Given the country’s current hostile political climate, it can feel like American politics is polarized to a historic degree. This week, the Providence College Podcast asks Darra Mulderry, Ph.D. — a scholar of political and intellectual history — about the history of political division in the United States. How do our times stack up compared to the years preceding the Civil War, the tumultuous Vietnam years, or other periods of intense division? What is different in our politics now compared to then? What can political leaders and voters learn from history about political conflict and reconciliation? Darra Mulderry, Ph.D., is director of national and international fellowships and scholarships and associate director of the Center for Engaged Learning. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of History.