Listening to America

About Listening to America

Listening to America aims to "light out for the territories," traveling less visited byways and taking time to see this immense, extraordinary country with fresh eyes while listening to the many voices of America's past, present, and future. Led by noted historian and humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, Listening to America travels the country's less visited byways, from national parks and forests to historic sites to countless under-recognized rural and urban places. Through this exploration, Clay and team find and tell the overlooked historical and contemporary stories that shape America's people and places. Visit our website at ltamerica.org.

Publisher

Listening to America

Category

history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 Jul 2016

Latest episode

21 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

122 of 565 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   21 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   #1722 September 11, 25 Years Later

   Host David Horton interviews historian Clay Jenkinson about six crucial lessons learned from the 9/11 attacks and their enduring global impact.

2. 

   14 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Jefferson and Adams: A Fresh Interpretation

   Host Clay Sisk discusses the extraordinary friendship and political rivalry of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson with author Jim Rasenberger, offering a fresh interpretation of their lives.

3. 

   7 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   #1720 The Declaration of Independence: The Days After Adoption

   Host David Horton interviews Thomas Jefferson about the Declaration of Independence's immediate circulation and the precarious early days of the American Revolution.

Inside a recent episode

#1722 September 11, 25 Years Later

Published 21 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] So, for example, I'll just give you two quick ones. With Iraq, it's not clear that our government really understood the difference between Shia and Sunni. Correct. It's not clear that our government or our president listened to those who said, if you start this thing, a couple of things are going to happen. The Iranians are going to attack a lot of our allies in the region, and they're probably going to close the Straits of Hormuz, and they can. So we don't know enough. We need to have a Mandarin portion of our population, numbering in the hundreds of thousands and millions who study Arabic, who study Mandarin, who study Russian, who study Farsi, who know the languages of the world, who study these things, who warn us, we respect what they have to tell us, that they They know the nuances. […]

Who has been a guest on Listening to America

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Clay Jenkinson
• Jim Rasenberger
• Thomas Jefferson
• David Osborne
• Richard Battle

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

258,420

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

1,141 ratings

Spotify

4.4 / 5

103 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 85 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

97

Social presence

0

YouTube

86

Engagement

98

Pitching Listening to America

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting pitches.

Questions about Listening to America