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Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalist Rund Abdelfatah.

Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline

Throughline

From impoverishment to global superpower, China’s supremacy happened at a breakneck speed thanks to the visionary strategy of the man who took power in 1978. Over the next decade, under leader Deng Xiaoping’s firm leadership, China flirted with capitalism and transformed its socio-economic and political systems, effectively becoming the world’s factory.

Guests:

Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London and author of several books, including Xi: A Study in Power

Dan Wang, a writer specializing in contemporary China and author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future

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The architect of modern China

We think of Walmart as ultra-American, but its business relationship with China has fundamentally changed how American retail operates. 

In this episode, how one retailer helped turn China into the world’s factory, eventually becoming the single largest U.S. importer of Chinese consumer goods. 

Guest:

Eileen Otis, Associate Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University and author of Walmart: Made in China 

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The Chinafication of Walmart

In the summer of 2020, teenager Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join a racial justice movement after the killing of George Floyd. Less than a week after he arrived in Seattle, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved. In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death, surfacing crucial evidence and eyewitness accounts.

Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed. Listen to Embedded wherever you get your podcasts, including the NPR App, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and via RSS.

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Listen to "We Keep Us Safe" on NPR's Embedded podcast

Route 66 turns 100 this year. It's considered America’s most nostalgic road trip. With wide open road, sunsets that fill the whole sky, dirt-kissed Chevy trucks, and revving motorcycles. But Route 66 started out as a muddy road to nowhere. Today on the show, we’ll meet a league of gilded-age bicyclists, a ragtag gang of cross-country runners, and the very stubborn highway commissioner who turned it into the “Main Street of America.”

Guests:

Susan Croce Kelly, author of Father of Route 66 and Route 66: the Highway and its People

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Route 66 and the quest to connect America

Stories of resistance from three places: Denver, Colorado where the Gang of 19 put their bodies on the line for the right to use public transportation. Montgomery, Alabama, where a song quietly galvanized generations. And finally, on broadcast TV, where a 1966 prime-time show inspired Americans to dream bigger.

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How wheelchairs, a river, and a spaceship challenged the status quo

The U.S. has long professed to be a country where people can seek refuge. That's the promise etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty. But it's never been that clear-cut. And in June, the Supreme Court passed two rulings that could make seeking safe haven in the U.S. even more difficult. 

Today on the show, the story of how the U.S. asylum system was forged in response to moments of crisis, and where it left gaps: from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, to Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers during the Cold War, to the precarious system of today.

This episode originally aired in December 2024.

Guests:

Maria Cristina Garcia, Professor of History at Cornell University, studying immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers

Ruth Wasem, former Immigration Policy Specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service and author of the forthcoming book, The Struggle for Fairness: Forging the Immigration Act of 1965

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The ongoing battle over asylum in America

There are many ways to look at and understand American history. In this series, we’ve shared stories about how this country was founded and how it continues to evolve over time. Today, a journey through American history, with the sounds of music. 

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American history through song

Devastating compromises. Midnight rides. A nailbiter vote. Statue toppling riots… and the very real possibility of death. This July 4th, we're taking you inside the making of the Declaration of Independence and how, against all odds, a single document introduced the world to a new kind of nation. 

Guests:

Walter Isaacson, professor at Tulane University and author of The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.

Denise Kiernan, author of Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration and Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution.

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The story of July 4th is messier than you remember

What does the Constitution mean to me? That’s a question writer and actor Heidi Schreck asked herself years ago, when she started working on her one-woman play about the Constitution — a document that she loved deeply. Today on the show, we ask the same question as we explore what the historical document means, and how it’s impacted generations of Americans.

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The genius and murkiness of the Constitution

Oil may dominate the headlines about the Middle East, but the real power often flows through water. Three narrow passages - the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and Bab el-Mandeb – shape how the world moves. In times of crisis, they've become chokepoints, disrupting global trade, rattling markets, and shifting the balance of power way beyond the region. In this episode, three stories from these waterways… how they've helped define the modern Middle East and, as we've seen recently with Hormuz, the economic currents that affect us all.

Guests:

Alex Von Tunzelmann, author of Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace

Harold Lee Wise, author of Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987-1988

Farea Al-Muslimi, Yemen and Gulf researcher at Chatham House in London

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From Hormuz to Suez: the chokepoints of global power

NPR's new history podcast hosted by Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah. New episodes every Thursday starting February 7th. 

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Introducing Throughline

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