The Not Old - Better Show
Before We Knew the Ending: America, Fascism, and the Warnings We Were Still Learning to Hear William I. Hitchcock on A Shadow Over the World
⚠️ History looks obvious after we know the ending. Living through it is another matter entirely. That idea shaped my conversation with historian William I. Hitchcock, author of A Shadow Over the World. Americans in the 1930s were not reading a history book. They were listening to radio broadcasts, reading competing newspaper accounts, hearing political speeches, and trying to decide whether events overseas represented another European crisis or something far more dangerous. ️ Our conversation asks some uncomfortable questions. Why were intelligent Americans so divided? Why did some warnings break through while others were dismissed? What made propaganda persuasive? And how did Franklin Roosevelt judge when the country was ready to move? For those of us over 60, there is another layer. Many of us grew up close to the World War II generation, then lived through Vietnam, Watergate, the Cold War, 9/11, and a dramatic change in the way Americans receive information. Which leads to perhaps the biggest question of the episode: Does living through more history make us better at recognizing the next turning point, or simply more confident that we know what we are looking at? William I. Hitchcock joins me on The Not Old Better Show for A Shadow Over the World.
