Off the Deaton Path

S9E17 Podcast: The Fear of a Standing Army: Were the Founders Wrong?

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:32:52 +0000

How is it that a country founded in fear of a standing army would come to think of its military as a bulwark of democracy? Why has there never been a military coup in the United States? As part of GHS’s ongoing US250 commemoration, Stan’s guest this week is Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute, talking about her new book, The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States (Polity, 2025).

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/4-9-26.mp3

Version 1.0.0

S9E16 Podcast: The Last Adieu: Lafayette’s Triumphant Return

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:10:42 +0000

As part of GHS’s ongoing commemoration of the US250, Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Ryan L. Cole, discussing his new book, The Last Adieu: Lafayette’s Triumphant Return, the Echoes of Revolution, and the Gratitude of the Republic (Harper Horizon, 2025). The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in America in 1777 to fight in Washington’s army, becoming a major general at age 19. In 1824, the “Hero of Two Worlds” returned on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution, one of the last living links to that momentous event. Lafayette traveled more than 6,000 miles across all 24 states, reminding Americans of their Revolutionary heritage just in time for the country’s Golden Jubilee.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/3-26-26.mp3

S9E15 Podcast: A Nation of Laws: A Conversation with Larry D. Thompson

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:34:42 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Larry Thompson, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States during the administration of President George W. Bush, and author of a recently published memoir, Quiet Counsel: Looking Back on a Life of Service to the Law (Disruption Books, 2024). Larry—who also serves on the GHS Board of Curators—discusses his childhood in segregated Missouri, his remarkable parents, attending law school at the University of Michigan, his service as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, his work at the Justice Department, his memories of 9/11, and the importance of the rule of law as we approach the US250.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/3-12-26.mp3

S9E14 Podcast: Being Thomas Jefferson

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:34:25 +0000

As part of GHS’s ongoing US250 commemoration, Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Andrew Burstein, talking about his new book, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (Bloomsbury, 2026). Burstein is a nationally recognized authority on Jefferson, the author of ten books, co-author of two others, recently retired as Charles P. Manship Professor of History at LSU. He advised and served as on-air commentator on Ken Burns’ acclaimed 1997 film, Thomas Jefferson. His new book is “the deepest dive yet into the heart and soul, secret affairs, unexplored alliances, and bitter feuds of this generally worshipped, intermittently reviled American icon.” Perhaps no founding father is as mysterious as Thomas Jefferson. What did it feel like to be Thomas Jefferson?

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2-26-26.mp3

S9E13 Podcast: The American Revolution as a Global Conflict

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:10:26 +0000

As part of GHS’s ongoing US250 commemoration, Stan’s guest this week is historian and British native Richard Bell, talking about his new book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World (Penguin/Riverhead, 2025), which offers a global perspective on the American independence movement. Bell puts the Revolution at the center of an international web, and his narrative ranges from Canada to the Caribbean, from India to Central America, and from West Florida to Australia. As his lens widens, the War of Independence becomes a sprawling struggle that upended the lives of millions of people on every continent and fundamentally transformed the way the world works, disrupting trade, restructuring penal systems, stirring famine, and creating the first global refugee crisis.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2-11-26.mp3

S9E12 Podcast: Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:20:26 +0000

As part of GHS’s ongoing commemoration of the US250, Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Edward J. Larson, discussing his new book, Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters (WW Norton, 2026). At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the American colonies advocated for independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the mid-point of 1776, the United States was an independent republic. How did it happen, why did they choose a republic and not another king, and what does it mean for us now, 250 years later?

