Video Podcasts

The Enlightenment and the Power of Thinking

Logo of Analyzing American Revolution in the corner of this text: "A Revolution in Thinking"

Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution — Part V At its core, the Enlightenment encouraged people to step back and examine not just what they believe, but why they believe it. In essence, the Enlightenment was a revolution in “thinking about thinking” How “Thinking About Thinking” Shaped Revolutionary Perspectives As AAR’s guest scholar, Dr. Sophia […]

Use and Misuse of ‘common sense’

Thomas Pain and his famous pamphlet "Common Sense". See AARevolution.net for more images of the American Revolution.

Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution — Part IV Common sense (not Common Sense by Thomas Paine), as AAR’s guest scholar, Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld explains, is a more basic, instinctive form of understanding—what we naturally perceive or experience—while reason builds on it to reach higher-level conclusions through logic and inference. In the 18th century, common […]

The Enlightenment and the American Revolution: What Was the Impact?

Images from left to right: James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. See AARevolution.net for more images of the American Revolution.

Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution — Part III The Enlightenment played a significant—but not exclusive—role in shaping the American Revolution, especially among its leading thinkers. Figures like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drew on Enlightenment ideas, but blended them with other intellectual and political traditions. Concepts such as natural rights and the pursuit of […]

Age of Enlightenment, Reason, and Revolution

Featured images from left to right: Adam Smith, James Madison (above Smith), Denis Diderot, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Paine (above Kant), and John Locke. See AARevolution.net for more images of the American Revolution.

Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution — Part II The Enlightenment is often called the “Age of Reason,” but that label only tells part of the story. While thinkers emphasized logic and skepticism—building on earlier figures like René Descartes—they also recognized that reason alone could be misleading if it wasn’t grounded in real-world observation. Unlike […]

The Enlightenment Is Hard to Define

Left to right: Adam Smith, James Madison (above Smith), Denis Diderot, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Paine (above Kant), and John Locke. See AARevolution.net for more images of the American Revolution.

Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution — Part I The Enlightenment is not as easy to define as we might expect—largely because the term itself was rarely used by the very thinkers we now group under it. In many ways, “the Enlightenment” is a label applied after the fact, used to describe a broad intellectual […]

Thomas Paine to Obama: Why America’s “Original” Founder Still Matters Today

The featured image brings together images of Prof. Harvey Kaye and Adel Aali from the interview, superimposed on the Betsy Ross flag, alongside the cover image of his book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.

Introduction In this interview: “Paine knew this. He knew that he had to dissuade Americans from feeling any attachment to the king, to parliament, and to the idea of the British constitution.” Watch this section in the video below (00:04:56). From “Common Sense” to the “Crisis” papers, Thomas Paine challenged power and inequality. His writings […]