It Takes All Kinds

About this Episode

Logan Sawyer, certified historian and lawyer, joins us to talk about what historians do and how they differ from the crazy uncle who fancies himself a history buff on Twitter. We learn why history is radical, not conservative, whatever political movement it is employed to serve. We discuss the methods of history and science and their abuses. Logan tells us that history is often at war with theory and that historians prey on other fields. He unravels the received wisdom of the New Deal switch in time and the conventional story of Lochner v. New York. As if to make a case in point, we keep distracting him with theory.

This show’s links:

• Logan Sawyer's faculty profile and writing
• Logan Sawyer, Creating Hammer v. Dagenhart
• Oral Argument Episode 2: Bust a Deal, Face the Wheel (in which we learned Tim Meyer’s coffee habits)
• The court-packing plan
• Legal realism
• Barry Cushman, Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution
• Lochner v. New York
• Charles Warren, A Bulwark to the State Police Power — the United States Supreme Court
• David Bernstein, Rehabilitating Lochner
• Oral Argument Episode 4: Grow a Pear (guest Sarah Schindler)
• Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.