The Historians brings together two leading historians for an informal, unscripted conversation about history's biggest and most enduring questions. Each episode pairs two voices from the same broad field of expertise, creating an intimate dialogue that goes beyond the standard interview format.

"I wanted to create something that felt like eavesdropping on a conversation between two brilliant people who don't often get to just talk to each other. No panels, no debate, no agenda — just historians talking shop about the questions they've spent their careers thinking about." - Peter Zablocki

EPISODE #1

Were the Founding Fathers Good Men?

Featuring Dr. Joseph J. Ellis and Dr. Carol Berkin

Available June 22, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

For the debut episode of The Historians, host Peter Zablocki sat down with a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and one of America's most celebrated historians of early America — two scholars who have spent their careers living with the same remarkable generation of Americans — and asked them one deceptively simple question:

Were the Founding Fathers good men?

What followed was nearly an hour of warm, honest, and occasionally surprising conversation — ranging from the dangers of presentism in how we understand the past, to the remarkable women of the founding era who history has largely forgotten, to the complicated, deeply human figures who somehow managed to produce the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence despite being, as Dr. Berkin puts it, mere mortals.

They didn't always agree. But when they disagreed, they did it the way great historians do — thoughtfully, generously, and with enormous respect for the complexity of the past.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

Dr. Joseph J. Ellis

Joseph J. Ellis is one of America's most celebrated historians of the founding era. A Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Award recipient, he is the author of numerous landmark works including Founding Brothers, American Sphinx, His Excellency: George Washington, and The Cause. He taught for many years at Mount Holyoke College and has spent his career bringing the founders to life not as marble statues but as complex, flawed, and deeply human figures. His most recent work, The Great Contradiction, continues that tradition.

DR. CAROL BERKIN

Carol Berkin is one of America's foremost historians of early America and the founding era. A recipient of the prestigious Bancroft Award for Outstanding Dissertation, the Colonial Dames of America Book Prize for A Brilliant Solution, and an elected member of the Society of American Historians — which honors excellence in historical writing — she is the author of Revolutionary Mothers, A Brilliant Solution, The Bill of Rights, and many other celebrated works. She taught for decades at Baruch College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has spent her career ensuring that the full story of the founding generation — including the women, the overlooked, and the forgotten — is finally told.

EPISODE #2

How Wild Was the Wild West?

Featuring Paul Andrew Hutton and Mark Lee Gardner

Available July 20, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

For the second episode of The Historians, host Peter Zablocki sits down with two of America's foremost authorities on the American West — a Distinguished Professor with six Spur Awards and a bestselling author whose WIRED video on the Wild West has been watched nearly six million times — and asks one deceptively simple question:

How wild was the Wild West?

What follows is a warm, opinionated, and occasionally surprising conversation about the gap between the legends and the reality — the outlaws whose myths outgrew their actual lives, the heroes history got wrong, the villains history got right, and the extraordinary cast of characters who made the American West one of the most compelling chapters in the entire human story.

They don't always agree on who deserves their legend. But that's exactly what makes it interesting.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

Paul Andrew Hutton

Paul Andrew Hutton is an American cultural historian, author, and television personality and a retired Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. He is a six-time winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award and a six-time winner of the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. His first book, Phil Sheridan and His Army, received the Billington Prize from the Organization of American Historians, the Evans Biography Award, and the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. His most recent book, The Undiscovered Country, is a New York Times Bestseller and a Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of the Year. He has written, appeared in, or narrated over 200 television documentaries and has spent his career telling the full, unvarnished story of the American West — its heroes, its villains, and everyone in between

Mark Lee Gardner

Mark Lee Gardner is a recipient of the Frank Waters Award for Literary Excellence whose bestselling books, many of them award winners, include The Earth is All That Lasts, Rough Riders, Shot All To Hell, and To Hell on a Fast Horse. His accolades include an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, two Colorado Book Awards, and two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America. His WIRED YouTube video answering questions about the Wild West has received nearly six million views. He has appeared on the hit Netflix docuseries Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War and has spent his career separating the myth from the reality of America's most legendary figures — from Billy the Kid to Jesse James to Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders

EPISODE #3

Poland: A Case of National Survival

Featuring Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski

Available October, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

In 1795, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. Partitioned by three powerful neighbors, it would remain without an independent state for 123 years. Yet Poland never ceased to exist as a nation.

How does a country survive when its borders vanish? What keeps a people together when political institutions are destroyed, their language and culture threatened, and generations grow up knowing independence only as a memory?

In this episode of The Historians, Peter Zablocki welcomes two distinguished historians of Poland and Europe, Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski, for a wide-ranging conversation about national identity, historical memory, and the extraordinary resilience of the Polish people.

From the partitions of the eighteenth century to the devastation of World War II and the struggle against Communist rule, Davies and Zamoyski explore the forces that sustained Polish identity through centuries of upheaval.

Together, they consider whether adversity creates a distinctive national character, the dangers of romanticizing historical suffering, and what Poland's remarkable story can teach us about the survival of nations everywhere.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

Norman Davies

Norman Davies is a British-Polish historian and one of the world's most respected authorities on Polish and European history. A Professor Emeritus at the University of London and Fellow of the British Academy, he is the author of more than twenty books, including the landmark two-volume God's Playground: A History of Poland, Europe: A History, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw, and Vanished Kingdoms. His work has transformed how generations of readers understand Poland's place in European history, challenging conventional narratives and bringing overlooked stories to international attention. Among his many honors is Poland's Order of the White Eagle, the country's highest state decoration.

