01/01/2026
DIY Democracy Today At 5pm
DIY Democracy is hosted by Germantown resident Steven Nelson. It is a show to highlight civic engagement and to learn to be effective citizens.
This episode: For this episode, I spoke with Prof. Manisha Sinha of the University of Connecticut, historian and author of the recent book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920. We spoke about what a "new founding" of American democracy has looked like in the past, and what we might learn from that. Because we spoke for a good long while, I'm splitting it into two parts. Today is part 1.
In the coming weeks, I will share two interviews with author Osita Nwanevu, in which we separately discuss the two halves of the argument of his new book, "The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding." Before we discuss his argument that we need a new American founding, I prepared for that by speaking about the first time we had a "new founding," during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War.
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A show to highlight civic engagement and to learn to be effective citizens.