Who Decides What the American Revolution Means?

Introduction In this interview: “The memory of the Revolution has often done more to divide Americans than to unite them.” Watch this segment in the video below (00:27:30) Most Americans think the meaning of the American Revolution has always been obvious. But has it? Did Americans always celebrate the Declaration of Independence the way we […]

Did the Declaration of Independence Actually Have Legal Authority?

Introduction In this interview: “They have to wait for the colonies to give them authority to go along with this. So the whole status of exactly the authority of the Declaration of Independence, it couldn’t stand alone. It required each colony to also declare independence, which they basically did.” Watch this segment in the video […]

1776: Seven Months That Changed America

Introduction In this interview: “1776 witnesses the drafting of the first written constitutions in the history of the world. Those were those new state constitutions that Congress called for in May of 1776. So that’s why this year was not a rebellion. That’s why this year was a revolutionary transformation in government…” Watch this segment […]

The Enlightenment Is Hard to Define

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 […]

Samuel Adams and the Question of Independence

On April 3, 1776—just three months before the Declaration of Independence—Samuel Adams wrote from Philadelphia, where he was serving as a Massachusetts delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In a letter to fellow Massachusetts native Reverend Samuel Cooper of Boston, he posed a striking question: “Is not America already independent? Why then not declare it?” […]