『The Last Best Hope?』のカバーアート

The Last Best Hope?

The Last Best Hope?

著者： Adam Smith
無料で聴く

Abraham Lincoln called the United States “the last best hope of Earth.” In this podcast, we ask whether that claim still holds — and whether it ever did.

Each episode takes a figure, idea, or moment in American political history and asks what it tells us about the country’s understanding of itself, always with an eye to how America looks from the outside in. The Last Best Hope? takes ideas seriously: America as a creed, the arguments of the people who built and remade it, and what America has meant to the rest of the world. We take our subjects from history, not the news — though the present is rarely far away.


Hosted by Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of American Political History and Director of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, The Last Best Hope? brings him into conversation with leading scholars and public figures, including Hillary Clinton, Annette Gordon-Reed, Eric Foner, David Frum, Heather Cox Richardson, Stacy Schiff, Jonathan Freedland, James Morone, Michael Kazin, Kevin Kruse, Julian Zelizer, Bruce Schulman, Ty Seidule, Liz Varon, Eric Rauchway, Phil Tinline, Emily Bazelon, Richard Carwardine, Rachel Shelden, Richard Blackett, Devin Fergus, and Dan Jackson.


“Adam Smith is one of the UK’s foremost historians of America, and communicates his expertise with zest, wit and unforced passion. The Last Best Hope? brings him together with fellow scholars to provide a unique insight we can’t do without.” — Phil Tinline, BBC radio documentary-maker and author


“The Last Best Hope is an absolutely brilliant podcast. Thoughtful, clever, engaging and accessible, Adam Smith always gets the best out of his guests, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from every episode. I love it.” — Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-host of The Rest is History


“The must-listen US podcast.” — Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New York


Produced by the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/home

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

© 2022 The Last Best Hope?: Understanding America from the Outside In アート 世界
エピソード
  • Why Presidents Lose Midterms

    Why Presidents Lose Midterms
    2026/10/22

    Since the Civil War the president's party has lost ground in Congress in every single midterm election bar four. What's going on? Are voters punishing the administration they put into office just two short years earlier? Is it an attempt to balance power in Washington? Or is it just that the president's party's supporters don't turn out? To explore this issue, Adam is joined by Ursula Hackett, the Churchill Associate Professor of US Politics at the RAI. Adam and Ursula discuss some of the most dramatic midterm elections of the past -- from the 1874 repudiation of President Grant to Obama's 2010 "shellacking" to try to work out what explains a remarkably consistent phenomenon-- the President's party losing.


    The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk


    Join Adam Join Adam Smith, Molly Ball, Galen Druke and Ursula Hackett for The Midterm Elections: What Just Happened? on 5 November at 2pm UK time, in Oxford or online. Event details and registration.


    If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving


    Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    46 分
  • New Series

    New Series
    2026/10/07

    As the United States gears up to mid-term elections, which may once again shift the political trajectory of the country, the Last Best Hope? returns for a brand-new season on the 8th of October.


    “Adam Smith is one of the UK’s foremost historians of America, and communicates his expertise with zest, wit and unforced passion. The Last Best Hope? brings him together with fellow scholars to provide a unique insight we can’t do without.” — Phil Tinline, BBC radio documentary-maker and author


    “The Last Best Hope is an absolutely brilliant podcast. Thoughtful, clever, engaging and accessible, Adam Smith always gets the best out of his guests, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from every episode. I love it.” — Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-host of The Rest is History“The must-listen US podcast” Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New York.


    Presented by Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of American Political History at Oxford. Each episode explores history to understand what makes America what it is.


    In this season Adam asks what constitutes a U.S political party, and how they differ from parties in parliamentary democracies? And he takes the long view of midterm elections, going back as far as 1874, a contest in which the Republicans lost half their House seats. Why do these midterm contests so reliably go against the President's party?


    And 80 years after Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he used the phrase special relationship, Adam explores how that phrase has distorted British perceptions of the US. And he takes a deep dive into the surprising history of the Supreme Court as a highly political body.


    The Last Best Hope? Is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui.


    For details of RAI programming, go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/events


    Producer: Emily Williams Presenter: Adam Smith

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 分
  • American Political Parties Explained

    American Political Parties Explained
    2026/10/08

    What is an American political party? Unlike in parliamentary systems, they're not private organisations but quasi-public bodies, with no membership dues and with their candidate selection regulated by public law. And how do we explain the paradox that in an era of intense 'partisan' division, the parties themselves -- as organisations -- are by some measures weaker than ever before? Adam is joined by Sam Rosenfeld Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University, the author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era, and, with Daniel Schlozman, The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.


    The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk


    If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving


    Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    52 分
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
まだレビューはありません