For 250 years, the idea of America and the fact of American power have unsettled British politics. Is America of us, or apart from us? Rival or special friend? In the British political imagination, America has provoked envy, resentment, condescension, and neediness. It has also divided us, because America has so often illuminated or distorted our understanding of ourselves. Since the radical Whigs of the 1770s, one strand of the British left has looked to the United States for democratic inspiration. Another has seen America as a plutocratic, imperialist hegemon. Conservatives, meanwhile, have alternately recoiled from America in horror and embraced its go-getting freedom.
In this episode of The Last Best Hope?, Adam discusses the place of the US in the British political imagination with the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. He reported from Washington early in his career and now presents the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast. The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui.
For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk
If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The idea of America in British politics
13/05/2026 | 46 mins.
For 250 years, the idea of America and the fact of American power have unsettled British politics. Is America of us, or apart from us? Rival or special friend? In the British political imagination, America has provoked envy, resentment, condescension, and neediness. It has also divided us, because America has so often illuminated or distorted our understanding of ourselves. Since the radical Whigs of the 1770s, one strand of the British left has looked to the United States for democratic inspiration. Another has seen America as a plutocratic, imperialist hegemon. Conservatives, meanwhile, have alternately recoiled from America in horror and embraced its go-getting freedom.
In this episode of The Last Best Hope?, Adam discusses the place of the US in the British political imagination with the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. He reported from Washington early in his career and now presents the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast.
The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk
If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving
Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
New Series Trailer
12/05/2026 | 1 mins.
As the US gears up for the 250th anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July, the RAI’s podcast, The Last Best Hope?, returns for our 16th series on 13 May. As always, each episode uses history to explore what makes America different
“The must-listen US podcast” Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New York
The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk
If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving
Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why the Declaration of Independence said what it did, Episode 2
04/03/2026 | 42 mins.
To its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, it was “an expression of the American mind”; to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, it was "absurd and visionary". The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years ago, is so layered in myth, so foundational to the idea of America as the last best hope of earth, that it is a challenge, now, to put it into its gritty historical context -- a document that served to justify an act of rebellion, to garner support for it by listing grievances, but which also embedded, perhaps inintentionally, some powerful emancipatory claims. In this two-part episode of The Last Best Hope, Adam asks why the Declaration of Independence said what it did and why it mattered.
Contributors: Professor Lige Gould (University of New Hampshire), author of Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire; Professor Steven Sarson (Jean Moulin University Lyon 3) author of The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States; the intellectual historian, biographer of James Harrington, Professor Rachel Hammersley (Newcastle University); Dr Grace Mallon (University of Oxford), Clive Holmes Fellow in History at Lady Margaret Hall; and Bradford Skow, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT, author of American Independence in Verse.
The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk
If you would like to support us by making a donation go to https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/giving
Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why the Declaration of Independence said what it did, Episode 1
26/02/2026 | 46 mins.
To its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, it was “an expression of the American mind”; to the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, it was "absurd and visionary". The Declaration of Independence, written 250 years ago, is so layered in myth, so foundational to the idea of America as the last best hope of earth, that it is a challenge, now, to put it into its gritty historical context -- a document that served to justify an act of rebellion, to garner support for it by listing grievances, but which also embedded, perhaps inintentionally, some powerful emancipatory claims. In this two-part episode of The Last Best Hope, Adam asks why the Declaration of Independence said what it did and why it mattered.
Contributors: Professor Lige Gould (University of New Hampshire), author of Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire; Professor Steven Sarson (Jean Moulin University Lyon 3) author of The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States; the intellectual historian, biographer of James Harrington, Professor Rachel Hammersley (Newcastle University); Dr Grace Mallon (University of Oxford), Clive Holmes Fellow in History at Lady Margaret Hall; and Bradford Skow, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT, author of American Independence in Verse.
The Last Best Hope? is a podcast of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford and is kindly supported by Tom Amraoui. For details of our programming, go to rai.ox.ac.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Abraham Lincoln called the United States “the last best hope of Earth.” In this podcast, we ask whether that claim still holds — and whether it ever did. Each episode takes a figure, idea, or moment in American political history and asks what it tells us about the country’s understanding of itself, always with an eye to how America looks from the outside in. The Last Best Hope? takes ideas seriously: America as a creed, the arguments of the people who built and remade it, and what America has meant to the rest of the world. We take our subjects from history, not the news — though the present is rarely far away.Hosted by Adam Smith, Orsborn Professor of American Political History and Director of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, The Last Best Hope? brings him into conversation with leading scholars and public figures, including Hillary Clinton, Annette Gordon-Reed, Eric Foner, David Frum, Heather Cox Richardson, Stacy Schiff, Jonathan Freedland, James Morone, Michael Kazin, Kevin Kruse, Julian Zelizer, Bruce Schulman, Ty Seidule, Liz Varon, Eric Rauchway, Phil Tinline, Emily Bazelon, Richard Carwardine, Rachel Shelden, Richard Blackett, Devin Fergus, and Dan Jackson.“Adam Smith is one of the UK’s foremost historians of America, and communicates his expertise with zest, wit and unforced passion. The Last Best Hope? brings him together with fellow scholars to provide a unique insight we can’t do without.” — Phil Tinline, BBC radio documentary-maker and author“The Last Best Hope is an absolutely brilliant podcast. Thoughtful, clever, engaging and accessible, Adam Smith always gets the best out of his guests, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from every episode. I love it.” — Dominic Sandbrook, historian and co-host of The Rest is History“The must-listen US podcast.” — Nick Bryant, former BBC Correspondent in New YorkProduced by the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/home Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
UK