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1-29-26.mp3

S9E11 Podcast: The US 250

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 02:22:05 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is GHS President and CEO Dr. Todd Groce, talking about the 250^th anniversary of the United States, upcoming this year on July 4, 2026. What does this anniversary mean for our country and its people, especially given the divisive times in which we live? We’ll discuss the ongoing legacy of the Revolution and what GHS is doing to commemorate this important anniversary.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1-15-26.mp3

S9E10 Podcast: The 2025 Reading Year in Review

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 21:32:49 +0000

This week Stan kicks off the new year by reviewing his reading in 2025: how many books and pages, fiction and non-fiction, as well as the other ways he works reading into his life: audiobooks, podcasts, blogs, newspapers, and magazines. He also revisits and offers tips on age-old reading problems, including: setting reading goals (or not), how to get more reading into your life, reading in a distracted age, suffering from reading guilt and how to conquer it, and more.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1-2-26.mp3

S9E9 Podcast: What Dan Read, Part 2: A Conversation with Dan’s Daughter Marci Pelzer

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 22:21:36 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Marci Pelzer, Dan Pelzer’s daughter, who talks about her father, his reading habits, and what it was like growing up with the man whose now-famous reading list of 3,599 books has inspired a whole new generation of readers across the world.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/12-4-25.mp3

S9E8 Podcast: Steve Thomas: From The Last Navigator to This Old House and Back Again

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 22:40:49 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is author and former This Old House host Steve Thomas, discussing the revised and expanded version of his book, The Last Navigator: A Young Man, an Ancient Mariner, the Secrets of the Sea (Abbeville Press). Steve hosted PBS’s This Old House for fourteen years, from 1989 through 2003, during which the show rose to the top of PBS’s list of most-watched ongoing series. He was honored with a 1997-1998 Daytime Emmy Award and in 2022 received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for his work. A lifelong sailor, Steve developed a fascination with ancient methods of navigation. For thousands of years, the peoples of Oceania sailed across the Pacific without compass or charts, guided only by the stars, waves, and the flight paths of birds. In search of this secret knowledge, Steve traveled to the tiny island of Satawal in Micronesia, and his book he tells the story of how he convinced one of the last surviving navigators to accept him as his student and teach him the closely guarded Talk of Navigation. Forty years after his original journey, Steve has worked with a new generation of researchers and natives of Satawal to publish a revised edition of The Last Navigator.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/11-20-25.mp3

S9E7 Podcast: Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 15:22:01 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is author Leo Damrosch of Harvard University, discussing Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (Yale University Press), his new biography of the author of Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped. Stevenson’s short but adventurous life matched the magic of his writing. Damrosch discusses how Stevenson in his 44 years wrote 11 novels and hundreds of essays and poems, while creating some of the most memorable characters in literature: Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesay, Squire Trelawny, Billy Bones, Ben Gunn, David Balfour, Alan Stewart, Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, and scores of others.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/11-6-25.mp3

Version 1.0.0

S9E6 Podcast: Tom Johnson: From LBJ to CNN

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 20:00:19 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Georgia native and journalist Tom Johnson, whose remarkable career took him from Macon, where he worked for legendary newspaperman Peyton Anderson, to UGA’s Grady College of Journalism, to White House Fellow during President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, to publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and finally as president of CNN during the crucial years of the 1990s during the invasion of Kuwait and the fall of the Soviet Union. Tom talks about his new memoir, Driven: A Life in Public Service and Journalism from LBJ to CNN, published this month by the University of Georgia Press.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/10-8-25.mp3

Version 1.0.0

S9E5 Podcast: Taking Down the Klan

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 22:27:33 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is journalist and author Guy Gugliotta, discussing his new book, Grant’s Enforcer: Taking Down the Klan, published on April 15 of this year by the University of Georgia Press. It’s the story of how Amos T. Akerman, a Georgian, was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870 to become the Attorney General of the United States, the first to lead the newly created Department of Justice, and how he waged war against and defeated the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan.

Please note, due to a recording equipment glitch, portions of the audio may sound distorted. Even still, we think you’ll enjoy this conversation!

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/9-25-25.mp3

Version 1.0.0

S9E4 Podcast: What Dan Read: Dan Pelzer’s Reading List Over 62 Years

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 20:52:55 +0000

Dan Pelzer died in July at age 92 and left behind a detailed list of every book he read from 1962 to 2023, totaling 3,599 books across 62 years—all of them checked out of his local library. His list went viral after his children wanted to print it and hand it out at his funeral, choosing to post it online instead. Stan explores Dan’s impressive reading list and many of the titles he read, and how it’s inspired him and so many others to “read a good page turner.”

