About Analyzing American Revolution (AAR)
About AAR
Analyzing American Revolution
How much do we really know about the American Revolution?
Think back to what we learned in school about this glorious, nation-defining event — the sparks that ignited the Revolution, the convictions and sacrifices that shaped our country.
We do cover all of that — but AAR is not your basic U.S. History 101.
- Not chronicles. We analyze the Revolution from different angles, not in chronological order.
- Not stories. We don’t do good guys and bad guys. And we move beyond familiar narrative arcs with clear beginnings, middles, and endings.
- Not myths. Myths are important – even sacred. And we point them out. But we don’t mythologize the American Revolution.
Analyzing American Revolution is a scholarly interview series curated and conducted by Adel Aali as part of the History Behind News program.
In AAR series, 33 scholars explore the Revolution from 33 different perspectives through in-depth, structured interviews with Adel Aali.
Together, we examine dimensions of the Revolutionary Era often left out: the global conflicts; trade restrictions and opportunities; forgotten American heroes and mistakenly celebrated American traitors; the religions, communities, and ethnicities that propelled ideas into action; and the foundational ideas of power and freedom that culminated in a transformative event and underpinned a nation’s founding.
Each interview is accompanied by a full transcript, timestamped outline and takeaways, and placement within thematic collections that connect individual perspectives within a broader historiographical framework.
Through these conversations, we begin to see that the Revolution was more than an event or a local development — it is a window into a world in motion—connecting continents, cultures, and centuries.
Not your basic U.S. History 101
About Adel Aali
I am the interviewer and curator of Analyzing American Revolution and the host and producer of History Behind News (HbN), a free podcast in which distinguished scholars and journalists explore recent news and events through the perspective of history.
HbN is now in its sixth season. To date, I have had the pleasure — and the education — of interviewing more than 200 scholars on U.S. and world history.
Before this work, I practiced patent law and later turned to entrepreneurship, founding a startup based on my patented medical inventions.
How I Turned to History
I began reading history around the age of 10. The first book I picked up was about Alexander the Great — though, truthfully, I understood and retained very little. By the age of 20, I was reading roughly one history book a month.
So my answer to why I love history is twofold.
First, history is a fascinating mystery. It is full of “wow moments.” Sometimes it is hard to fathom how certain developments unfolded against all odds. More than once, I have told my guests: you can’t make this up.
Second, I don’t fully accept the familiar claim that we study history mainly to better understand ourselves. There is truth in it, but I have come to see something else: the past is a foreign country. Our ancestors saw the world differently because their world was different. We should not study history simply to understand ourselves — we should study it to understand how we got here. The two, though related, are not the same.
Studying history to understand ourselves focuses on identity and recurring patterns. Studying history to understand how we got here focuses on development and transformation.
And it is the latter that interests me most.
About My Guest Scholars:
Our more than 200 podcast guests, who have helped us interpret history and draw lessons for our time and current events, are prominent scholars and thinkers from these and many other leading institutions:
Oxford, Yale, Caltech, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, King’s College London, Princeton University, Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, the Atlantic Council, Duke, Amherst College, University of Michigan, Rhodes College, Emory University, Northwestern Law, Vanderbilt University, US Naval War College, Air Command and Staff College, Marine Corp University, US Army War College, UVA, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, NYU, Rice, University of Chicago, White House Historical Association, Baylor University, USC, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCI, UCSD, UC Davis, UCR, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Democracy Institute, University of Aberdeen, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, University of Navarra, Free University of Amsterdam, University of Seville, Helsinki University, Diego Portales University (Chile), Lund University (Sweden), University of Edinburgh, Near East University (Türkiye), Cardiff University, the Free University of Berlin and many others.
From these diverse institutions, our guests have earned wide recognition for their contributions to history, scholarship, public service, and journalism. They have received notable awards and prestigious grants and fellowships, including the Pulitzer Prize. They include celebrated documentary producers, former White House advisors and other high-ranking government officials, and current and former senior reporters of major national and international newspapers. Many have testified in Congressional hearings, and others regularly contribute to major media outlets and widely read publications.
Experienced Analysis of History
AAR is a special series of HbN
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Scholars Analyze World History
Have a question, suggestion, or guest recommendation? Visit the Contact page.
