Accessibility links
Casey Miner Casey Miner is an editor for Throughline.
Stories By

Casey Miner

Wednesday

David v Goliath
Hulton Archive/Getty Images/Getty Images

Throughline

David v Goliath

In the year 1258, more than 100,000 soldiers amassed outside the great Islamic city of Baghdad. They were the Mongol Army, led by the grandson of the fearsome Genghis Khan. Within weeks, they'd left the city – which had stood as the center of power and commerce in the Muslim world for nearly 500 years – smoldering in a grotesque heap. And that was just the beginning. The Mongols would continue to push West, conquering Muslim cities until there was just one left in their way: Cairo.

David v Goliath

Listen · 51:48
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1198907970/1200703433" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

A Tale of Two Tribal Nations

Nate Taylor (left) and Sylvia Fred (right), two of the co-founders of the Endazhi-Nitaawiging Charter School on Red Lake Reservation standing in front of the construction site for a new school building. Sequoia Carrillo/NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Sequoia Carrillo/NPR

Throughline

A Tale of Two Tribal Nations

The word "reservation" implies "reserved" – as in, this land is reserved for Native Americans. But most reservation land actually isn't owned by tribes. Instead it's checkerboarded into private farmland, federal forests, summer camps, even resorts. That's true for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in northern Minnesota, where the tribe owns just a tiny fraction of its reservation land. But just northwest of Leech Lake is Red Lake: one of the only reservations in the country where the tribe owns all of its land. So what happened? In this episode, we take a road trip through Leech Lake and Red Lake to tell a tale of two tribal nations, the moments of choice that led them down very different paths, and what the future looks like from where they are now

A Tale of Two Tribal Nations

Listen · 51:15
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1198748505/1199391859" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Silicon Island (2022)
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

Throughline

Silicon Island (2022)

In a world where computer chips run everything from laptops to cars to the Nintendo Switch, Taiwan is the undisputed leader. It's one of the most powerful tech centers in the world — so powerful that both China and the U.S. have vital interests there. But if you went back to the Taiwan of the 1950s, this would have seemed unimaginable. It was a quiet, sleepy island; an agrarian culture. Fifty years later, it experienced what many recall as an "economic miracle" — a transformation into not just one of Asia's economic powerhouses, but one of the world's.

Silicon Island (2022)

Listen · 48:49
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1196986902/1200557383" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

By Accident of Birth (2022)

Painted portrait of Wong Kim Ark in the Asian American Community Heroes Mural, located in San Francisco's Chinatown. Julie Caine/Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco hide caption

toggle caption
Julie Caine/Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco

Throughline

By Accident of Birth (2022)

In August of 1895, a ship called the SS Coptic approached the coast of Northern California. On that boat was a passenger from San Francisco, a young man named Wong Kim Ark. He was returning home after visiting his wife and child in China, and he'd taken similar trips before. But when the ship docked, officials told him he couldn't get off. The customs agent barred him according to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants.

By Accident of Birth (2022)

Listen · 58:24
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1195066446/1200557379" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Characters That Built China (2022)

Two craftsmen printing a book in kanji (the Chinese logographic system), China, circa 1800. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Throughline

The Characters That Built China (2022)

Today, China is a global superpower. But less than two hundred years ago, the nation was in a state of decline. After what became known as the 'century of humiliation' at the hands of Western imperialist powers, its very survival was in question. A movement arose to fight off foreign interference and preserve Chinese culture in the face of intense pressure from a rapidly-changing world. And the key to that movement was language.In this episode, we follow three key reformers who worked to modernize written and spoken Chinese, sometimes risking their lives to do so. Their work simplified Chinese, standardized it, and took it from an inaccessible language built for the elite to a modern language for the masses. It was a struggle that spanned generations, changed the fate of millions of people, and helped create the powerful modern nation-state of China.

The Characters That Built China (2022)

Listen · 49:22
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1193967801/1200556119" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

Getting to Sesame Street (2022)

'Sesame Street' hosts Matt Robinson (Gordon), Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) Loretta Long (Susan) and Bob McGrath (Bob) stand with Big Bird in a promotional still on the set of the educational public television series, circa 1969. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Throughline

Getting to Sesame Street (2022)

American schools have always been more than where we go to learn the ABCs: They're places where socialization happens and cultural norms are developed. And arguments over what those norms are and how they're communicated tend to flare up during moments of cultural anxiety — like the one we're in now.

Getting to Sesame Street (2022)

Listen · 49:13
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191069674/1200556127" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Hidden War
Uncredited/AP

Throughline

The Hidden War

How does a country go from its leader winning the Nobel Peace Prize to all-out war in just one year? That's the question surrounding Ethiopia, which has become embroiled in one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century. The U.S. has called it an ethnic cleansing campaign against Tigrayans, a minority group in the country; some human rights organizations have called it a genocide. But many people outside Ethiopia and its diaspora had no idea it was happening. In U.S. media, it's hardly discussed, even as violence has intensified throughout the country. In this episode, we tell the story of Ethiopia — the oldest independent country in Africa — and the political, cultural and religious factors that led to this war.

