When the historian Claire Aubin gets together with her colleagues for drinks after a conference or academic meetup, the conversation always ends up one way. “We’re all sitting around a table, talking about our most hated historical figure,” she said. For Aubin, it’s Henry Ford, an ardent antisemite whom Hitler called “an inspiration”. She believes being a hater can aid in scholarship: “Disliking someone or having a problem with their historical legacy is worth talking about, and brings more people into learning about history.”
That’s why Aubin, who spent last year lecturing in the history department at UC Davis and San Francisco State University and is about to begin a full-time postdoctoral fellowship at Yale, started This Guy Sucked, a history podcast about terrible men. In each episode, Aubin speaks to a historian about their biggest villain, from Ford and Voltaire to Plato and Jerry Lee Lewis.
