Special episode on the July 4/5th weekend. The title says most of it. Co-host, Josh (a few months away from his Phd in US history) goes into that day, not as a way to evaluate whether the USA is good or bad, but by looking at the 1770s and 1780s and what the revolutionary upheaval meant for some of the people on the eastern seaboard. 

Here is a short bibliography that will help give substance to some of the ideas covered in this episode: 

The Counterrevolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States by Gerald Horne

Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution by Terry Bouton

Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America by Daniel Richter

The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha

Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All by David Roediger