Adam Zamoyski

Adam Zamoyski is a British historian of Polish descent and an internationally acclaimed author specializing in Polish and European history. His bestselling books include The Polish Way, Poland: A History, 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow, Rites of Peace, and Napoleon: A Life. Drawing on extensive historical research and his own family's deep connections to Polish history, Zamoyski has spent decades exploring the political, cultural, and human forces that shaped Europe. His latest book, Izabela the Valiant, recounts the remarkable life of his ancestor, Princess Izabela Czartoryska, against the backdrop of a Poland struggling to preserve its identity amid revolution, war, and partition.

EPISODE #4

History's Myth of the Lone Hero

Featuring H.W Brands and Hampton Sides

Available December, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

History loves a hero.

We remember the explorer who crossed an ocean, the general who won a war, the president who transformed a nation. Their names become inseparable from the events they helped shape. But behind every celebrated figure stands an army of lesser-known individuals whose contributions made those achievements possible.

So how much of history is really the work of extraordinary individuals, and how much is the collective effort of people whose names have largely disappeared?

In this episode of The Historians, Peter Zablocki welcomes acclaimed historians and bestselling authors Hampton Sides and H. W. Brands for a conversation about the enduring appeal of the lone hero—and the complicated reality behind the legend.

Drawing on their experiences writing about figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Kit Carson, and Captain James Cook, Sides and Brands explore the tension between individual achievement and the larger forces that shape history.

Why are we so drawn to larger-than-life personalities? Do historians sometimes reinforce the very myths they seek to examine? And when we look beyond the famous names, does the familiar story of history begin to change?

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

H.W. Brands

H. W. Brands is an American historian, bestselling author, and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History. The author of more than thirty books, Brands specializes in American political history, biography, and the individuals who shaped the nation's development. His works include The First American, a biography of Benjamin Franklin; Traitor to His Class, examining Franklin D. Roosevelt; The Man Who Saved the Union, about Ulysses S. Grant; T.R., a biography of Theodore Roosevelt; and America First. Twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, Brands is widely recognized for bringing complex historical figures and events to life for general audiences.

Hampton Sides

Hampton Sides is an acclaimed American historian, journalist, and bestselling author known for his richly detailed narrative histories of exploration, conflict, and extraordinary human experiences. His books include Ghost Soldiers, winner of the PEN USA Award for Nonfiction; Blood and Thunder, an examination of Kit Carson and the American West; In the Kingdom of Ice; On Desperate Ground; and The Wide Wide Sea, which chronicles Captain James Cook's final voyage and was named one of The New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2024. A graduate of Yale University, Sides has contributed to National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico

For general inquiries, comments, and topic suggestions, e-mail Peter at peter@historyshortspodcast.com

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The Historians brings together two leading historians for an informal, unscripted conversation about history's biggest and most enduring questions. Each episode pairs two voices from the same broad field of expertise, creating an intimate dialogue that goes beyond the standard interview format.

EPISODE #1

Were the Founding Fathers Good Men?

Featuring Dr. Joseph J. Ellis and Dr. Carol Berkin

Available June 22, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

Were the Founding Fathers good men?

They didn't always agree. But when they disagreed, they did it the way great historians do — thoughtfully, generously, and with enormous respect for the complexity of the past.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

EPISODE #2

How Wild Was the Wild West?

Featuring Paul Andrew Hutton and Mark Lee Gardner

Available July 20, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

How wild was the Wild West?

They don't always agree on who deserves their legend. But that's exactly what makes it interesting.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

EPISODE #3

Poland: A Case of National Survival

Featuring Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski

Available October, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

In 1795, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. Partitioned by three powerful neighbors, it would remain without an independent state for 123 years. Yet Poland never ceased to exist as a nation.

How does a country survive when its borders vanish? What keeps a people together when political institutions are destroyed, their language and culture threatened, and generations grow up knowing independence only as a memory?

In this episode of The Historians, Peter Zablocki welcomes two distinguished historians of Poland and Europe, Norman Davies and Adam Zamoyski, for a wide-ranging conversation about national identity, historical memory, and the extraordinary resilience of the Polish people.

From the partitions of the eighteenth century to the devastation of World War II and the struggle against Communist rule, Davies and Zamoyski explore the forces that sustained Polish identity through centuries of upheaval.

Together, they consider whether adversity creates a distinctive national character, the dangers of romanticizing historical suffering, and what Poland's remarkable story can teach us about the survival of nations everywhere.

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

EPISODE #4

History's Myth of the Lone Hero

Featuring H.W Brands and Hampton Sides

Available December, 2026

DESCRIPTION:

History loves a hero.

So how much of history is really the work of extraordinary individuals, and how much is the collective effort of people whose names have largely disappeared?

In this episode of The Historians, Peter Zablocki welcomes acclaimed historians and bestselling authors Hampton Sides and H. W. Brands for a conversation about the enduring appeal of the lone hero—and the complicated reality behind the legend.

Drawing on their experiences writing about figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Kit Carson, and Captain James Cook, Sides and Brands explore the tension between individual achievement and the larger forces that shape history.

Why are we so drawn to larger-than-life personalities? Do historians sometimes reinforce the very myths they seek to examine? And when we look beyond the famous names, does the familiar story of history begin to change?

This is The Historians. Pull up a chair.

GUEST BIOS

For general inquiries, comments, and topic suggestions, e-mail Peter at peter@historyshortspodcast.com

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