Category Archives: American HIstory

How the French Revolution was Brought to the World by the American Revolution–And a Free Course on the Constitution!

American HIstory, Politics, Revolutions

A message from Dr. Thomas Patterson of Harvard Univerity:

“Tomorrow, Sept. 17, is National Constitution Day— marking the 239th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. As in other years, it will pass largely unnoticed despite its significance and relevance at this critical moment in our politics.

I’m trying to elevate its visibility by encouraging people to take my free, nonpartisan HarvardX course on the U.S. Constitution (6 brief sessions).

I’d be grateful if you would share the link with your social media followers and others:

https://bit.ly/FreeCourseHarvard (pick ‘audit’ for free version)

Thank you.”

  I encourage you to take up Dr. Patterson’s opportunity! As your host on this podcast, I explain in this episode the background of the Constitution and why the American Revolution had such contrasting impacts on American and on France in the 18th century.  You will learn how the French Revolution, while catastrophically different than the American, was brought to you by the American Revolution!  –Rick Reiman

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Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye: A Narration of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, on its 250th Birthday!

American HIstory

Tomorrow is America’s 250th Birthday as an independent nation.  Your narrator for Audibly Speaking rings in the birthday in suitable vocal style with an audio narration of that fateful document. The Declaration of July 4, 1776 was not just a statement of independence but a declaration of ideals that has changed the world.  Will we, the generation that is the heir of the founding fathers, allow its ringing words to continue shaping the world, or will the American people themselves today be the authors of its destruction? For God’s sake, and for their own sake, the American people must decide.  This narration is delivered in the style of the great Orson Welles.

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The Age of Hunch? Are Americans Clueless of What July 4 is All About?

American HIstory

On July 4, 2026, Americans will celebrate…what?  Obviously they will celebrate what they intend to celebrate.  That means American’s “Independence Day.” But what does that mean? According to the Cato Institute’s poll released today, 46% of Americans are clueless as to what it means.  The reason is clear: their ignorance of history.  This should not be surprising since Americans popularize “history” as something to be considered over and done with.  But that popular stance, and shield for ignorance, won’t work when it comes to the vital work of learning from the past to create a viable future.  For all of Americans’ pride in being American, one thing they cannot boast of is the knowledge of history without which they, and our future, are doomed.  Americans must stop relying on hunches, and learn their history, if they want the founding fathers whom they are so proud of to be more than footnotes in the national dustbin of the future.

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Yawping About “The American Yawp:” A Rant Against the Florida AP History and The Clown Car of Politicians Presenting History

American HIstory, Politics

In this episode, Audibly Speaking denounces the clown car of politicians (in Florida, of course!) presuming to be the voice of history, only without any educational credentials.  Shamelessness aside, they just can’t stay in their lane.  In this episode I look at one of the mainstream textbooks in American History, The American Yawp, the work of 500 historians who have the credentials and the “receipts” of American history to portray the pageant of that history, warts and all. The main “problem,” as politicians seem to see it, is that American history contains both triumphs of fair treatment as well as outrageous violations of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.  If we are to learn from history and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, we must know what they were–not treat history as a celebratory buffet about which the student has to be misled with “red smoke and mirrors.” We need professional history and with The American Yawp we already have it. Pity the poor, misguided Florida students let down by their so-called political “leaders.”

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NEW! FDR v. Trump, the Right Way Versus the Wrong: Why Trump’s Speech of April 1, 2026 was a Disaster

American HIstory, FDR, U.S. Constitution, United States history, World War II

Presidential Leadership 101 holds that no President should enter a war without first cultivating the support of the American people. Efforts to do so without securing public support–the Mexican War, Vietnam–have been disasters.  No president should just suddenly and unconstitutionally attack another country without Congressional consultation, approval or public education, like the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.  In the aftermath of such an act, it became more important than ever that Trump do what he should have done before the war–explain the reasons for the war, why it was necessary, and how it was consistent with our national security interests and our ideals. Trump utterly failed to explain why with even a scintilla of coherence why the war was necessary. He promised to commit war crimes, besmirching and weakening America’s moral reputation.  He set the stage by his failure of leadership for another disastrous failure in American foreign policy.

This episode analyzes and identifies these mistakes and shows, with the “Arsenal of Democracy speech” by Franklin D. Roosevelt in December 1940, how presidential speechmaking and the cultivation of public opinion in support of a successful foreign policy ought to be done.

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A Tribute to Ruth Paine, 1932-2025

American HIstory, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Warren Commission

We lost Ruth Paine this year on August 31.  Ruth was a great lady, one of the few heroes and persons of kindness in the run-up and the aftermath of the JFK assassination.  As Thomas Mallon has noted, we know so much about the moods, mind and appearances of Lee Harvey Oswald in the critical six weeks before the assassination because Oswald sometimes stayed at Ruth’s house, used Ruth’s typerwriter, and visited Ruth’s home the night before the assassination to retrieve something from her garage that she did not know was there: the rifle that Oswald used to kill JFK.  All this was possible because Ruth befriended Oswald’s wife, Marina, who certainly needed friends. HIstory might have turned out differently if Marina had returned the favor to Ruth and told her all that she knew, including the existence of the rifle in Ruth Paine’s garage.  This is my tribute to Ruth, who richly deserves it.

