Greg Jackson creates and hosts History That Doesn’t Suck, the podcast that has been downloaded more than 100 million times and regularly ranks among the top history shows on Apple and Spotify. He joins the Salt Lake Book Festival, in conversation with Salt Lake Tribune political columnist Robert Gehrke, to talk about his new book, Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome (Simon & Schuster). The book walks through eight moments of American upheaval, from partisan newspaper wars among the Founding Fathers to the corrupt 1876 election, to make the case that today’s contested elections, misinformation, and division are not as unprecedented as they can feel.

Jackson brings a professor’s rigor and a storyteller’s timing to the argument. He is an associate professor at Utah Valley University, where he holds the America 250 Professor position in the Center for Constitutional Studies, and a senior fellow at the Center for National Security Studies. He also tours nationally with his live stage show, HTDS: The Unlikely Union, and appears regularly on History Channel documentaries, bringing the same mix of vivid characters, page-turning narrative, and dry humor to a live room that he brings to headphones.

Jackson lives in Lehi with his wife, Sue, and their family. Join him and Robert Gehrke at the Salt Lake Book Festival for a conversation on what history actually tells us about surviving hard times, and why Jackson is convinced America has been here before.