Cracking Wise with History with Matt Palmquist of CivilWarHumor

Matt Palmquist is a writer and editor, and creator of the CivilWarHumor account on Twitter and Instagram. He’s written humor columns for several publications, and he also writes about academic research and public policy. But his true passion has always been history — the Civil War in particular — and he uses social media to satirize both the past and present.

I’ve wanted Matt on the show for ages…for the simple reason that he knows his Civil War history and makes me laugh when he discusses it. His approach, I believe, does a hellofalot to get folks talking about the conflict - and drawing connections between the past and present that we should never ignore. We get in to all of this on the show and discuss:

• What drew Matt to Civil War history

• Comic relief for a era defined by tragedy…is there room for levity?

• Social media exacerbating political polarization

• History, politics, and political agendas…and what to do when you encounter a bad take

• Journalists dropping the historical ball, so to speak

• Twitter…where you can have a conversation with Harry Turtledove. Yes…the Guns of the South guy.

• Considering…do some folks just not get what historians do?

Have a listen…

Just a sample…

We also talk about the books and movies that got us way into the Civil War at young ages. For me it was Bruce Catton…especially his Army of the Potomac Trilogy. He is better know, perhaps, as the Civil War gateway drug. For Matt is was Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels and the film, Gettysburg. He even bought the soundtrack (cue Ashokon Farewell…) Anyway, make sure and follow Matt on Twitter and Insta and join in the good fun!

And please, 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