We're glad you've arrived.
The Road to Now is a history podcast that explains the story behind important events and outstanding individuals of today's world. Created in 2016 by Dr. Benjamin Sawyer and Bob Crawford, a founding member of the Grammy-nominated band The Avett Brothers, The Road to Now has brought historians, politicians, journalists and artists to the table for conversations that illuminate the map that brought us to where we are today.
Subscribe to The Road to Now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and anywhere podcasts are available. Don't have a podcast app? You can listen right on your computer and smart phone on our episode page by clicking play at the top of the page.
Keep up with show news and updates by following us on twitter, facebook, and instagram.
If you have any questions or show suggestions, please write to us at [email protected].
Thanks for joining us on the road,
Ben Sawyer and Bob Crawford
Latest Episodes
Miss America’s Secret Past w/ Amy Argetsinger (#210)
October 18, 2021No commentThe Miss America pageant has always had its critics, but the stories of the organization and those who participated in it are far more dynamic than most people recognize. In this episode, Bob & Ben speak with Amy Argetsinger whose new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America explains Miss America’s origins, how the pageant both shaped and was shaped by American society, and why it might be okay that the pageant’s significance in American culture has faded. Bonus: Bob calls Miss USA “the confederacy of beauty pageants.” Listen to find out why that might make sense!
Amy Argetsinger is an editor for The Washington Post’s acclaimed Style section, where she has overseen coverage of media, popular culture, politics and society. Her new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America was published by Atria/One Signal Publishers in September of 2021. You can follow Amy on twitter at @AmyArgetsinger.
The Corn Syrup Controversy w/ Benjamin Cohen (RTN #209)
October 11, 2021No commentHow did corn syrup get such a bad reputation? While there are certainly differences between this corn-based sweetener and the sugar that comes from beets & cane, the opinions many of us hold about what separates them are rooted in much more than the scant scientific evidence on their differing impact on human health. In this episode, Benjamin Cohen joins us to talk about the history behind the corn syrup controversy, the deep roots that lie beneath our understandings of food and purity, and how understanding this story might help us make better decision moving forward. Dr. Benjamin R. Cohen is Associate Professor of Engineering Studies and Environmental Studies at Lafayette College and co-editor w/ Michael Kideckel & Anna Zeide of the new collection Acquired Tastes: Stories About the Origins of Modern Food (MIT Press, 2021).
Monsanto’s Past, Our Future w/ Bartow Elmore (#208)
September 27, 2021No comment
The Monsanto Company officially ceased to exist when it was acquired by Bayer in 2018, but its legacy lives on in courtrooms, factory towns and farms across the globe. Today the company’s name is most associated with the herbicide Roundup and genetically modified seeds, but Monsanto also served as a leading producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, an essential supplier of caffeine and saccharin to Coca-Cola in Coke’s early years, and the sole US producer of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). In short, Monsanto’s history is one that will continue to shape the world well into the future.
In this episode, Bart Elmore joins Bob and Ben to talk about his new book Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Future (W.W. Norton, 2021) and how a small midwestern company founded in 1901 became an agricultural powerhouse by selling solutions to the problems it helped to create.
Dr. Bartow Elmore is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University where he specializes in Global Environmental History and the History of Capitalism. He is also the author of the award-winning book Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W. W. Norton, 2015). You can follow him on twitter at @BartElmore and find out more about his work at his website, BartElmore.com.
You can hear Bart’s first appearance on The Road To Now in episode #140: Citizen Coke: The History of Coca-Cola w/ Bartow Elmore.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
This Episode Kills Fascists: Woody Guthrie’s Life & Legacy w/ Deana McCloud (#94 Rebroadcast)
September 19, 2021No comment
The History of Coffee w/ Mark Pendergrast (#81 Rebroadcast)
September 6, 2021No comment
Most Americans drink coffee. Our love for coffee ties us to people and countries around the world, and to those who lived long before us. In this episode of The Road to Now, we speak with Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee & How It Changed the World and Beyond Fair Trade to find out coffee’s origins, its effects on global trade, and how a small cherry that originated on the other side of the planet became part of our daily life.
This is a rebroadcast of RTN #81, which originally aired on December 11, 2017.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Telling History through Journalism with Julian Rubinstein (#206)
August 30, 2021No comment
In this episode, Bob speaks with freelance journalist, Julian Rubenstein, author of The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).
The book tells the story of anti-gang activist, Terrance Roberts, who shot a young gang member before a peace rally he organized. In telling the story of Terrance Roberts, Rubenstein also tells the history of black organizers from the civil rights era, the black power movement through to today’s black lives matter movement.