The Hidden War

Listen · 52:24
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1190018372/1200556131" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Legacy of Henry Kissinger
Win McNamee/Getty Images

Throughline

The Legacy of Henry Kissinger

Depending on where you stand, Henry Kissinger is either a foreign policy mastermind or a war criminal. Some see him as a brilliant strategist who made tough but necessary decisions to advance American interests in a complex world; others point to his infamous order that American warplanes should "bomb anything that flies, on anything that moves" as evidence that he bears responsibility for the loss of countless civilian lives. But one thing both sides agree on is that few figures in the 20th century have had a more profound influence on how the U.S. conducts foreign policy.Kissinger grew up in an orthodox Jewish household in Germany, under the shadow of the Nazis' rise to power; he and his family fled to the U.S. when he was a teenager. Professor Jeremi Suri, author of "Henry Kissinger and the American Century," argues that Kissinger's experiences during the Holocaust have informed his approach to global politics throughout his career, as well as his relationship with democracy, war, and power. Today on the show, how Henry Kissinger shaped, and was shaped by, the 20th century.

The Legacy of Henry Kissinger

Listen · 49:25
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1186040517/1200556143" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

After Roe: A New Battlefield (2022)
Marcy Nighswander/AP

Throughline

After Roe: A New Battlefield (2022)

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade transformed the landscape of abortion rights overnight. For the doctors, lawyers, feminists, and others who had fought for nationwide legalization, Roe was the end of a long battle. But for the growing movement against abortion rights, it was the beginning of a new battle: to protect the fetus, challenge abortion providers, and ultimately overturn Roe. This is the story of how opponents of abortion rights banded together, built power, and launched one of the most successful grassroots campaigns of the past century.

After Roe: A New Battlefield (2022)

Listen · 52:11
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1184398043/1200556147" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Labor Of Love
David McNew/Getty Images

Throughline

The Labor Of Love

There's a powerful fantasy in American society: the fantasy of the ideal mother. This mother is devoted to her family above all else. She raises the kids, volunteers at the school, cleans the house, plans the birthday parties, cares for her own parents. She's a natural nurturer. And she's happy to do it all for free. Problem is? She's imaginary. And yet the idea of her permeates our culture, our economy, and our social policy – and it distorts them. The U.S. doesn't have universal health insurance or universal childcare. We don't have federally mandated paid family leave or a meaningful social safety net for when times get rough. Instead, we have this imaginary mother. We've structured our society as though she exists — but she doesn't. And we all pay the real-life price.

The Labor Of Love

Listen · 52:37
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1183467075/1200556151" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Thursday

Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade (2022)
Library of Congress

Throughline

Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade (2022)

Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a fairly common practice: a private decision made by women, and aided mostly by midwives. But in the mid-1800s, a small group of physicians set out to change that. Obstetrics was a new field, and they wanted it to be their domain—meaning, the domain of men and medicine. Led by a zealous young doctor named Horatio Storer, they launched a campaign to make abortion illegal in every state, spreading a potent cloud of moral righteousness and racial panic that one historian later called "the physicians' crusade." And so began the century of criminalization.

Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade (2022)

Listen · 52:48
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1180616572/1200556159" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Thursday

The Ghost in Your Phone
JUNIOR KANNAH/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

The Ghost in Your Phone

It's hot. A mother works outside, a baby strapped to her back. The two of them breathe in toxic dust, day after day. And they're just two of thousands, cramped so close together it's hard to move, all facing down the mountain of cobalt stone.

The Ghost in Your Phone

Listen · 52:19
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1179117816/1200556163" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

The Freedom of Speech

Volunteers help roll up a giant banner printed with the Preamble to the United States Constitution during a demonstration against the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall October 20, 2010 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Throughline

The Freedom of Speech

Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined? It's a story that travels through world wars and culture wars. Through the highest courts and the Ku Klux Klan. What exactly is free speech, and how has the answer to that question changed in the history of the U.S.?

The Freedom of Speech

Listen · 49:07
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1177936377/1200556167" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Throughline

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines

Corruption. Wealth. Authoritarianism. Torture. These are the words many people associate with Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator of the Philippines, and his wife, Imelda. But in 1965, on the day of his presidential inauguration, clad in bright white traditional Filipino clothing, Ferdinand and Imelda were the picture of hope and progress: the Camelot of the Philippines. They styled themselves as mythical figures with a divine right to rule, even as their democratic ascent reached a dictatorial peak.

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines

Listen · 52:10
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1175026593/1200556190" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript