#1684 America at 250: How Did We Get Here?

Listening to America

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

Clay welcomes Colorado historian Walter Borneman to the program. Borneman has written more than a dozen books, from the events at Lexington and Concord to a soon-to-be-published history of the American West following World War II. He's a public historian with a wide reach. The great question is: where are we as we approach the country's 250th birthday? How did we get here, and where might we be headed? Does a study of American history help us understand what feels like an unprecedented moment in our national destiny? Will we survive this current crisis of national confidence? Clay's conversation includes a discussion of the sweep of the Europeanization of the North American continent, with particular emphasis on the presidency of James Polk, an unapologetic expansionist, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson, who may have been our most intense national imperialist. This episode was recorded on October 28, 2025.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to my introduction to this week's podcast. Walter Borman of Estes Park,
0:07.3	Colorado. He's written a ton of books. My friend Frank Lister, my scout, helped to line this up.
0:14.2	2003, Alaska, Saga of a Bold Land. I'll be ordering that immediately. 2008, Polk, the man who transformed
0:20.3	the presidency in America. I'll be ordering that immediately. Even though I'm downsizing, there are certain things you still have to have. Two books on the Transcontinental Row. His favorite book appears to be his 2012 book, the Admiral's Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King, the five-star admirals who won the war at sea. Also, 2016, MacArthur at war, World War II in the Pacific.
0:40.6	Wow, I mean, this is just a partial list. And I wanted to interview him because he's a generalist.
0:45.7	You know, he hasn't chosen just the Battle of the Bulge. He hasn't chosen just Sand Creek Massacre,
0:51.5	hasn't chosen just the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, all really important
0:55.2	subjects. And we need those historians who fixate on one or two things and give a lifetime to
1:01.3	the most scrupulous scholarship. I deeply admire such people, but I love generalists. I just,
1:07.6	I am one myself, of course, in a low-level way, but I love these generalists who can look
1:12.4	at the broad brush sweep of history and try to single, how did we get from there to hear,
1:19.6	where are we now, how much of this is unprecedented, almost none of it, how much of this is
1:25.7	a crisis of the existential magnitude?
1:30.3	Probably we're not so sure about that. But finding a context for the things that we see around us every day.
1:40.7	Delighted by this, this was my dream when thinking about 2026, changing the program from
1:46.0	the Jefferson Hour to listening to America. What does it mean that the country is going to be
1:51.5	250 years old on July 4th? Do we have a common narrative? Are we one people or two or many?
1:58.7	Is the future as bright as we would hope that it will be, or are we
2:03.4	entering a period of real darkness and uncertainty and disintegration? It's hard to know,
2:10.6	but the only way we're going to figure this out is not to talk to politicians. They are what they
2:15.5	are. There's only one way they can be what they are, and that is to
2:18.7	exaggerate their own views and to denigrate those of others. That's the moment that we're in.
	...

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