Video Podcasts

The Real Revolution in “Common Sense”

Image of Thomas Paine and his 47-page pamphlet "Common Sense". Visit AARevolution.net for more images of the American Revolution and for interviews of scholars with Adel Aali.

Thomas Paine Didn’t Just Call for Independence — He Tried to Destroy the Idea of Kings By early 1776, many American colonists were angry with Britain — but that did not necessarily mean they opposed monarchy itself. In fact, many still believed kings were natural, legitimate, even divinely sanctioned rulers. That is what makes Thomas […]

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 […]

How Thomas Paine Became Thomas Paine: The Origins of “Common Sense”

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: “Americans, of course, think of the Revolution and they think of the Declaration of Independence. But let me make it clear. During the Revolutionary War, people thought of Common Sense as the document of independence.” Watch this section in the video below (00:44:46) Thomas Paine arrived in America in late 1774 […]

The Enlightenment and Intellectual Foundations of the American Revolution

The featured image brings together images of Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld and Adel Aali from the interview, superimposed on the Betsy Ross flag, alongside an image of Dr. Rosenfeld's book Common Sense: A Political History.

Introduction In this interview: “But he’s insisting that both there’s nothing particularly radical in what he’s arguing, because anyone with common sense would know it, and also that ordinary people could probably rule on their own just fine.” Watch this section in the video below (00:34:08). To fully comprehend the American Revolution, we have to […]