Irreverent History

Wyoming may call itself the Equality State, but its history is anything but straightforward. Beneath the wide skies and cowboy swagger lies a story of contradictions: pioneers chasing dreams while leaving grave markers in wagon ruts, cattle barons hiring mercenaries to crush small ranchers, outlaws turning into tourist mascots, and politicians railing against federal overreach while cashing federal checks. And let’s not forget Yellowstone, where bears once begged for marshmallows and tourists still try to pet bison.

In Corn, Caucuses, and Catastrophes, Jordan Blake Carter takes listeners on a rollicking ride through Iowa’s past and present. From the Honey War fought over beehives to penny auctions that defied the banks, from floods that drowned cities to butter cows that drew crowds, Iowa has always been equal parts resilient and ridiculous. This is the state that feeds the nation, humiliates presidential candidates at the State Fair, and rebuilds after every disaster with casseroles in hand.

Gumbo and Grit: A Not-So-Polite History of Louisiana dives into the state’s layered past with equal parts candor and wit. You’ll meet conquistadors and Cajuns, pirates and populists, enslaved laborers and jazz legends, all stirring the pot that made Louisiana what it is today.

This is not your high school history. From atomic showgirls and quickie divorces to Burning Man billionaires and desert survivalists, Nevada has built its reputation on contradictions. It is a place where nothing should have thrived and yet everything did, in the most outrageous ways possible. In this book, you’ll meet miners who gambled away fortunes before breakfast, mobsters who turned Vegas into a playground, politicians who looked the other way, and dreamers who set fire to wooden effigies in the desert just to see what would happen.

Alaska’s history is as wild as its wilderness, and just as unwilling to be tamed. Before the Russians showed up for fur and trouble, Indigenous peoples had been thriving here for thousands of years, navigating ice, sea, and politics with skill that would make modern survival shows blush. Then came the explorers who “discovered” places already mapped in someone else’s memory, the gold rush stampedes, the salmon wars, the Japanese invasion in WWII, the oil-fueled pipeline boom, and the endless political battles over land, resources, and who gets to decide Alaska’s future.

Connecticut loves to market itself as reasonable, refined, and reliably well behaved. The truth is far more fun. Clocks, Constitution, and Contradictions dives into the offbeat, dramatic, and frequently ridiculous history hiding under the Nutmeg State’s polished veneer.

New Hampshire’s industrial revolution didn’t unfold in quiet workshops. It exploded along the rivers in a storm of spinning frames, flooded mills, and enough cotton lint to make the mountains sneeze.

California is the land of impossible dreams and inevitable disasters. Gold built it, earthquakes shook it, fires torched it, Hollywood sold it, and Silicon Valley convinced us all to scroll through it. Behind the sunshine and palm trees lies a history of robber barons, cult leaders, political circus acts, and enough contradictions to power the state grid.

Every empire has its capital. Ours happens to be built on a swamp. In Swamp, Suits, and Shenanigans, cultural essayist Jordan Blake Carter digs through two centuries of ambition, hypocrisy, and hope to reveal the real Washington, D.C. From its mosquito-ridden origins to its modern brunch-and-barricade reality, this is the capital as you have never seen it: brilliant, broken, and always under renovation.

Pennsylvania is the state that built America while grumbling the entire time. This rollicking, sharply funny history traces its journey from Penn’s peaceful “holy experiment” to the roaring furnaces of the Industrial Revolution, from whiskey rebels to steel barons, from Amish buggies to AI labs, and from political meltdowns to nuclear ones.

The paradise was always a sales pitch. Hawaii is one of the most visited places on Earth and one of the least honestly described. Most Americans know it through airline commercials, hotel lobbies, and textbooks that spend two paragraphs on the overthrow of a sovereign nation before moving on to something more comfortable. This book is not interested in comfortable.

Maryland is tiny. Maryland is consequential. Maryland has never once confused these two facts as being in tension. From the Chesapeake Bay's Indigenous trading world to tobacco plantations to Civil War battlefields to crab-seasoned identity politics, Crabs, Catholics, and Constant Drama is the history of a state that has spent four centuries being more important than people remember and more contradictory than it will admit. It was founded as a Catholic refuge and immediately started running on coercion.

Flat, Fast, and Frequently Important: An Irreverent History of Ohio is the story of the state that somehow keeps ending up in the middle of everything while maintaining the energy of a place people mostly drive through on the way somewhere else. In this sharp, funny, and deeply researched history, Jordan Blake Carter traces Ohio’s transformation from glacial wilderness and ancient Indigenous crossroads to industrial powerhouse, political kingmaker, and recurring main character in the American story.

What do starving colonists, powdered-wig aristocrats, Confederate generals, moonshiners, civil rights activists, and data-center billionaires have in common? Virginia. In this fast-paced and often hilarious history, Jordan Blake Carter explores the people, events, and contradictions that shaped the Commonwealth and, by extension, the United States itself. From Jamestown's near collapse to the rise of modern Northern Virginia, Crowns, Cavaliers, and Confederates examines how one state repeatedly found itself at the center of America's biggest triumphs and greatest failures.

Indiana was never supposed to be interesting. It was supposed to be orderly. In Hoosier Discipline: An Irreverent History of Indiana, Jordan Blake Carter dismantles the familiar image of Indiana as a bland flyover state and replaces it with something stranger, sharper, and far more revealing. Beneath the cornfields, courthouse squares, basketball gyms, and perfectly straight roads lies a state obsessed with systems: systems of land, government, morality, labor, race, education, and control. This is not a nostalgic celebration of covered bridges and small-town charm.

Canada's official national strategy has long been simple: Make a mistake. Say sorry. Change the subject. In So Sorry, Jordan Blake Carter takes listeners on an unforgettable journey through the history Canada would often rather not discuss. You'll encounter vanished peoples, ambitious explorers, fur-trade empires, rebellions, political scandals, broken promises, constitutional showdowns, and generations of Canadians trying to figure out who they are.

Nebraska has spent most of American history being underestimated. Flat, boring, forgettable. Flyover country. Which is impressive, considering Nebraska helped feed the nation, fuel westward expansion, shape the Populist movement, host the command center for America’s nuclear arsenal, and quietly become one of the most important agricultural regions on Earth.

Everyone thinks they know New Jersey. It's the Turnpike. The Shore. The traffic. The smell. But beneath the jokes lies one of the most important, influential, and downright bizarre states in American history. New Jersey gave America its first dinosaur skeleton, hosted more Revolutionary War battles than any other state, launched the age of modern industry, survived foreign sabotage, witnessed the Hindenburg disaster, inspired The Sopranos, and somehow became the birthplace of both suburbia and several environmental disasters.

The dread Night King Xelroth Vex has brought all of our heroes to the Under Dark to face their pasts, their fears and maybe even their destinies. But while Vex believes he is the one in control, his son, Declan Wilde, has something to say about that. Follow King Aquilan as he discovers his memories are not complete. See Lord Rhalyf face off against his family and ambition. Witness Finley fight for his life to obtain the magic that he’s wanted all his life. And join Helgrom, Snaglak, Glom and the twins in a desperate heist to obtain magical weapons and armor from the abandoned dwarven city.

West Virginia is what happens when a group of mountain counties looks at the rest of their state and says, "Absolutely not."Created during the Civil War through one of the strangest political maneuvers in American history, West Virginia became a land of coal booms, labor wars, moonshine legends...