Boston, 1765. Eleven years before the Declaration. Tax collectors, mobs, fire in the streets, and the first sons of a revolution nobody saw coming. The decade your teachers skipped. If you like your history hard, your men flawed, and your stakes real, this one's for you. Join us for a conversation with Joe Wearmouth, who tells the story of this tumultuous time through the eyes of unforgettable characters--some we know--John and Abigail Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, Crispus Attucks, Joyce Junior--and others he has created--Tom Bradford and his unbearable cousin Richard, Benjamin Wilson, and more. Rising Sons is the novel about why the Revolution began in Boston, and how it felt to those creating it.

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Winning independence was only the beginning. How did George Washington turn a divided country into a nation? On this episode of Revolution 250, Professor Robert Allison welcomes Nathaniel Philbrick to discuss Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy. Retracing Washington’s presidential journeys with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick uncovers stories of local pride, political division, and the enduring contradictions of liberty and slavery. Join us for a lively conversation about the people who preserve our past—and why Washington’s struggle to hold America together still matters.

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What is the American experiment? Johann Neem explores this question in books and essays, beginning with his Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts, which showed how Americans created a civil society which fostered their independence. He explored how newly-independent Americans created a system of public education to sustain the republic, in Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, and he continues to explore these questions of American identity and civic culture. A Professor of History at Western Washington University, Neem has also written of the role of colleges today, and on the state of k-12 education in preparing citizens for the next 250 years.

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