Welcome to Gun Country
On this episode of American Prestige, Drew McKevitt on how America’s postwar gun culture was shaped by surplus arms, consumerism, and the National Rifle Association.
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Tethered to Life: Maya Binyam on Joy Williams’ “The Excursion” | Reading Writers
Charlotte and Jo go deep on jealousy, self-hatred, love, and vulnerability in a conversation that touches on A Separate Peace, The Go-Between, Beowulf, and more. Then the canny and intrepid Maya Binyam joins for a discussion about the category of little girlhood, ambiguity in fiction, and female desire.
Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is a 2025 – 2026 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.
Charlotte Shane’s most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.
Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.
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On this episode of American Prestige, we welcome Drew McKevitt, the John D. Winters Endowed Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University, about his new book, Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America.
You can pick up a copy of Drew’s book here.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Iran War Widens, Afghanistan–Pakistan Fighting, New U.S. Operation in Ecuador | American Prestige
We don’t have whatever they were giving JFK to power through the Cuban Missile Crisis, but we’re keeping up here. This week’s news: in the Iran War, the U.S. prepares to use Kurdish proxy forces against the Islamic Republic (1:26) while offering shifting timelines and contradictory explanations for the war (6:32), plus Iran searches for a new supreme leader (11:54); Hezbollah launches rockets into Israel after months of being bombarded, so Israel escalates its strikes across Lebanon (16:24); Afghanistan and Pakistan exchange airstrikes and artillery fire as fighting along their border displaces tens of thousands (19:26); Turkey considers reentering the F-35 program as part of new energy negotiations with the U.S. (22:56); Nepal holds a major election following last year’s protests (26:40); fighting intensifies in Sudan’s Kordofan and Blue Nile regions (28:05); M23 launches drone strikes deeper into the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the United States sanctions Rwandan military officials (31:56); a Russian LNG tanker is sunk in the Mediterranean amid suspicions of Ukrainian involvement (34:40); France proposes expanding its nuclear umbrella over Europe (38:01); the U.S. launches a new military operation targeting drug cartels in Ecuador (40:20); Congress strikes down legislation that would halt the Iran war (41:46); and the Trump administration moves ahead with new global tariffs while the courts order billions in refunds for the last batch that were struck down (44:41).
Grab a copy of Danny and Michael Brenes’ edited volumeCold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency. Use the discount code BESSNER26.
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