Drum roll please……………..Here we go — the first podcast installment in a monstrous enterprise, CJ’s White Whale: the Dangerous History Podcast’s coverage of the War Between the States!

In this first installment, we’ll cover the opening moves, from December 1860 to November 1861.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• The secession of the seven states of the Deep South following the election of Abraham Lincoln
• The formation of the Confederate States of America, including its constitution
• The accession to office of the Lincoln Administration
• The firing on Fort Sumter
• Sumter’s impact on the North and the South, including the secession of the Upper South
• Lincoln’s actions to try to keep the Border States in the Union, by any means neccessary
• Preparations for war & early skirmishes
• The Battle of Manassas (or First Bull Run) and its impact
• Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (written in Nov. 1861) as portent of the total war-crusade to come

Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon

The official DHP Amazon Wish List

Internal Links

• DHP Ep. 0099: A History of American Slavery Part V (in this episode I give an overview of the politics in the decades leading up to the war)
• DHP Ep. 0124: The American Civil Religion

External Links

• Full text of the ‘Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union’

Between 1946 and 1953, the cornerstones of a permanent garrison state were laid within the structure of the US government.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• Henry Luce’s 1941 article “The American Century” & the construction of the Pentagon (begun on Sept. 11th, 1941 -the pic above shows the Pentagon under construction, BTW) as harbingers of this change
• George Kennan’s original, much more limited strategy of ‘containment’ towards the USSR
• American intervention in Greece, 1946
• The National Security Act of 1947 (the single most important piece of formal legislation in this process)
• NSC-68
• Proof of a revolution within the form: Harry Truman’s sending of American forces into significant combat in 1950 without a declaration of war
• How the Eisenhower Administration tacitly ratified all this into permanence, despite Ike’s occasional statements that indicate his misgivings about the whole thing

Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon

CJ’s official DHP Amazon Wish List

Internal Links

• DHP Ep. 0115: Out with the Old Right, In with the New Right

External Links

• Henry Luce, “The American Century”
• George Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’
• Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace” (the ‘Iron Curtain’ speech)
• Harold D. Lasswell, “The Garrison State,” published in The American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1941.
• Full text of NSC-68