From the Archives: Episode 40: We Gather Together, or, The History of Thanksgiving

On a day of tradition (or maybe not; more about that in a bit), we brush the dust off an old HT tradition. Back in the day, to be honest, we used to do a lot of "From the Archive" episodes mostly because we were pressed for time. Five years and almost two hundred episodes and bonus episodes later, we've got bigger archives, and listeners who might not have gone as far back as Episodes 1 through 50. (I mean, who does that?) So here's a personal favorite, a conversation with Dr. Tracy McKenzie about the history of Thanksgiving, based on his book The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History. It's not just about turkey, and Pilgrims, and Native Americans, and English Separatism, but about football and bicycle races. For the cognoscenti, there's a lot of "invention of tradition" here as well; and there's a lot of historical thinking. Enjoy it in between the lawn football game and dinner, or the other way around.