James Madison: Small Man, Massive Constitution (w/ special guest Greg Jackson)

Five-foot-four, barely a hundred pounds, and armed with enough intellectual firepower to reshape a nation, James Madison brought a pen to a political knife fight... and made it everybody else’s problem. For Constitution Day, Ben welcomes back Dr. Greg Jackson of History That Doesn’t Suck to meet the unlikely heavyweight who helped write America’s rulebook, and then fought like hell over how to use it. From the pressure cooker of the Constitutional Convention to vicious newspaper wars, a spectacular falling-out with Alexander Hamilton, and a presidency that included the British setting his damn house on fire, Madison’s career was anything but a quiet life behind a desk. Madison helped design the Constitution, fought to get it ratified, championed the Bill of Rights, and plunged into the partisan battles that would test the government he helped create. Drawing on Greg’s book, Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome, Ben and Greg explore the political grudges, constitutional showdowns, and sheer stubbornness behind the American experiment. Turns out, arguing over the Constitution is a tradition as old as the Constitution itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(186)

Zhao Yun: The Blood-Soaked Ride Through Changban

At the Battle of Changban, Zhao Yun turned his horse around and rode back into the teeth of Cao Cao’s advancing army to rescue Liu Bei’s infant son. It was the defining act of a warrior celebrated not...

24 Sep 1h 12min

Britt Redman: Back From Hell and Into the End Zone

Six surgeries. Nearly eighty pounds lost. And a touchdown that deserves its own damn movie. Britt Redman was a high school wide receiver in the middle of a playoff run when advanced testicular cancer...

11 Sep 53min

Catherine de’ Medici: A Throne Full of Knives

History remembers Catherine de’ Medici as the black-clad poison queen of Renaissance France—an Italian schemer who kept a vial in one hand and a dagger in the other. The truth is messier, bloodier, an...

3 Sep 1h 28min

Hideaki Akaiwa: Honey, I Swam Through a Tsunami

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami turned the Japanese city of Ishinomaki into a freezing, debris-choked nightmare. Most people would take one look at that and head for the hills. Hideaki Ak...

26 Aug 42min

Karl von Müller: The Captain Who Humiliated an Empire

On today’s episode, Ben is joined by special guest Paul Jacobs to tell the story of Karl von Müller and the SMS Emden, the German warship that unleashed absolute chaos across the Indian Ocean during W...

19 Aug 1h 21min

Brian Chontosh: The Marine Who Ran Out of Guns

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, First Lieutenant Brian Chontosh and his Marines were caught in a coordinated ambush on Route 1. With the road blocked and fire closing in around them, Chontosh ordere...

13 Aug 1h 13min

Semiramis: Queen of War, Mother of Legends

Semiramis did not come to the ancient world to sit quietly on a throne and wave at peasants. She came to rule. With an army at her back, a crown on her head, and the kind of ambition that makes neighb...

6 Aug 1h 20min