Rubenstein is a real journalist; he’s devoted many years of his life telling the story of Terrance and Denver’s North East Park Hill Neighborhood and he was the battle scars to prove it. In an age when so many people have trouble telling the difference between opinion journalism and objective journalism, the depth and scope of Julian’s tenacious reporting deserves recognition.
You can follow Julian Rubinstein on twitter at @Julian_Rubinste.
This episode was edited by Bob Crawford & Gary Fletcher.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network.
The Mignonette & Everything Else w/ Neil Hanson (#55 Rebroadcast)
August 23, 2021No comment
Neil Hanson is one of the most interesting people we know. He’s written books on World War I, the Spanish Armada, and the fire that destroyed London in 1666. He once teamed up with history’s greatest treasure hunter to tell the story of retrieving over $100 million in gold from a sunken Soviet ship in the arctic. He’s been the owner of the highest Inn in all of Great Britain. And, in 1999 he published a book called The Custom of the Sea, which tells the story of a shipwrecked crew that was put on trial in London after resorting to cannibalism. The ship, which fell victim to forty-foot waves off the coast of Africa in 1884, was named the Mignonette, and Hanson’s book was so good that in 2004 it inspired an album by an up-and-coming group of musicians called The Avett Brothers.
How could someone turn a gruesome tale of cannibalism into an inspirational work of history? How do you track down the sources that allow you to answer so many questions about history? And how does one individual accomplish so much in one life? In this episode of The Road to Now, we get the answers in our conversation with Neil Hanson.
The is a rebroadcast of an episode that originally aired on April 24, 2017. This rebroadcast was edited by Gary Fletcher. 
The History of Student Debt w/ Ellie Shermer (#205)
August 16, 2021No comment
According to the US Department of Education, 45 million Americans collectively owe $1.7 billion in total student loan debt. While the weight of student loans has increased substantially in the 21st century, the history of student debt and the institutions that facilitate it is a much longer story than you probably expect. Ellie Shermer joins us to talk about her new book Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in Debt (Harvard, 2021), why student debt may be bad for all of us, and what we might do to alleviate student debt and fix higher education moving forward.
Dr. Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. Her previous books include Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). You can follow her on twitter at @ETShermer.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
How to Talk to a Science Denier w/ Lee McIntyre (RTN #203)
August 2, 2021No commentThe rejection of scientific expertise has been one of the most consequential social trends of the 21st century and, for those of us who remain committed to the scientific method, it may also be the most frustrating. After years being bombarded with evidence (and often having their intelligence insulted), science deniers seem even more committed to alternative explanations of the world and the leaders who promise to undermine science-based policy. How did we get here and how can we make things better? In this episode, we get answers to those questions from Dr. Lee McIntyre, who shares what he learned from studying the ways that science deniers see the world, how we can use those insights to fight that worldview, and why a little bit of good faith goes a long way in communicating with others. Dr. Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His book How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason (MIT Press, 2021)
hits shelves on August 17, 2021.
(You remember that study that said confronting people with evidence that disproved their position only made them more convinced of their beliefs? It didn’t hold up in subsequent experiments. There’s more on that in this episode.)
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Laughing at Stalin: The Politics of Humor w/ Jon Waterlow (#107 Rebroadcast)
July 26, 2021No commentBob and Ben speak with Jon Waterlow about his book It’s Only a Joke Comrade! Humor, Trust and Everyday Life Under Stalin and the role 
humor plays in helping humans make sense of the world in even the darkest times. Jon also shares his take on humor’s role in politics under Stalin and today, the process he went through to uncover these jokes, and how the artistic technique of crosshatching helps us understand what it was like to live under the Stalinist system. He also discusses his decision to forego publishing his book with an academic publisher and why he decided to leave a bright future in the academy to purse fulfillment elsewhere.
Dr. Jonathan Waterlow received his Doctorate in History from the University of Oxford and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at St. Anthony’s College (Oxford) and the University of Toronto. He is also the cohost of the Voices in the Dark podcast, which is available anywhere you get The Road to Now.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
This episode is a rebroadcast of RTN #107, which originally aired on October 1, 2018.Featured Guests
Ken Burns
Documentary FilmmakerKen Burns is a legendary documentarian whose work has changed the way we understand our country's past. His newest...
View Episode
Joe Kwon
The Avett Brothers CellistJoe Kwon was born in Korea, raised in High Point, and has traveled near and far. He's probably most known for playing cello in...
View Episode
Heather Cox Richardson
Professor of HistoryDr. Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College and the author of six books on US history. Her “Letters f...
View Episode
Dr. Louis Woods
Professor Of HistoryDr. Louis Woods is an Associate Professor of African-American History in the History Department at Middle Tennessee State Uni...
View Episode
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Subscribe to receive info on our latest news and episodes.