New Series

As the United States gears up to mid-term elections, which may once again shift the political trajectory of the country, the Last Best Hope? returns for a brand-new season on the 8th of October.

“Adam Smith is one of the UK’s foremost historians of America, and communicates his expertise with zest, wit and unforced passion. The Last Best Hope? brings him together with fellow scholars to provide a unique insight we can’t do without.” — Phil Tinline, BBC radio documentary-maker and author

“The Last Best Hope is an absolutely brilliant podcast. Thoughtful, clever, engaging and accessible, Adam Smith always gets the best out of his guests, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from every episode. I love it.” — Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-host of The Rest is History“The must-listen US podcast” Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New York.

Presented by Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of American Political History at Oxford. Each episode explores history to understand what makes America what it is.

In this season Adam asks what constitutes a U.S political party, and how they differ from parties in parliamentary democracies? And he takes the long view of midterm elections, going back as far as 1874, a contest in which the Republicans lost half their House seats. Why do these midterm contests so reliably go against the President's party?

And 80 years after Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he used the phrase special relationship, Adam explores how that phrase has distorted British perceptions of the US. And he takes a deep dive into the surprising history of the Supreme Court as a highly political body.

The Last Best Hope? Is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui.

For details of RAI programming, go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/events

Producer: Emily Williams Presenter: Adam Smith

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