," Jake sits down with Irish History Podcast host Fin Dwyer to talk about the craft of storytelling, the rise of podcasting, and what it means to bring history to a global audience in the digital age. Listen to the Episode.
“So why did we invade Iraq?” Two editorials from a Coal Region newspaper. One written in the opening days of the war, full of certainty about what must come next. The other, just a year later, asking harder questions as the cost became clearer and the answers more uncertain. Read the Full Story.
“So why did we invade Iraq?” That blunt question appeared in a Pottsville, PA newspaper editorial one year after the invasion in 2004. Written as the war’s first justifications were already unraveling, it captured the uncertainty many Americans were beginning to feel. Two decades later, that war's impacts still resonate as a new conflict has begun. Read the Full Story.
In Sligo, Ireland a bronze family waits forever on the quay—one small reminder of events that sent more than 30,000 people from that port city toward places like Pennsylvania’s coal towns. Read the full story.
Big Bethel has been one of those small sites on my Civil War bucket list for years. There's not much left of this tiny battlefield near Hampton, Virginia - just a small battlefield trail with signage at the water's edge with fighter jets roaring overhead. Read the full story.
Each January, King in the Wilderness reminds me how unfinished Martin Luther King Jr.’s work was—and how uncomfortable it made people then and now. The film focuses on his final years, when he spoke plainly about war, poverty, and power. It’s an honest portrait worth revisiting. Read the full story.
As my hometown of Williamstown, Pennsylvania nears its 200th anniversary in 2026, a new article at PennLive looks at how coal built the town, shaped generations of workers, and left a lasting mark on the landscape. Read the full story.
2025 was a full, difficult, and meaningful year—spent writing, traveling, podcasting, and chasing stories from Pennsylvania’s Coal Region to Ireland’s northwest coast and beyond. This reflection looks back at the moments, places, and people that shaped the work. 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.
On October 8, 1871, Peshtigo, Wisconsin vanished in a wall of fire, leaving more than 1,200 dead. It remains the nation's deadliest wildfire. This podcast episode traces the disaster’s origins and its eerie legacy that lingers today. Listen to the latest episode of the Public History podcast.