Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis joins host Professor Robert Allison to talk about his new book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic side of the American Founding.  Drawing on decades of scholarship, Ellis reflects on the ideas, personalities, and hard choices that shaped independence and the early republic.

Together, Allison and Ellis explore what made the Revolution truly revolutionary, how figures like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, whose stories Ellis has told in works such as Founding Brothers and Passionate Sage, understood their moment in history, and why the founding era continues to challenge, inspire, and provoke debate 250 years later. Insightful, candid, and  engaging, this episode offers listeners a master historian’s perspective on America’s most consequential generation—and the unfinished work they left behind.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by Reese Holmes, National President of the Children of the American Revolution, for a lively conversation about one of the nation’s oldest and most forward-looking patriotic youth organizations.

Together, they explore the origins of the Children of the American Revolution, founded in 1895 by Concord author Harriet Lothrop to foster knowledge of America’s founding ideals among young people, and the organization’s enduring mission to promote historical education, civic responsibility, service, and patriotism. Holmes discusses how C.A.R. members engage with Revolutionary history through research, preservation, public programs, and community service, while also developing leadership skills that prepare them to be thoughtful citizens.

In her presidential year, Reese Holmes has been focusing on the Revolutionary Valor program, and working toward creating  "Founding Martyr," a documentary on Dr. Joseph Warren. 

The conversation highlights how today’s C.A.R. brings the Revolutionary generation to life for new audiences and how youth involvement plays a vital role in the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. From lineage and memory to action and service, this episode underscores why the past still matters and why its stewardship increasingly rests in young hands.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

In this episode, our host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian and educator Sean Heuvel, Director of Graduate and Professional Enrollment at Christopher Newport University, for a spirited exploration of the newly edited Revolutionary War Memoirs of General William Heath. Together they stroll through Heath’s vivid accounts of the Siege of Boston, the New York campaign, the intrigues of command, and the quiet burdens shouldered by a Massachusetts gentleman-general whose pen was often as sharp as his sword.

Heuvel shares why Heath’s memoirs remain an essential, underappreciated window into the Revolution’s early campaigns and the personalities who shaped them. With fresh annotations, contextual framing, and a keen editorial eye, Heuvel illuminates Heath not as a footnote, but as a thoughtful architect of the Continental cause.

It’s a conversation that lifts a lantern toward the lesser-known corners of the war and reminds us that every revolution depends on more than its marquee heroes. Tune in and meet General Heath anew. 

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

 Join host Professor Robert Allison for a dynamic conversation with historian Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution. Together they explore how the American Revolution unfolded within a vibrant and contested Atlantic world shaped by Black leadership, Caribbean revolutions, and international diplomacy. Johnson, who holds the the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History at Baylor University,  highlights the  global forces—from Haiti to Europe—that influenced American independence and redefined ideas of freedom. The Revolution was not an isolated struggle, but was part of a far-reaching web of alliances, conflicts, and revolutionary change. 

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force.

Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and intellectual context, untangling the myths about his noble status and supposed “magnificent fraud,” and showing instead a serious soldier of the Enlightenment—well-read, imaginative, and deeply committed to his adopted country. The conversation ranges from Valley Forge and the famous “Blue Book” drill manual to Steuben’s volatile temper, gift for friendship, chronic money troubles, complicated relationships with Washington, Congress, Lafayette, and Jefferson, and his lonely final years in upstate New York. Along the way, Allison and Lockhart reveal how Steuben’s real legacy lies not just in drill on the parade ground, but in the systems, standards, and expectations that helped shape the American army for generations to come.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Dr. Cynthia Hatch for a timely and eye-opening conversation about her forthcoming book, Enablers of Rebellion: The Colonial Court and the Road to the American Revolution, to be published by Savas Beatie in the spring of 2026.

Hatch reveals a dimension of the Revolution that is often overlooked: the pivotal role of colonial courts, local magistrates, sheriffs, and justices of the peace in the decades before independence. Far from being passive administrators, these officials shaped political culture, mediated local disputes, and—intentionally or not—created the civic space in which resistance could take root. Professor Allison and Dr. Hatch explore how legal institutions helped normalize dissent, how courtroom practices reflected changing ideas of authority, and how ordinary people used the law to renegotiate power long before shots were fired.

This conversation shines a fresh light on the machinery of colonial governance and the subtle but profound ways it helped prepare a people for rebellion. A must-listen for anyone interested in the legal, political, and social foundations of America’s fight for independence.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

This week t Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, for a vivid exploration of one of the most audacious logistical feats of the American Revolution: Henry Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery. Together they trace Knox’s remarkable mid-winter journey of 1775–1776—300 miles across frozen rivers and lakes, treacherous terrain, and sometimes snow-choked roads—to deliver more than 60 tons of captured British artillery to General George Washington.  He also tells us about Real Time Revolution, Ticonderoga's plans for commemorating the 250th!

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

In The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, historian Richard Bell explores how the struggle for American independence reverberated far beyond the thirteen colonies—reshaping politics, empires, and ideas of liberty around the globe. Bell reveals how revolutionaries from Boston to Bengal, Paris to Port-au-Prince, drew inspiration and warning from the events of 1776. The American Revolution became a test case for freedom in an age of empire. Looking at the stories of individuals caught up in its ferment, Bell shows how the Revolution reshaped the world. 

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Kathryn P. Viens, public historian and scholar, to explore how local histories have shaped Americans’ understanding of patriotism and the Revolution from the nineteenth century to today. Drawing from her essay “Mobs or the Martial Ideal? The Mutable Definition of Patriotism in Local Historical Narratives,” published in the online journal Remembering the American Revolution at 250, Viens discusses how community-based histories—often written by nineteenth-century antiquarians—both preserved and reframed the Revolution’s memory.

Together, Allison and Viens delve into the evolution of civic identity, how shifting cultural values influenced interpretations of the Revolution, and why local stories remain essential to the broader national narrative. This episode invites listeners to reconsider how patriotism has been defined, remembered, and reinterpreted in the generations since America’s founding.

https://journals.h-net.org/.../2025_Viens_mobs_martial_ideal

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

In listening to James Otis, Jr.'s arguments against the Writs of Assistance in 1761, John Adams remarked that it was there that American Independence was born.  There is no question of Otis' erudition or passion for liberty, but while he fought for the rights of his country, he was also fighting a personal battle for his mental health.  We talk with Gerald Holland, aurhor of a new biography of Otis,  Lucy Pollock, Kate LaPine, and Paul Piwko as they discuss the new  online exhibit. Patriot, Hero, and Distracted Person. a collaboration  between Revolutionary Spaces and the National Museum of Mental Health Project on the life and struggles of James Otis, Jr.

https://www.nmmhproject.org/jamesotisjr

https://revolutionaryspaces.org/

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!