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/9-11-25.mp3

S9E3 Podcast: Tracking Hernando De Soto Through Georgia

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 13:30:26 +0000

Did Hernando De Soto travel near what is now DeSoto Falls in North Georgia? Or Desoto, Georgia, in Sumter County? Why don’t we know where he went and why is the evidence so hard to find? Stan’s guest this week is Dennis Blanton, professor of anthropology at James Madison University, author of Conquistador’s Wake: Tracking the Legacy of Hernando De Soto in the Indigenous Southeast (UGA Press, 2020). Dr. Blanton discusses the myths and realities of De Soto’s 16th-century expedition, based on his years of painstaking archaeological research—and how his current finds in southwest Georgia may re-define what we know about the infamous Conquistador’s entrada.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/8-6-25.mp3

S9E2 Podcast: The 10th Inning with Mark Bradley

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 19:53:12 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is long-time Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports columnist Mark Bradley, who retired from the AJC last December after 46 years as a sports journalist. Mark shares some of his favorite moments in Georgia sports history across nearly five decades, including the joys of two Braves World Series championships, the crushing Falcons Super Bowl loss, as well as the ups and downs of tight deadlines, covering lousy teams, and why the current Braves are painful to watch.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/7-17-25.mp3

S9E1 Podcast: Summer School

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 19:26:11 +0000

Stan opens Season 9 of Off the Deaton Path talking about his summer reading (so far)—books by Nina Stibbe, Jane Gardam, Leah Hager Cohen, Helene Hanff, James Hilton, Ferrol Sams—short thoughts on the Braves lousy season (so far), a sneak peek at upcoming podcasts, and AJC political writer Jim Galloway on the 1956 Georgia state flag in the summer GHQ.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/7-2-25.mp3

S8E23 Podcast: Confronting Jim Crow: Race, Memory, and UGA in the Twentieth Century

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 16:34:21 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is NYU professor Robert Cohen, who discusses his new book, Confronting Jim Crow: Race, Memory, and the University of Georgia in the Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2024). Cohen focuses his lens on UGA’s controversial and violent desegregation in 1961 and the ways that event has been remembered and commemorated in all the years since.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/6-20-25.mp3

S8E22 Podcast: The First Climate Scientist? Benjamin Franklin and the Franklin Stove

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 21:05:20 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin, who discusses her new book, The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2025). Was Ben Franklin the first climate scientist? The Franklin stove became one of the Revolutionary era’s most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to Italy, and beyond. It was also a hypothesis. Armed with science, Franklin proposed to invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. Joyce Chaplin demonstrates that it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis, an ongoing challenge as old as the United States itself.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/6-5-25.mp3

S8E21 Podcast: The Fate of the Day: Rick Atkinson and the Revolution Trilogy

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 23 May 2025 03:53:06 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Pulitzer-Prize winner Rick Atkinson discussing his new book, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, Volume 2 of his Revolution Trilogy, published on April 29 by Crown. Rick discusses the crucial events and people—including the Siege of Savannah, Lafayette, Hamilton and Benedict Arnold—covered in his book, how he researches and writes, and his major role in Ken Burns’s upcoming Revolution documentary.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/5-22-25.mp3

S8E20 Podcast: Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 08 May 2025 14:05:36 +0000

May 8, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, the Allied victory in Europe over Nazi Germany. Stan’s guest this week is acclaimed author Robert Edsel, talking about his new book, Remember Us, the extraordinary story of the liberation of the Dutch people and the creation of the American Netherlands Cemetery. It is a riveting account of freedom, sacrifice, and eternal gratitude. Edsel is the author of The Monuments Men, and is recognized as one of the world’s foremost advocates for art preservation and the recovery of cultural treasures missing since World War II.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/5-7-25.mp3

