Heather Cox Richardson on the Real Genius of America

More To The Story: Heather Cox Richardson is one of today’s unlikeliest social media stars. The Boston College historian has been teaching and writing about 19th-century America, Reconstruction, and the Civil War for decades. But it was only in 2019 that her work took off when she began writing her daily newsletter, Letters from an American, a no-nonsense analysis of the news through the lens of US history. The newsletter became one of the most popular on Substack. And today, Richardson has millions of loyal fans who rely on her to make sense of American politics and provide a little sanity and democratic reassurance, even as she herself is concerned about the direction of the country today. On this week’s More To The Story, Richardson doles out some advice for the Democrats if they take back power in the midterm elections, the decades-long failure to hold corrupt American leaders accountable, the still-resonant death of Reconstruction, and what she sees as the tragic hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson.

This episode first aired in June 2026.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Read: Trump’s War on History (Mother Jones)

Listen: As the Trump Administration Erases Black History, These Writers Are Keeping It Alive (Reveal)

Watch: 250 to 250 (YouTube)

Read: Letters from an American (Substack)

Read: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America (Penguin Books)

• Donate today at Revealnews.org/more
• Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly
• Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices