Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome

Professor Greg Jackson, podcast host of History That Doesn’t Suck, proves that while today’s political climate may be dark, these aren’t as unprecedented times as we may think.

Our nation’s past is full of massive upheaval, disagreement, and departures from the moral high ground. The political gentlemanly conduct of yesteryear is no more than a myth. But that reality never allowed our worst historical selves to defeat our better angels. In Been There, Done That, Greg looks back in time to eight examples from our nation’s history and shows that some of the hottest issues of our day are, in fact, American traditions that stand firmly beside another deeply American trait: the will to push back on these demons, prevail, and overcome.

It may be 250 years since this country’s founding, but the playbook has remained mostly the same. From the Founding Father’s hyperpartisan print war of the 1790s, to the caning of Senator Charles Sumner in 1856, to the thoroughly corrupt presidential election of 1876, and all the way through the yellow journalism and print war of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randoph Hearst, you will recognize how familiar these stories are to our own supposedly unprecedented times.

Full of fascinating characters, page-turning narrative storytelling, and Greg’s characteristic humor, Been There, Done That will fill readers with hope for our future by showing us the warts of our past—only by knowing that our country has been here before, and prevailed toward a more just future, can we find the strength to rebound once more.