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NEW! An Abridged Overview of Chapter 7 from “The American Yawp” Textbook: “The Early Republic”

American HIstory, course, Jefferson, Politics, United States history

This is your narrator for this series, Dr. Rick Reiman. Americans know too little about the Early American Republic, the Republic of President Thomas Jefferson, leading to the War of 1812 and its aftermath, the Era of Good Feelings.  In this overview of Chapter 7 from The American Yawp, I summarize its major themes.  This will benefit my students, who must complete a Major Project in which they identify the major fractures in American life and politics from the 1780s through this major period in American history.

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NEW! 2024 Repeats the 1963 Calendar: JFK, Oswald and Veterans Day Weekend, From Sunday, November 10 to Tuesday, November 12

American HIstory, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, United States history, Warren Commission

Today, Sunday, November 10, 2023, I reflect on the events of Veterans Day Weekend 1963, when JFK and Oswald lived out their last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, November 10-12, 1963. We review what we know of those fateful days. Next, I talk about the events of Wednesday, November 13 through Friday, November 22, 1963, to be published here on Audibly Speaking before Friday, November 22, 2024.

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Medicare Musings, Part Three: Myths about Medicare Advantage and Part B

American HIstory, United States history, Work

In this third part of my series on what I have learned, or thought I have learned, about Medicare I talk about some myths I have discovered about Medicare Advantage and Part B.  While Medicare Advantage may be the right choice for some people, I cringe when I watch the commercials during this Annual Election Period and see the slick pitch that insurance companies make to see the cash cow (for them) of MA.  Here are the realities that I see from behind just some of the myths about both Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part B.

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 6, “The New Nation,” from “The American Yawp,” a Free OER American History Textbook

American HIstory, Politics, Revolutions, U.S. Constitution, United States history

In many ways, I regard this as my best recording of a chapter from “The American Yawp” yet.  I have deleted nothing from the text edited by its editors, Joseph Locke and Ben Wright.  I have added passages of my own where I think additions were needed to clarify what the original authors were trying to say.

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NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 13, “The Sectional Crisis,” from the Open Source History Textbook, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Audio narration, Civil War, Politics, United States history

In the course that covers the first half of American History, the chapter on the Sectional Crisis of the Union, also sometimes called “The Impending Crisis,” leading to the American Civil War, is the penultimate such chapter.  Next to the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the crisis written by the great historian David Potter, that one audio narrated by Eric Martin, this chapter from the Open Educational Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” narrated by me, Dr. Rick Reiman, surveys the crisis well in capturing succinctly its fateful highlights. Listen, learn and enjoy. An historian myself I have added a few sentences of my own to improve, I firmly believe, on the chapter’s effort to make the Sectional Crisis more understandable.

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One of the Great Essays in American History: Crevecoeur’s “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?

American HIstory, Audio narration, Revolutions

Hector St. John de Crevecouer, a French immigrant to American wrote this classic essay, “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?” in 1782, as American Independence from Britain loomed.  Was he correct in his descriptions of Americans then?  Do his descriptions accurately describe Americans today?  How was he wrong then, if he was, and how do his descriptions fail to characterize Americans today, if indeed they do?

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Audio Narration of Chapter Two, “Colliding Cultures,” From “The American Yawp,” Narrated by Dr. Rick Reiman

American HIstory, Audio narration, United States history

Here is my audio narration of “Colliding Cultures,” a history of European and English colonization of early colonial America, a clash of cultures indeed.  This is from the Open Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” free to anyone interested, as we all should be, in American history.

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NEW! An Audio Narration of “World War II,” Chapter 24 from the Free Cultural Resource, “The American Yawp” Textbook

American HIstory, Western Civilization II, World War II

World War II was a change agent in history like no other.  It can best be understood in pieces, barely grasped as a whole.  In this audio narration of Chapter 24 of The American Yawp, a U.S. History Textbook available as a free, modifiable educational resource, I narrate the American history piece.  The chapter sets it within the context of all other pieces.  I am that rare narrator who is also an historian.  I have taken the opportunity to make a few important corrections to the text, where I have perceived errors, and have added to it where I see important omissions.  I, too, offer the text free to my listeners, in the spirit of educating my fellow citizens and improving their lives. If you enjoy this recording, please let me know by emailing me a sentence or two to this effect at rreiman33@gmail.com.  I can track clicks and downloads but this is my only way of determining if anyone is actually listening.  Happy listening to all.

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NEW! Audio Narration of “The Great Depression” from the Free Open Educational Resource, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Audio narration, FDR, Politics, United States history

History Speaks again!  My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is now out. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational Resources (OER), which this document is.  My contributions to this document, freely distributed as all OER are, are dedicated to the preservation of democracy in these United States, a dedication here that is mine and mine alone, not to be confused with the purposes of the authors of this textbook.  My hope and my contributions to this recording, including my edits and narration, represent a plea that all listeners vote for the Democratic nominee for President this November, to save our splendid Democracy. America… to thee, I sing.

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