Welcome to "The Past, the Promise, the Presidency," a podcast about the exciting, unexpected, and critically-important history of the office of the President of the United States. You'll find four seasons of this podcast: Season 1 - Race and the American Legacy; Season 2 - Presidential Crises; Season 3 - The Bully Pulpit; and the current Season 4 - Conversations. Between Seasons 3 & 4, you will also find here a new pilot series called "Firsthand History." In each season of this series, we'll tell a different story from the complex and controversial era of the George W. Bush presidency. We'll tell these stories by featuring oral histories from our Collective Memory Project - firsthand stories told by the people who were there, including U.S. government officials, leaders from foreign countries, journalists, scholars, and more. Season 1--"Cross Currents: Navigating U.S.-Norway Relations After 9/11"--explores the tangled webs of transatlantic alliance in a time of war and uncertainty. "Firsthand History" is a production of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.