Walter Edgar's Journal

Mar 07 2025 330 ep. 56 mins 127

Walter Edgar's Journal Podcast artwork

From books to barbecue, and current events to Colonial history, historian and author Walter Edgar delves into the arts, culture, and history of South Carolina and the American South. Produced by South Carolina Public Radio.

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Backcountry war: The rise of Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, and Thomas Sumter in the American Revolution

This week we'll be talking with Andrew Waters about his latest book, Backcountry War: The Rise of Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, and Thomas Sumter (2024, Westholme Publishing). In it Andrew weaves the history of three key leaders in the American Revolution into in a single narrative, focusing on the events of 1780 in South Carolina that witnessed their collective ascendance fro

"Somewhere toward freedom" - Sherman's March and the story of America's largest Emancipation

This week, we’ll be talking with Bennett Parten, author of Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation (2025, Simon & Schuster).In Somewhere Toward Freedom, Ben reframes this seminal episode in Civil War history. He not only helps us understand how Sherman’s March impacted the war, and what it meant to the enslaved, but also reveals

North of Main: Spartanburg's historic Black neighborhoods

Feb 07 2025 39 mins

This week, we’ll be talking with Betsy Teter and Jim Neighbors about their book, North of Main: Spartanburg's Historic Black Neighborhoods of North Dean Street, Gas Bottom, and Back of the College. In this book, co-authors Brenda Lee Pryce, Betsy Teter and Jim Neighbors tell the story of how post-emancipation black districts arose in Spartanburg and how they disappeared.

Settler violence, native resistance, and the coalescence of the Old South

Jan 24 2025 38 mins

In his book, Aggression and Sufferings: Settler Violence, Native Resistance, and the Coalescence of the Old South, Evan Nooe argues that through the experiences and selective memory of settlers in the antebellum South, white southerners incorporated their aggression against and suffering at the hands of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeast in the coalescence of a regional identi

Remembering Nathalie Dupree

Jan 17 2025 45 mins

This week we bring you a very special episode of the Journal – we will be remembering our friend and champion of Southern cuisine, Nathalie Dupree, who died on January 13, 2025, at the age of 85.

Raptors in the riceland

Jan 03 2025 32 mins

In his new novel, Raptors in the Ricelands, Ron Daise unfolds a story in a twenty-first century fictional community near Georgetown, SC - a story which reveals family secrets and conflicts that challenge cultural beliefs. Conveyed in four acts and with chapter names that follow the production stages of Carolina Gold Rice, the novel spans the future, the present, and the past, and f

Charleston's Nathaniel Russell House: Kitchen house archaeology sheds new light on the life of the enslaved

Dec 20 2024 45 mins

This time out we’ll be talking with Tracey Todd, the Director of Museums for the Historic Charleston Foundation, and Andrew Agha, an archaeologist working on the site of the Nathaniel Russell house, a National Historic Landmark on Meeting Street. We’ll be talking about the Foundation’s most recent preservation initiative which involves the kitchen house, an ancillary structur

Marjory Wentworth: One River, One Boat

Dec 06 2024 33 mins

This week we’ll be talking with former poet laureate of South Carolina, Marjory Wentworth about her new collection of poems entitled One River, One Boat (Evening Post Books, 2024). This collection of occasional poems and essays includes those written about heartbreaking and joyous times in South Carolina’s history and Wentworth’s own life including the deaths of relatives, gu

Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess

Nov 15 2024 40 mins

Dr. Kendra Hamilton’s book, Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess, is a literary and cultural history of a place: the Gullah Geechee Coast, a four-state area that’s one of only a handful of places that can truly be said to be the “cradle of Black culture” in the United States.

Lincoln's unfinished work: The new birth of freedom from generation to generation

Nov 01 2024 44 mins

This week, we offer you an encore of an episode from our broadcast archive: A fascinating conversation with Dr. Vernon Burton, the Judge Matthew J. Perry Jr. Distinguished Professor of History at Clemson University, and Dr. Peter Eisenstadt, affiliate scholar in the Department of History at Clemson University.Walter will be talking with Peter and Vernon about their book, Lincoln’