Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Deborah Cohen Interview

Gaslit Nation

News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.7 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2022

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

The 1930s are back! But this time, we're fighting dictators, wannabe dictators, and their propagandists on cable TV and social media platforms. Since the 1930s have returned, super-charged with new tech weapons, we should bring some of the heroes of the 1930s back, too. Enter historian Deborah Cohen, the author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, a riveting look at the generation of leading journalists who risked everything to rage against the machine.

Some of the journalists she highlights in her book are sadly not as remembered as they should be today given that they helped win the war against the Nazis on American soil. One of the journalists in particular is Dorothy Thompson, a one-woman crusade against Hitler who she originally laughed off in her 1931 interview. Hitler never forgot it and suspended her Twitter account, we mean, kicked her out of Germany, once he took over. Thompson went on to confront the Republican isolationist Congress, Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and the rest of the America First KKKlown Kar with her fierce independent journalism and moral clarity, even getting kicked out of the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden. We bring back these heroes to see what inspiration and other lessons we need for today.

In our very special bonus episode, we let loose on what TV shows and films we're watching to self-care and why. Television is something that we both take seriously, for different reasons, as we share in this discussion which covers a lot of ground on the importance and impact of culture in a time of encroaching autocracy. Let us know what shows you're watching and why in the comments section. To make sure you never miss an episode of Gaslit Nation, subscribe at the Truth-teller level or higher. And to submit questions to our regular Q&As and get access to exclusive events and more, subscribe at the Democracy Defender level or higher. Discounted annual memberships are available. Thank you to everyone who supports the show -- we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

We'll be back with an all new episode and Q&A next week. Until then, we wish you and your family a Happy New Year!

***

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Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, everyone. Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your co-host, Andrea Chalupa. And with me
0:15.9	today is a very special guest. Deborah Cohen is the author of The War Come Home, Household Gods,
0:22.7	and Family Secrets. She's also the Peter B. Ritzman Professor of Humanities and Professor of
0:29.0	History at Northwestern University, focusing on modern Europe. She's here to speak with us
0:35.6	about her book, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, which is an extraordinary story of John Gunther,
0:41.7	HR Nicarbocker, Vincent Sheen, and Dorothy Thompson. This is a generation of authors that I am
0:47.8	especially interested in because Dorothy Thompson is a personal hero of mine, a full disclosure.
0:54.8	I am working on a script that was brought to me by a wonderful producer in Wales. I love this
1:04.4	project so much and I'm so eager to dive in and learn more about Dorothy Thompson's incredible
1:10.4	life and that whole generation of journalists that stared down fascism and all that we can learn
1:16.6	from them today. Welcome, welcome to the show, Deborah Cohen. Thank you so much for being here.
1:22.3	Thanks so much for having me. It's thrilled. Tell us about these reporters that you focus on in
1:29.1	The Last Call at the Hotel Imperial. Am I saying it correctly? Is it the last call at the hotel
1:34.1	Imperial? Yeah, I just call it The Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, but Imperial, sorry.
1:39.6	Imperial is correct as well. So they were a group of young men and women, reporters,
1:47.3	college graduates who in the early 1920s left America for Europe and Asia and they left because
1:56.5	they were fed up with American moralism and they were disgusted by proficient and Europe to them
2:04.8	was the center of all culture and they were interested in adventure. So some of them had worked on
2:11.3	big city newspapers like the Chicago Daily News or the Newark papers and all of them were interested
2:19.5	in participating and what they felt were the big events happening in Europe and in Asia.
2:25.8	Yeah, I mean this was an extraordinary time much like today where the world was facing the
2:32.0	crossroads of fascism versus democracy. Yeah, so there was really a three-cornered contest between
	...

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