Think Back

Think Back
Podcast Description
Think Back is a podcast about American history. www.thinkbackpod.com
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into various topics such as the intersection of masculinity and Manifest Destiny, and evolving definitions of 'America', with episodes featuring discussions on economic mobility, the implications of naming, and historical insights into colonial experiences across the Americas.

Think Back is a podcast about American history.

In the fall of 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led his infamous “March to the Sea,” a military campaign long mythologized—especially in Gone With the Wind—as a brutal assault on the white South. But over the past several decades, historians have chipped away at that Lost Cause narrative, revealing it as a distortion that casts Confederates as victims rather than instigators of wartime violence. Still, few have offered a full alternative account of what the March truly meant—until now.
In this episode, I speak with historian Bennett Parten about his powerful first book, Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. In just over 200 pages, Parten reframes the March as a defining moment in the history of slavery and freedom, focusing on the experiences of enslaved people who risked everything to follow Sherman’s army in search of liberation. It’s a gripping, deeply thoughtful work—and a much-needed corrective to long-standing myths.
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