Think Back

What the Frontier Myth Gets Wrong—and Why It Matters

Why does the frontier myth refuse to die? In this episode of Think Back, I speak with historian and writer Megan Kate Nelson about her new book The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Westerners/Megan-Kate-Nelson/9781668004340]. The book takes direct aim at one of the most durable stories Americans tell about themselves: the frontier myth, codified by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893, which cast the westward march of white pioneers as the engine of American democracy. That myth, Nelson argues, has never really loosened its grip. When whole communities are erased from the national story, it becomes easier to treat them as un-American and to strip them of their rights. To make that case, Nelson follows seven people traversing the 19th-century West, a cast that includes Sacajawea, the biracial fur trader Jim Beckwourth, the Hispanic gambling-saloon empire-builder María Gertrudis Barceló, the Northern Cheyenne chief Little Wolf, the Chinese immigrant Polly Bemis, and the Canadian-immigrant rancher Ella Watson. Together they reveal a West initially defined less by conquest than mobility, cultural encounters, and radical possibility, a place where people on the margins of society often found real opportunity, until the advance American law and settlement foreclosed those futures for good. Nelson’s West was not a paradise of pluralism, but genuine possibilities existed there—for women, for people of color, for those living across cultural boundaries. The frontier myth distorts our understanding of the past, but it also limits our imaginations when it comes to the present and the future. Music for this episode: “The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, performed by Akiko Sasaki; “Reel Delisle,” by Joel Zifkin; interlude by Zachary Solomon Get full access to Think Back at www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe [https://www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Unfinished Business of 1776

In this episode of Think Back, I speak with historian Thomas Richards Jr. about his new book The Unfinished Business of 1776: Why the American Revolution Never Ended [https://thenewpress.org/books/the-unfinished-business-of-1776/]. Richards opens with a deliberately provocative contrast: was the Revolution an inspirational fight for freedom, or a vicious struggle for power? His answer sets up a book that refuses easy celebration or outright dismissal. Rather than focusing on the Revolution itself, Richards trains his attention on the decades that followed, tracing how the fights ignited in 1776 continued to reshape American life long after the guns fell silent. We move through a series of connected episodes—the drafting of the Constitution, the Whiskey Rebellion, the little-known story of women voting in New Jersey in the early republic, Gabriel’s Rebellion, and ultimately the Civil War—each illuminating how debates over the Revolution’s legacy were also battles over the future. Our conversation touches on how enslaved people and other excluded groups turned the Revolution’s language against its architects, why the Constitution was seen by some as a betrayal of revolutionary ideals, and how the turbulent period of “manifest destiny” forced Americans to decide what kind of country they were actually building. With America’s 250th anniversary now underway, and the official commemorations already looking appallingly thin or worse, The Unfinished Business of 1776 [https://thenewpress.org/books/the-unfinished-business-of-1776/] arrives at exactly the right moment—a serious, searching, and genuinely useful reckoning with what the Revolution was, what it wasn’t, and what it might still become. Music for this episode: “The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, performed by Akiko Sasaki; “Reel Delisle,” by Joel Zifkin Looking for more on the American Revolution? See these previous episodes of THINK BACK. Get full access to Think Back at www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe [https://www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How Slavery Ended

In this episode of Think Back, I talk with historian Tom Zoellner about his new book The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War [https://thenewpress.org/books/9798893850086/]. We dig into a dimension of emancipation that often gets overshadowed by presidential proclamations and congressional acts: the ground-level pressure created by enslaved people themselves. Zoellner traces how thousands of self-emancipated men and women forced the Union to confront slavery not as an abstraction, but as an urgent reality. The Underground Railroad, in effect, became “above ground,” and the war’s meaning began to shift. Our conversation explores how slavery both rose and fell through a series of piecemeal, improvised decisions—legal maneuvers, military necessities, human acts of courage that accumulated into an unstoppable revolution. We discuss Lincoln’s leadership, the messy realities of the contraband camps, the present-day politics of how this history is told, and why the struggle over emancipation’s meaning is far from over. Music by Akiko Sasaki (“The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk) and Zachary Solomon Get full access to Think Back at www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe [https://www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Forgotten Movement for a Black State

This episode looks at one of the strangest political experiments in American history: a late-nineteenth-century movement to create an officially Black state in the land that would become Oklahoma. At its center was Edward McCabe, a charismatic but elusive figure who envisioned Black self-government within the United States at a moment when Reconstruction had collapsed and white supremacy was hardening across the country. My guest is Caleb Gayle, professor of history at Northeastern University and the author of Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State [https://www.calebgayle.com/blackmoses] (2025). We talk about the nature and the limits of McCabe’s vision, and what this failed effort reveals about debates over Black politics, specifically regarding the conflict between separatism and inclusion, in post-Civil War America—and why the story still matters. Music by Akiko Sasaki (“The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk) and Zachary Solomon Get full access to Think Back at www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe [https://www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Was the Conquest of Native America Inevitable?

In this episode of Think Back, I’m joined by the historian Kathleen DuVal to talk about her extraordinary 2024 book Native Nations, a sweeping thousand-year history of Indigenous North America. The book, which won the Pulitzer Prize, fundamentally reframes American history by restoring Native peoples to the center of the story, not as passive victims of conquest but as powerful political actors who shaped events for centuries. Our conversation ranges from the rise and fall of vast Indigenous cities long before 1492 to the long periods in which Native nations and European empires dealt with one another as equals—or in which Native peoples clearly held the upper hand. DuVal challenges familiar narratives, showing instead a history marked by diplomacy, trade, adaptation, and resilience. We talk about why she uses the word “nation” to describe Indigenous societies, how Native history connects to global history, and how economic and political ties bound Native North America to Europe and the Atlantic world. We also discuss how to balance stories of survival and continuity rather than erasure alone. It’s a deep, wide-ranging conversation about what American history looks like when Native nations are finally taken seriously. * Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America [https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/575441/] (2024) * — , Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/199754/independence-lost-by-kathleen-duval/] (2016) See also my conversation last year with Nicole Eustace about her book, Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America (2022) Music by Akiko Sasaki (“The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk) and Zachary Solomon Get full access to Think Back at www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe [https://www.thinkbackpod.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]