Latest Episodes
183 - Dr. Jon Dawson, In Dubious Battle
John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle (1936) is the coldest and most clinical of his California labor novels — the story of a fruit strike...
182 - John Langellier: Bastion by the Bay: The Many Lives of the Presidio of San Francisco
Founded in 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco has served three nations, guarded the "harbor of harbors" for nearly 250 years, and evolved from...
181 - Dr. Daniel Rivers, California Futures: Haunted Ecologies, Decolonial Relations
The grizzly on California's flag has been gone for a century — hunted to extinction in the very state that made it a symbol....
180 - Kevin Ferguson, The Gemello Winery and A History of California Wine
California had 1,000 wineries in 1910. By 1965, it had 225. The story of how the industry collapsed, came back, and quadrupled past 4,800...
179 - Dr. Peter Richardson, Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine
Historian Peter Richardson joins Jordan Mattox to discuss his new book, Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine, and to situate...
178 - Dr. Julia Ornelas-Higdon, The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine
California wine is often wrapped in romance—rolling vineyards, pioneering families, and world-class vintages. But beneath that familiar story lies a far more complex history...