Skipped History

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.comToday, writer and critic Vicky Osterweil explains how Disney didn't just make movies — it built the intellectual property regime that now shapes our economy, our culture, and, as it turns out, global vaccine access.In The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World, Osterweil argues that Disney's business has never really been about movies. It's been about owning them and using the power of the state to protect that ownership at any cost. The animator who drew Mickey Mouse worked behind a literal curtain. The actress who voiced Snow White was informally blacklisted and never worked again. In 1976, Disney lobbied Congress to extend copyright law for everyone, slamming the door on the public domain that had given them Snow White, Cinderella, and The Three Little Pigs in the first place. Her argument? That IP protection (not magic, not imagination) is what Disney actually sells. And that it now shapes the entire economy. “I think we need to want more for ourselves,” she concludes.Vicky Osterweil is a Philadelphia-based writer, agitator, and worker, and the author of In Defense of Looting.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.comToday, historian Dylan Gottlieb explains how yuppies conquered New York, and why that conquest still shapes everything from your rent to our national politics.In Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York, Gottlieb traces how Wall Street went from employing 3% of Ivy League graduates in the 1970s to 35% by the end of the ‘80s. Landlords burned down buildings to clear space for them. The New York City Marathon (which I’ve long been a hater of—come for me!) was invented to market the city to them. And Democratic politicians, beginning with Gary Hart, quietly replaced their working-class base with them. Gottlieb helps explain how we got here—that is, when we’re not both losing our minds talking about the Knicks leading the NBA Finals.Dylan Gottlieb is an assistant professor of history at Bentley University.

Today, Jamie Holmes explains how Andrew Jackson launched America’s longest war before Vietnam—with almost no understanding of what he was getting into.In The Free and the Dead: The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America’s Forgotten War, Holmes traces the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). Jackson invaded Florida knowing Black Seminoles were free and armed. When war broke out, he kept saying: why isn’t it over? What’s the problem? The war ended up costing up to $40 million (over $1 billion today), killing more soldiers from disease than combat, and could have been avoided entirely. Holmes sees a pattern echoing today: leaders imposing their will by force alone, denying realities they can’t defend on paper, while the media shapes our understanding of wars in real time.Jamie Holmes is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi explains how great replacement theory is an update on Nazi ideology—and why the struggle today is between anti-racist democracy and racist dictatorship.In Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, Dr. Kendi argues that what we call “neo-Nazism” isn’t new at all—it’s a renovation of Nazi theory with the same bones, just updated for 2026. Instead of Jews as replacers, it’s Muslims or Black people. Instead of “international Jewry,” it’s “globalists.” The book also introduces a distinction between privilege and power. In Dr. Kendi’s view, most people in positions of privilege are, whether they know it or not, dominated by oligarchs who provide those privileges in exchange for submission.Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is Professor of History and founding director of the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study. He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning, which won the National Book Award, and How to Be an Antiracist. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Scott Anderson explains how Eisenhower got addicted to regime change—and why Trump is following the same pattern.In a recent New York Times Magazine piece, Anderson traces how two early Cold War coups created a dangerous template. In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran’s Prime Minister Mosaddegh by basically renting a mob. The following year, a ragtag mercenary army and a fake radio broadcast toppled Guatemala’s president. Two victories by bluff, costing little money and no American lives. Then Eisenhower tried the same playbook in various other countries—catastrophic failures nearly across the board. As Anderson shows, regime change becomes addictive: each intervention produces the crisis that justifies the next. And now Trump, having grabbed Maduro in Venezuela, has his sights on Iran and Cuba. Anderson also discusses his book King of Kings, about the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution that swept the Shah from power—a direct consequence of that 1953 American coup.Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution, A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation won the 2025 Kirkus Prize for nonfiction. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit skippedhistory.substack.comToday, Jon Meacham explains why American history is a perennial struggle—and why that struggle is not the work of a day (though it’d be really nice if it were).In American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, Meacham assembles what he calls “the Star Wars bar scene of American History”: an anthology of documents from Fr…

Today, Professor Heather Ann Thompson explains how a subway shooting in 1984 became the blueprint for vigilante violence in America, from George Zimmerman to Kyle Rittenhouse to ICE.In Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage, Professor Thompson traces how Bernie Goetz shot four Black teenagers on a New York subway in late 1984—then became a hero. Goetz confessed to the shootings on tape, eyewitnesses corroborated his account, and a jury let him off anyway. Professor Thompson’s argument? To understand Goetz’s acquittal, you have to understand Reagan’s deliberate gutting of the safety net, the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, and a cultural shift from empathy to criminalization. As she shows, Goetz’s case is “ground zero” for a landscape where the president, the right-wing media, and, sometimes, The New York Times say up is down. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Doug Gordon explains how America almost stopped cars in their tracks.In Life After Cars: A Guide to Getting Around Without Driving, Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear (along with Aaron Naparstek)—hosts of The War On Cars podcast—trace the automobile’s rise from the first car death in 1899 through the 1920s, when mothers built plaster reliefs of mangled children’s bodies to protest “murder machines.” Doug’s argument? That we came close to stopping cars—until “Motordom” (automakers, dealers, parts manufacturers) began to fight back, and the country chose speed over safety.Doug also connects this history to the present, showing how a Prohibition-era Supreme Court case gave cops unchecked power to approach and search cars—a ruling that directly enables the pretextual stops and violence we still see today. I can’t help but note that the murder of Renee Good occurred in a car, a detail that’s gone far too unmentioned.And yet, as Doug insists, there’s life after cars. The conversation shouldn’t be about taking cars away, he says. It should be about what we actually want: choices, freedom, and places built for humans, not just machines. (Also, vape pens. I talk about vape pens a lot.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Professor Miguel Tinker Salas explains how oil transformed Venezuela from a fractured agricultural economy into a nation vulnerable to foreign manipulation—and how the U.S. just attempted regime change “on the cheap.”In our conversation, Professor Tinker Salas traces Venezuela’s history from 1922, when a gusher shot oil 200 feet into the air and American companies rushed in to write the country’s petroleum laws, through the “gentlemanly” nationalization of 1976 (which left former oil executives in charge), to Hugo Chávez’s attempts to redirect oil wealth toward social programs. His argument? That Venezuela’s century-long dependence on oil made it uniquely vulnerable to economic warfare. When the Trump administration imposed sanctions and the Biden administration continued them, they targeted the country’s singular weakness. And when the U.S. kidnapped Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd, 2025, it was an attempt at “nation-building from afar”—empire on the cheap, without boots on the ground. But as Professor Tinker Salas warns, you can’t reimagine a national project with a gun or by kidnapping a leader. That has to be done by Venezuelans themselves.Professor Tinker Salas is an emeritus professor of history at Pomona College and one of the foremost experts on Venezuelan history. He’s the author of Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know and The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela, among other books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Professor Benjamin Wilson reveals how “arms control” became a euphemism for endless weapons development—and how the scientists who claimed to oppose the arms race often profited from it.In Strange Stability: How Cold War Scientists Set Out to Control the Arms Race and Ended Up Serving the Military-Industrial Complex, Professor Wilson traces the origins of “strategic stability,” a term security experts still use today, invented in the 1950s by people with no training in nuclear strategy. Professor Wilson argues that “stability” was conceptual shrink wrap borrowed from other fields and bolted onto nuclear strategy to justify whatever weapons systems the military-industrial complex wanted to build. The ideology it produced—that the best way to prevent nuclear war is to keep developing better weapons—is still at the heart of nuclear debates today, and we still prepare for peace “by preparing for war.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skippedhistory.substack.com/subscribe