Heather Cox Richardson on the Real Genius of America

About this episode

Heather Cox Richardson discusses her rise as a social media star and her insights on American politics through historical analysis.

More To The Story: Heather Cox Richardson is one of today’s unlikeliest social media stars. The Boston College historian has been teaching and writing about 19th-century America, Reconstruction, and the Civil War for decades. But it was only in 2019 that her work took off when she began writing her daily newsletter, Letters from an American , a no-nonsense analysis of the news through the lens of US history. The newsletter became one of the most popular on Substack. And today, Richardson has millions of loyal fans who rely on her to make sense of American politics and provide a little sanity and democratic reassurance even as she herself is concerned about the direction of the country today. On this week’s More To The Story , Richardson talks about the decades-long failure to hold corrupt American leaders accountable, the still-resonant death of Reconstruction, and what she sees as the tragic hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Daniel King | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers…

People in this episode

Host: Al Letson

Guest: Heather Cox Richardson

Topics covered

• American history
• politics
• Reconstruction
• Civil War
• accountability
• Thomas Jefferson

Keywords

• Heather Cox Richardson
• American politics
• Reconstruction
• Civil War
• Letters from an American
• Substack
• Thomas Jefferson
• accountability

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Boston College, Letters from an American, Substack

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