history
Hosted by Adam Smith · history · EN
Abraham Lincoln called the United States “the last best hope of Earth.” In this podcast, we ask whether that claim still holds — and whether it ever did. Each episode takes a figure, idea, or moment in American political history and asks what it tells us about the country’s understanding of itself, always with an eye to how America looks from the outside in. The Last Best Hope? takes ideas seriously: America as a creed, the arguments of the people who built and remade it, and what America has meant to the rest of the world. We take our subjects from history, not the news — though the present is rarely far away. Hosted by Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of American Political History and Director of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, The Last Best Hope? brings him into conversation with leading scholars and public figures, including Hillary Clinton, Annette Gordon-Reed, Eric Foner, David Frum, Heather Cox Richardson, Stacy Schiff, Jona
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Booking probability
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Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchAbraham Lincoln called the United States “the last best hope of Earth.” In this podcast, we ask whether that claim still holds, and whether it ever did.
The Last Best Hope? is hosted by Adam Smith. The show has published 80 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "Why Presidents Lose Midterms" (22 October 2026, 46 minutes), "The Battle over the 250th Anniversary" (24 June 2026, 56 minutes), and "The Battle over the 250th Anniversary" (24 June 2026, 56 minutes).
The Last Best Hope? publishes roughly every two weeks, with episodes averaging 39 minutes across 80 episodes.
Booking probability for The Last Best Hope? is 34%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. The Last Best Hope? requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. The Last Best Hope?'s contact route on record: verified email.
Adam Smith hosts The Last Best Hope?, a history podcast with 80 episodes published.
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Episode #79
Since the Civil War the president's party has lost ground in Congress in every single midterm election bar four. What's going on? Are voters punishing the administration they put into office just two short years...
Episode #4
In the bicentennial summer of 1976, the United States staged what was, by some measures, the largest single celebration in the country’s history. Tall ships in New York harbor. Fireworks over the Mall. Specially-minted...
Episode #4
<p>In the bicentennial summer of 1976, the United States staged what was, by some measures, the largest single celebration in the country’s history. Tall ships in New York harbor. Fireworks over the Mall...
<p>Is there anything more distinctively American than its sports culture?</p><p>In a previous episode of this podcast, we discussed the tragic decline and partial revival of American cricket. As the 2026 World Cup kicks...
<p>The rebels who tried to break up the United States in the 1860s thought of themselves as the rightful heirs to the spirit of 1776. The South Carolina Declaration of the Causes of Secession took the Declaration of...
Episode #1
<p>For 250 years, the idea of America and the fact of American power have unsettled British politics. Is America of us, or apart from us? Rival or special friend? In the British political imagination, America has...
The Last Best Hope?
<p>As the US gears up for the 250th anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July, the RAI’s podcast, The Last Best Hope?, returns for our 16th series on 13 May. As always, each episode uses...
<p>To its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, it was “an expression of the American mind”; to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, it was "absurd and visionary". The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years...
<p>To its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, it was “an expression of the American mind”; to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, it was "absurd and visionary". The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years...
Episode #2
<p>For much of the twentieth century, progressives in America wanted to expand the Federal Government. They created regulation, bureaucracy, and agencies capable of managing a complex industrial society. And often state...
<p>Hillary Rodham Clinton has been at the centre of American public life for thirty years. She has exercised more power from more senior positions than any other woman in American history. Clinton has just co-edited a...
The Last Best Hope?
<p>In the new series beginning on the 11th of February 2026, Adam speaks to Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about her vision of America and its place in the world and considers whether “states’ rights” should...
<p>It is one of the most famous speeches in the English language and one of the most consequential. In this special two-part documentary, we explore Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – why he gave it, what it meant...
<p>It is one of the most famous speeches in the English language and one of the most consequential. In this special two-part documentary, we explore Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – why he gave it, what it meant...
Episode #4
<p>A year on, what does Trump’s comeback say about Biden’s understanding of the country he led? Was his vision of America already obsolete — a relic of the bipartisan consensus forged in the 1950s when young Joe was...
Episode #3
<p>If America is the last, best hope of earth, one reason is the frontier. The frontier has been imagined as the place—or perhaps the process—through which the American character is forged—rugged individualism, the...
<p>Beneath the chaos of Donald Trump’s second term foreign policy—the bluster, bravado, back-handers and backdowns—is there something else going on? Has the United States reached a turning point in its relationship to...
<p>A hundred years ago, Walter Lippmann, one of the great analysts of democratic life, wrote that the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis in journalism. Press barons, Lippmann feared, were so powerful that...
The Last Best Hope?
<p>It's been almost a year since The Last Best Hope aired, and in that time, America has changed dramatically. So in the new series, we’ll be attempting to put Trump’s foreign policy in a historical context, we’ll be...
Episode #8
<p>In this special episode of The Last Best Hope, we bring you a recording of a live event at the Rothermere American Institute in Oxford on Thursday, November 7. Adam Smith and guests discussed why the election turned...
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