S8E19 Podcast: Last Seen: The Enduring Search By Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 19:56:42 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian Judith Giesberg, discussing her riveting new book, Last Seen: The Enduring Search By Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, published in February by Simon and Schuster. Slavery broke many families apart, and Giesberg’s book details the fascinating and often heartbreaking search for lost children, parents, and other family members in the half century after the Civil War.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/4-24-25.mp3

S8E18 Podcast: On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR, National Public Radio

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 21:20:22 +0000

Stan’s guest is award-winning author and GHS Dooley Distinguished Fellow Steve Oney, discussing his new book On Air (published by Avid Reader Press) on the history of National Public Radio. From “All Things Considered” to “Car Talk” and “This American Life,” from Bob Edwards to Anne Garrels to Cokie Roberts and Ira Glass, Steve covers more than 50 fascinating years of the controversial public radio network that Americans love—and love to hate.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/4-10-25.mp3

S8E17 Podcast: Shots Heard Round the World: The American Revolution and John Ferling

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:09:37 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is renowned historian John Ferling, who talks about his new (and perhaps final) book on the American Revolution, published just in time for the event’s 250th anniversary. Ferling reflects on his life and his remarkable 50-year career as one of America’s leading historians of the Founding era.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3-27-25.mp3

S8E16 Podcast: The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:18:46 +0000

Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? Stan’s guest is UCLA law professor Stuart Banner, discussing his latest and very timely book, The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States, published in November by Oxford University Press.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3-13-25.mp3

S8E15 Podcast: “Savage, Barbarian, Civilized”: The Invention of Prehistory and Our Obsession With Human Origins

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 21:10:43 +0000

Do we study the deep past only to justify our present actions toward those we deem less “civilized”? Are humans fundamentally good and altruistic or mean and self-serving? Is “human nature” warlike or peaceful? Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Stefanos Geroulanos of New York University, discussing all of these issues from his new book, The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins, published in 2024 by Liveright.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2-27-25.mp3

S8E14 Podcast: The Driving Machine: Why Our Cars Look The Way They Do

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 22:14:14 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is renowned architect Witold Rybczynski, who discusses his new book, The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car, published by W.W. Norton. In this wide-ranging discussion, the author reflects on why cars are reflections of our national character, from the Model T to the Range Rover, and how automotive legends like Carl Benz, Ferdinand Porsche, and Harley Earl, created the cars we love and hate, from the VW Beetle to the Mustang and the Corvette, from the SUV to the Tesla Cybertruck.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2-13-25.mp3

S8E13 Podcast: Is Technology Changing What it Means to Be Human?

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 22:39:57 +0000

Do people prefer texting to face-to-face encounters? Will handwriting become obsolete? Have we lost the mental capacity for patience and boredom? And if we have, does it matter? Stan’s guest this week is author and historian Christine Rosen of the American Enterprise Institute, who tackles the impact of technology on what it means to be human in her new book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World (published in 2024 by WW Norton).

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-30-25.mp3

S8E12 Podcast: Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March Revisited

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 20:49:25 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian Bennett Parten, talking about his new book, Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation, published by Simon & Schuster on January 21, 2025. Sherman’s March has remained controversial to this day, and this book is a major new interpretation of the March and its legacy in American history. Parten focuses on how the March played a significant role in ending the Civil War, due in no small part to the efforts of the tens of thousands of enslaved people who became a part of it as the US Army marched across Georgia towards Savannah.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-16-25.mp3

S8E11 Podcast: Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:07:49 +0000

This week Stan talks to Christopher Cox, Senior Scholar in Residence at the University of California, Irvine, about his new book, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn, published in 2024 by Simon & Schuster. Cox’s focus is on Wilson’s role in the movements for women’s suffrage and racial equality, and his open hostility to both. This is a riveting, beautifully written reassessment of the heroes who fought so hard for decades to pass the Susan B. Anthony Amendment more than a century ago—and Wilson’s legacy in our own day.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1-2-25.mp3

S8E10 Podcast: The 2024 Reading Year in Review

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:43:38 +0000

This week Stan reviews his reading in 2024: how many books and pages, fiction and non-fiction, and offers tips on age-old reading problems, including: how to get more reading into your life, should you write in your books, reading in a distracted age, suffering from book guilt and how to conquer it, and more. Plus you’ll get an earful about the upcoming College Football Playoffs (Go Dawgs) and what the heck is Baseball’s Golden At-Bat?

