In the 1760s, the Atlantic world teetered on the edge of Revolution. In the years after the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict that transformed Europe, West Africa, and the Americas in ways that many intended and many did not, the very fabric of that world began to unravel. First the American, then the French, followed by the Haitian, and then rebellions in South America frayed, twisted, and in some cases broke long-standing connections between peoples and nations on both sides of the ocean.

An Atlantic system that had taken centuries to build came undone, leaving in its wake monuments to a world turned upside down. This was the Age of Atlantic Revolution. In this episode, Dr. Jim Ambuske is joined by Dr. Patrick Griffin to discuss his recent book, The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World.

If you go to a tavern today, you are most likely looking for a meal and perhaps an alcoholic beverage. However, taverns were vital hubs of travel, commerce, politics, and sociability between the 1780s and the 1850s. Taverns served as a microcosm of American society, both shaping and reflecting the cultural tensions of the era. Reform movements, economic negotiations, and the evolving ideas of citizenship transformed these simple buildings from within, revealing everyday ways people claimed belonging in the young and rapidly changing nation.

Dr. Lynn Price Robbins is joined by Dr. Kirsten E. Wood to discuss her new book, Accommodating the Republic: Taverns in the Early United States.

In 1796, workmen discovered ghosts in the Tower of London. As they stripped away wooden paneling from the walls, they found messages from the past carved deep into stone that lay below. Poems, elaborate coats of arms, simple initials, and Christian symbols all paid tribute to the final days of just some of the many people who met their end within the castle’s walls.

The forgotten graffiti in the Tower of London was an astonishing discovery, but not an uncommon one. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, London women and men left their marks above doors, on walls, and in the strangest places, offering us brief glimpses into moments of utter farce and the most horrible of crimes.

Death was a constant presence in early America, but grief extended far beyond the loss of loved ones. Everyday hardships—such as chronic illness, property dispossession, reproductive trauma, and bodily injury—made loss a near-constant companion. Together, these experiences of suffering produced a dense and often overlooked emotional landscape, one that shaped individual lives and the social worlds they inhabited.

In this episode, Dr. Lynn Price Robbins talks with historian Mary Eyring, Ph.D., about people’s experiences with grief in Early America and her new book Saltwater: Grief in Early America.

On January 1, 1804, Jean Jacque Dessalines and his followers announced to their countrymen and to the rest of the world that their home was no longer the French colony of San Domingue. It was now the nation of Haiti. After years of revolutionary civil war, the abolition of slavery and fears of slavery’s return, Dessalines asked the citizens of Haiti “to let us swear to fight to our last breath and for the independence of our country.” That nation was the world‘s first black republic.  

In this episode, Dr. Jim Ambuske talks with historian Julia Gaffield, Ph.D., about what we can learn from Jean-Jacques Dessalines. A man born enslaved on a San Domingo coffee plantation, who died emperor of Haiti, a man who boasted, “I have avenged America.”

The American Revolution ushered in a bold new system of government—one that depended on an informed and educated citizenry. Once the privilege of the elite, literacy and learning suddenly became essential for ordinary Americans. But who would build the institutions to educate the public, and what should they teach? Who had the authority to produce new knowledge, and how could its accuracy be trusted?

From the creation of the Library of Congress to proposals for a national university and the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, early Americans wrestled with who should control the creation and dissemination of knowledge. These debates shaped the nation’s intellectual foundations—and they echo powerfully today, as modern society once again struggles to assess credibility, expertise, and trust amid an overwhelming chorus of voices.

Dr. Lynn Price Robbins is joined by Dr. George Oberle to discuss his new book Creating an Informed Citizenry: Contested Knowledge in the Early American Republic. 

In the seventeenth-century Scottish town of Ayr, Scots swore a sacred oath to defend the Presbyterian Church of Scotland against the meddling of King Charles I. These Scots pledged to lead godly lives and submit themselves to judgment when Satan’s temptations overwhelmed them. But in the years that followed, the return of the plague, the killing of a king, the outbreak of civil war, the occupation of the town by English soldiers, and the specter of witchcraft all tested their faith in God and in each other.

In this episode, Dr. Jim Ambuske talks with historian Mikki Brock, Ph.D, about a crisis of faith in a seventeenth-century Scottish community.

The American colonies declared their independence in 1776 with the famous line that “All men are created equal.” But the reality of the Revolution told a different story. Women remained subordinate to men, limited by laws, social customs, and finance rules that restricted their rights and autonomy. But that is only part of the story.

In this episode, Dr. Lynn Price Robbins talks with Jacqueline Beatty, Ph.D., about how women began to see themselves as individuals with rights, which helped lay the groundwork for future generations of American feminists. 

For centuries, Black mariners plied the waters of the Atlantic world. From the decks of ships that traversed vast distances between Brazil, Portugal, West Africa, and beyond, through dangerous swells and past enemy fleets, enslaved seamen connected continents as they labored for the Portuguese Empire in the Age of Revolutions. Despite their enslavement, they made a world that was their own.

In this episode, Dr. Jim Ambuske talks with historian Mary Hicks, Ph.D, about these “captive cosmopolitans,” who traded goods on their own accounts, infused Brazil with West African religions, foods, and fashions, and used Royal edicts pronounced in Lisbon to argue for their freedom.

Alexander Hamilton was just 25 when he was elected to the Continental Congress. Abigail Adams was 31 when she urged her husband John to “Remember the Ladies.” Thomas Jefferson was only 32 when he drafted the Declaration of Independence. Today, we tend to picture all of them as older, grey-haired figures rather than ambitious and youthful. But as America aged, so did its leaders.

In this episode, Dr. Lynn Price Robbins talks with Rebecca Brannon, Ph.D. about the gerontocracy the founders didn't want.

In 1824, nearly 50 years after he first set foot on American shores, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States of America. He longed to see the progress of the nation he helped to found, a nation whose work he knew remained unfinished. And so, in the summer of 1824, Lafayette returned to his adopted home one last time, before he bid his last adieu.

In this episode, Dr. Jim Ambuske talks with Ryan L. Cole about Lafayette's final journey to the United States, a moment that held up a mirror to Revolutionary America.