The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America with Daniel Mandell


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Greetings all, I am super stoked to welcome Dr. Daniel Mandell to The Rogue Historian. Since 1999, Dan has been professor of history at Truman State University teaching early America,  Native American history, and the history of law in America.  He earned a history BA from Humboldt State University (1979), a history M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1992) from the University of Virginia, and an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University (1989).  Before The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, he published a dozen articles and six books on Native Americans in New England, including Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780-1880 (2008) and King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty (2010).  In addition to teaching, he is currently researching the conundrum of individual and collective rights in the evolution of Native American law and policy.


Today we took a look at the ideas from his latest publication. And if you follow today’s political discourse, you might note some familiar topics…

We discuss:

  • The inspiration behind the study

  • Political discourse beyond the Gilded Age

  • 17th century egalitarian ideology

  • The Jewish tradition of the Jubilee

  • True Levelers and the English Civil War

  • Land ownership and political equality

  • Early Americans’ views regarding the corrupting influences of wealth and power

  • Distinctions North and South

  • The growing industrial economy of the 1830s and immigration

  • The expanding franchise during the Antebellum era

  • Reconstruction, formerly enslaved people, and land redistribution

I enjoyed the hell out of this conversation and I think you will too. You can find Dan on Twitter, Facebook, and his website. Also, you will for sure be interested in his pieces in The Washington Post and Time. Make sure and pick up a copy of the book so we can keep the conversation going…AND…don’t forget to subscribe to The Rogue Historian Podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app so you never ever ever ever miss a show. That would be dumb.

With compliments,

Keith