In November 1963, a faction of South Vietnamese generals overthrew and assassinated Ngo Dinh Diem with the support of the Kennedy administration. In the final part of this series, we'll explore how infighting, ambition, and miscommunication sea

The Diem Experiment (Part Four)

Apr 12th, 2020 1h 28m

After destroying his rivals in the Battle of Saigon, President Diem sets out to build a new nation in South Vietnam. On the one hand he offers land reform and a glittering new middle class, built on a tide of American aid. On the other hand is

The Diem Experiment (Part Three)

Dec 25th, 2019 1h 4m

In the 1950s, most Americans viewed the Cold War as a battle between freedom and tyranny. There was just one problem: how to explain alliances with anti-communist authoritarians like Ngo Dinh Diem. In this episode, we'll explore how American po

The Diem Experiment (Part Two)

Jul 17th, 2019 1h 18m

Back in Saigon in 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem becomes premier of a country shattered by war and partition. With reunification elections looming, Diem barely controls the grounds of his own palace. Hostile Frenchmen, religious militias, a crime syndicat

The Diem Experiment (Part One)

Apr 24th, 2019 1h 29m

For nine years at the height of the Cold War, America's global crusade against communism rested on the shoulders of Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Hailed as a "miracle man" who brought the blessings of democracy and development to South Vietn

Soldiers of Capital (Part Two)

Jul 13th, 2018 1h 37m

After sending the Molly Maguires to the scaffold in 1877, Pinkerton's National Detective Agency plunged headlong into America's labor conflict. At the vanguard of its war on organized labor was the Protective Patrol, an armed force that deploye

Soldiers of Capital (Part One)

Jan 19th, 2018 1h 17m

Pinkerton's National Detective Agency was 19th-century America's premier private police force, the leader of a flourishing industry that offered solutions to the chaos and corruption of the nation's law enforcement. But the Pinkertons were more

From Camelot to Abilene

Jul 2nd, 2017 1h 13m

In a country as big and diverse as America, stories are crucially important to our sense of common identity. But where do those stories come from, and who creates them? In this episode, we examine the work of writer Owen Wister, who gave Americ

1877: The Great Strike and the Red Specter of the Commune (Part Two)

Dec 24th, 2016 2h 50m

When a railroad employee walks off the job in Baltimore, it triggers a violent chain of events that engulfs the industrialized North. From Pittsburgh to San Francisco, city after city erupts in rioting and street battles as railroad men, factor

1877: The Great Strike and the Red Specter of the Commune (Part One)

Jun 30th, 2016 1h 7m

If you think 2016 is a turbulent year for the United States, try 1877. The country is, as one observer puts it, "on the edge of a volcano." Four years into a crippling economic crisis, a hopelessly corrupt government is beset by domestic terror

Buffalo Bill, the Mythic West, and the Imperial Frontier

Mar 28th, 2016 1h 23m

William F. Cody - better known as Buffalo Bill - did more than any other person to translate the history of the American West into the language of popular culture. This episode explores how he molded his own past, and the history of the frontie

The Unending Civil War of Ambrose Bierce

Sep 4th, 2015 2h 26m

Ambrose Bierce was a Civil War veteran and the author of the most visceral and unsettling fiction to come out of the most violent conflict in American history. A man out of step with his own time, he insisted on bringing Americans face-to-face

Sword of the Wilderness (Part Two)

May 12th, 2015 2h 33m

Forty years after the Pequot War, a new conflict threatens to tear New England apart. Decades of uneasy coexistence between Puritan colonists and native Algonquians are about to come to a bloody end. King Philip's War will become one of the mos

Sword of the Wilderness (Part One)

Feb 10th, 2015 2h 44m

The year is 1620. It is a time of upheaval and apocalyptic fears in England. In the midst of economic disaster, poverty, crime, and ever-worsening religious and political repression, a fundamentalist movement called Puritanism dreams of spiritu

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