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12-19-24.mp3

S8E9 Podcast: The Fascinating But Forgotten Founder

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 14:47:18 +0000

Stan’s guest is historian Jane Calvert, author of Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson, published in October by Oxford University Press. Dickinson was at the forefront of the Revolutionary movement but refused to sign the Declaration of Independence and has been largely forgotten. Calvert argues in her new book that without John Dickinson there wouldn’t be a United States of America. How and why did this happen, and who was this fascinating but forgotten founder?

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12-4-24.mp3

S8E8 Podcast: John Lewis: A Life

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 22:01:36 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian and journalist David Greenberg of Rutgers University, talking about his new tour-de-force biography of Civil Rights icon and longtime Georgia Congressman, John Lewis: A Life, published by Simon & Schuster. Greenberg interviewed Lewis and 275 others, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, about Lewis’s rise from Alabama poverty to Bloody Sunday to public servant, the man deemed the Moral Conscience of the Congress.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/11-21-24.mp3

S8E7 Podcast: A Southern Underground Railroad

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 21:56:53 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian Paul Pressly, discussing his new book, A Southern Underground Railroad: Black Georgians and the Promise of Spanish Florida and Indian Country, published by the University of Georgia Press. It’s a tale of how enslaved men and women found freedom and human dignity outside the expanding boundaries of the United States, crossing the borders and boundaries that separated the Lowcountry from the British and Spanish in coastal Florida and from the Seminole and Creek people in the vast interior of the Southeast.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/11-7-24.mp3

S8E6 Podcast: “That’s Not Who We Are”—Or is it? An Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winner Steven Hahn

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:41:40 +0000

Stan interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Steven Hahn about his latest book, Illiberal America: A History, which argues that what happened on January 6, 2021, was not an aberration but has deep roots in the American past.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10-24-24.mp3

S8E5 Podcast: The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 20:07:58 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian Evan Friss, author of the bestselling new release, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, which has been getting rave reviews in national publications. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including the Strand in New York, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, the Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. “A thoroughly engaging, delightful excursion into the wondrous world of books.”

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10-10-24.mp3

S8E4 Podcast: New York Times Reporter Adam Nagourney

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 16:45:52 +0000

Stan interviews veteran New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney about his recent book, The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism, a sweeping behind-the-scenes look at the last four turbulent decades of “the paper of record,” as it confronted world-changing events, internal scandals, and the existential threat of the internet.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/9-25-24.mp3

Podcast S8E3: How the British Empire Ended in Georgia: Governor James Wright

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 19:47:18 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is historian Greg Brooking, discussing his new book From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia, published on July 15 by the University of Georgia Press.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/9-13-24.mp3

S8E2: Pulitzer Prize Winner Jacqueline Jones

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 18:25:43 +0000

Stan talks to historian Jacqueline Jones about her book, No Right to An Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in History.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/8-29-24.mp3

S8E1 Podcast: Back to School! Plus, A Secret Tunnel Behind Lincoln’s Head on Mt. Rushmore?

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 21:26:18 +0000

Join Stan as he launches a new season of Off the Deaton Path with a recap of one of the most momentous weeks in American political history, plus a deep dive into Fun Facts Known By Few (a tunnel behind Lincoln’s head on Mt. Rushmore? Are you living in a nuclear sponge? What is the mysterious Greek fire? Why was the flow of the Chicago River reversed in 1900?) Also, a sneak peek at upcoming podcast author interviews, and the 45^th anniversary of the death of the King.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/8-16-24.mp3

Podcast S7E15: Liberty Street: A Savannah Family, Its Golden Boy, and the Civil War

