Is history always political? Who gets to decide? What happens when you challenge common narratives? In this episode, Throughline’s Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei explore these questions with Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative journalist at the New York Times and the creator of the 1619 Project, which is set to be released as a book later this year.

The U.S. is steeped in wars over history. Historical narratives fuel public policy and discourse. Today, the most dramatic battleground is the 1619 Project. It has pushed people on both sides of the political spectrum to ask how our framing of the past affects the present, to interrogate what we remember and don’t remember as a society — and whether we need a shared historical narrative to move forward.

If you would like to read more on the topic, here’s a list:

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, by Lerone Bennett, Jr.