Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
The United States has waged wars, large and small, almost continually across two and a half centuries. No figure looms as large in that history as the American president, the embodiment of national will, the nation’s preeminent diplomat, and the commander in chief of its armed forces. How have presidents made decisions about war and peace? How have they balanced American ideals with defense of the nation’s interests? Why have they succeeded in achieving their goals in some cases but not in others?
This six-part virtual series explores these and other questions through lively conversations with eminent historians of American politics, diplomacy, and military affairs. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience. Over six weeks leading up to Presidents’ Day, we will sweep across American history from the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. We will examine presidents from Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, delving into their choices about war and peace as well as the implications of those decisions for the nation’s present and future.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Charlie Laderman is a senior lecturer in international history at the War Studies Department at King’s College, London, and a visiting research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His first book, Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2019), was awarded the 2021 H. Wayne Morgan Prize for the best book on the political history of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He is the co-author, with Brendan Simms, of Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War (Basic Books, 2021).
The United States has waged wars, large and small, almost continually across two and a half centuries. No figure looms as large in that history as the American president, the embodiment of national will, the nation’s preeminent diplomat, and the commander in chief of its armed forces. How have presidents made decisions about war and peace? How have they balanced American ideals with defense of the nation’s interests? Why have they succeeded in achieving their goals in some cases but not in others?
This six-part virtual series explores these and other questions through lively conversations with eminent historians of American politics, diplomacy, and military affairs. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience. Over six weeks leading up to Presidents’ Day, we will sweep across American history from the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. We will examine presidents from Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, delving into their choices about war and peace as well as the implications of those decisions for the nation’s present and future.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Charlie Laderman is a senior lecturer in international history at the War Studies Department at King’s College, London, and a visiting research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His first book, Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2019), was awarded the 2021 H. Wayne Morgan Prize for the best book on the political history of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He is the co-author, with Brendan Simms, of Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War (Basic Books, 2021).
![[Podcast] With the Bark Off: A Conversation with Nicole Hemmer About the Conservative Movement](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wgu4QQ8B7Vk/mqdefault.jpg "[Podcast] With the Bark Off: A Conversation with Nicole Hemmer About the Conservative Movement
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Nicole Hemmer is a political historian and Founding Director of the Rogers Center for the Study of the Presidency at Vanderbilt University. She’s also Cofounder of Made by History, a section of the Washington Post that offers historical context and analysis, and writes regularly for the New York Times, CNN and Politico.
Hemmer talked to us about the partisan politicians, personalities and pundits who began remaking the Republican Party 30 years ago, forging a modern conservative movement that trumped the conservative coalition of Republican icon Ronald Reagan and led to the far right Trumpism of today’s GOP.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/11373614")
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Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, a political analyst for MSNBC, and the author of several books on the presidency, including Days of Fire and The Breach. Susan Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a CNN global affairs analyst. Their first assignment as a married couple was as Moscow bureau chiefs for The Washington Post, after which they wrote Kremlin Rising. They also co-authored The Man Who Ran Washington, a New York Times bestseller.
The Divider is, at least for the moment, the definitive account of the Trump presidency. Sweeping across four years of nearly constant crisis and controversy, the book examines one of Americas most enigmatic presidencies, which included two impeachments, dramatic international events, a constantly shifting array of advisers, and the insurrection of January 6, 2021.
This conversation took place on December 13, 2022, at the LBJ Presidential Library.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/12851597?utm_source=youtube")
