Revolution 250 Podcast

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These fundamental truths shape American identity. Ted Widmer explores their origins and impact in T he Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text ¸ and joins us to talk ab...

Before the ink was dry, the Declaration was already on its way to the people. In this special Independence Day episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, recorded for America's 250th Birthday on July 4, 2026, Professor Robert Allison welcomes master printer Gary Gregory of the historic Edes & Gill Print Shop to explore how the words that founded a nation were transformed into printed broadsid...

  Why did the British place so much importance on Charleston? How did a string of talented British commanders nearly crush the Revolution in the South, and why did they ultimately fail? In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert J. Allison is joined by historian Ken Scarlett, author of Victory Day: Winning American Independence , for a sweeping discussion of the Southern Campa...

 The American Revolution was not fought on distant battlefields, but in private homes. British occupation produced an aggrieved American population, bound by shared domestic disorder and emotional distress. British officers usurped male authority to quarter themselves with families, patriot wives governed households in their husbands' absence, daughters flirted with officers, domestic servant...

 In his new book T his Fierce People:  The Untold Story of America’s Revolutionary War in the South , Alan Pell Crawford brings to life the three years between Monmouth and Yorktown.  A brutal war in the South—a true civil war—set the stage for the victory at Yorktown, and here, Crawford argues, the War for Independence was won.  What happened between 1778 and 1781 as the war shifted to the southe...

Renowned music historian and composer Roger Lee Hall takes us on a lively exploration of the music of the American Revolution. Far from being mere background entertainment, music in the Revolutionary era carried political messages, inspired soldiers, unified communities, and gave voice to both patriot fervor and loyalist resistance. From tavern ballads and marching tunes to hymns, broadsides, and...

 Yorktown was not the end!  Though Cornwallis surrendered, the British still held New York, Charleston, and Savannah, and the Americans did not control the western frontier.  Would 1782 bring a renewed British campaign to secure the American colonies?  Could the United States win its independence?   Military historian Craig Bruce Smith , professor of history at National Defense University, joins u...

The United States is not a nation like other nations, and it never has been. In July  1776, thirteen separate states, home to three million people with no common  ancestry or identity, stretching along a narrow coastal strip between the Atlantic and the Appalachians, declared their independence as the United States. Could they form a common identity and survive? Today, with more than 350 million p...

Animals were critical to the War for Independence, both as livestock to feed the armies and navies, and as draft animals to pull cannon and provisions.  Dogs and other animals served as mascots and companions, and insects spread diseases that upset the most careful military plans. While historians have looked at problems of supply and transportation for the armies at war, none has looked at the im...

Mary Dalley's boarding house in Philadelphia is where history happened! In the early days of the Revoluiton it was called "Liberty Hall,"  and after 1787 it was "Constitution House." Gouverneur Morris lived here, had his law office here, and probably wrote the Constitution at Miss Dalley's Boarding House.  Gathered around Miss Dalley's table at different times we...

 Linda Thorsen and Tom Coots take us to Malden, whose Town Meeting on May 27, 1776 unanimously supported independence.  The Malden Instructions boldly  announced the town's support for  independence from Great Britain—weeks before the Continental Congress would adopt the Declaration of Independence. Thorsen and Coots examine the political climate, local leadership, and community resolve that...

The Declaration of Independence created a new nation, and has guided the United States ever since.  Historian Steven Sarson argues in his new book, The Course of Human Events:  The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States that the Declaration looks backward, to British history and Biblical and Classical history, as much as forward.   Sarson looks at the structure...

Janie Nitze and Justice Neil Gorsuch have written a book for young readers,    Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence , bringing to life the individuals—famous and overlooked—who shaped one of the most consequential documents in world history.  The book delves into the personalities, debates, and risks that defined the summer of 1776, revealing the Declaration not simply as a...

 In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Michael Gabriel to explore the life and legacy of one of the American Revolution’s earliest fallen heroes. Drawing on his new book, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero , Gabriel traces Montgomery’s remarkable journey from Irish-born officer in the British Army to a committ...

Jeff Denman talks about his book Philadelphia Quakers and the American Revolution . How did a community rooted in pacifism navigate a moment defined by war, rebellion, and political upheaval? Philadelphia’s Quakers— committed to principles of nonviolence, religious conviction, and civic order—found themselves caught in the crosscurrents of revolution, where neutrality itself could be seen as dislo...

Genealogists David Allen Lambert and Melanie McComb of American Ancestor s talk about how family history reshapes our understanding of the American Revolution. Drawing on the vast collections and scholarship of one of the nation’s oldest genealogical institutions, Lambert and McComb explore how military records, pension files, and local archives reveal stories far beyond famous names—illuminating...

Most revolutions end in failure.  If they succeed in toppling the bad old regime, they often create a new one that is worse.  "Like Saturn," a French journalist observed in the early 1790s, "the Revolution devours its children."   Why was the American Revolution different?  Legal scholar and political analyst Jonathan Turley explores this question in his new book, Rage and the...

On this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast , host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Captain B.J. Armstrong , a 27-year officer in the United States Navy, Associate Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Director of the Naval Academy Museum.   BJ Armstrong's books include Small Boats and Daring Men , about irregular warfare in the Revolution.  HIs regular...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert J. Allison welcomes Richard Howell of the Nathanael Greene Homestead for a conversation about the life and legacy of one of the most remarkable commanders of the American Revolution, Nathanael Greene. Born into a Rhode Island Quaker family and raised as an ironmaster, Greene’s path to military leadership was anything but ordinary. Yet he w...

Why did an antislavery movement emerge at the time of the American Revolution, both in the American colonies and in Britain?  Christopher Brown asks this question and many more in Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism.  The American Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic brought together strands of thought and feeling which had been latent, as men and women grappled with questions o...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Ryan Cole for a sweeping conversation about memory, gratitude, and the young republic’s most celebrated guest. Cole, author of Light Horse Harry Lee and his new work The Adieu explores the extraordinary 1824–1825 return tour of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette . Nearly fifty years after the shot...

. Why did Philadelphia matter so deeply to both the British and the Continental Army? How did strategy, logistics, and personalities shape the campaign that culminated in Brandywine, Germantown, and the winter at Valley Forge? And what did the occupation of the revolutionary capital mean for civilians caught between armies?  Michael C. Harris tells this story in his new book,  Fighting for Philade...

Who was Thomas Jefferson?  Do we really need another book about him?  Andrew Burstein has written other books on Jefferson, and his new book, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait  answers both questions with depth and grace.  Jefferson was an extraordinarily interesting person, and Burstein navigates his ambition, friendships, rivalries, political controversies, and intellectual inquiries....

On today’s episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast , host Professor Robert Allison charts a course across storm-tossed legal waters with historian Suzanne Amy Foxley , author of T he American Experience of British Prize Law, 1776–1804 . From the decks of daring privateers to the hushed chambers of admiralty courts, Foxley reveals how the American Revolution was fought not only with muskets and canno...

Lights, camera, Revolution! In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Bob Allison sits down with acclaimed filmmaker Kirk Ellis to explore the alchemy that turns ink on a page into images that linger in the national memory. Ellis, the creative force behind the celebrated screen portrayals of Benjamin Franklin (2024) and John Adams (2008), pulls back the curtain on shaping compl...