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 23 May 2024 21:23:54 +0000

Stan interviews author Jason Friedman about his new book, Liberty Street. Jason and his husband bought a townhouse on Liberty Street in his hometown of Savannah. But that was just the beginning of a remarkable journey: “It’s a house that came with a story: the rise and fall of a Southern Jewish family and a ghost story whose long-dead characters still haunt the present. Liberty Street chronicles my journey to understand the Solomon Cohen family and the way their lives intersected with their enslaved workers, Savannah’s Jewish community, and their Christian neighbors. I became interested in the way we talk about the Civil War, its origins, and aftermath. What do we remember? Or choose to forget? I came to know the denizens of Liberty Street 150 years before I moved there, and to understand my own story as a Jew, a Southerner, and an American.”

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5-23-24.mp3

Podcast S7E14: Michael Thurmond on James Oglethorpe

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 02 May 2024 19:10:10 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, who talks about his new book, James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey From Slave Trader to Abolitionist, published by the University of Georgia Press. Michael argues that Oglethorpe has never gotten credit for his pathbreaking efforts to keep slavery out of the Georgia colony and his subsequent impact on the emerging abolitionist movement in England.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5-1-24.mp3

Podcast S7E13: Georgia’s Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 14:49:00 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Jerry Grillo, author of Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize. Mize was born in Demorest, Georgia, and played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball and won 5 World Series.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/4-18-24.mp3

Podcast S7E12: It Doesn’t Feel Like Thursday: The Week, A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 21:33:32 +0000

Why do the days of the week have their own particular feeling, and how did that happen? This week Stan’s guest is historian and author David Henkin from the University of California, Berkeley, discussing his book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Made Us Who We Are. We take the seven-day week for granted, rarely asking what anchors it or what it does to us, yet weeks are not dictated by the natural order. They are, in fact, an artificial construction of the modern world.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/4-12-24.mp3

Podcast S7E11: David Blight on Yale and Slavery, History and Memory

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 17:58:57 +0000

How do we hold institutions accountable for the sins of the past? In this podcast, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Blight of Yale University talks with Stan about his latest book, Yale and Slavery: A History, and how he and a team of researchers uncovered Yale’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade, abolition, and Jim Crow—and the important role that slavery played in the creation of one of America’s most renowned institutions of higher learning.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/4-5-24.mp3

Podcast S7E10: Bigfoot and Baseball

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 21:42:41 +0000

This week Stan discusses a new book on an old legend—Bigfoot—and the hope that springs eternal with the return of the Beloved Braves and Major League Baseball.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-28-24.mp3

Podcast S7E9: Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta—and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 21:58:41 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is Clayton Trutor, talking about his recent book Loserville, the winner of the Georgia Historical Society’s 2023 Bell Award for the best book in Georgia history published in 2022. Clayton discusses how Atlanta’s quest for professional sports franchises—the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, and Flames—re-shaped Atlanta and Georgia in the second half of the 20th century.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-6-24.mp3

Podcast S7E8: Elizabeth Varon on General James Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 22:07:31 +0000

This week Stan’s guest is historian and author Elizabeth Varon from the University of Virginia discussing her latest book, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied The South. She talks about the life and career of this most controversial Georgian, from whether “Longstreet was late” at Gettysburg, and how his post-war decision to support Radical Reconstruction, Black office-holding and voting, and his post-war criticisms of Robert E. Lee all combined to nearly destroy his reputation and his life.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-22-24.mp3

S7E7 Podcast: What Do You See? An Interview with Author Jeryn Alise Turner

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 19:13:24 +0000

Stan’s guest this week is best-selling author Jeryn Turner, who discusses her writing life, her upbringing, books, and the inspiration behind her fulfilling life.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/12-14-23.mp3

Podcast S7E6: Pass the Crying Towel: The 2023 College Football Season

sdeaton@georgiahistory.com (Stan Deaton) — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 22:44:13 +0000

Stan brings out his over-used crying towel and reviews the inglorious end to the Dogs’ season, reviews the College Football Playoff mess, and looks ahead to next season.

https://www.deatonpath.georgiahistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/12-7-23.mp3