America at 250: The Podcast

history, education, courses · EN-US

This one-time-only course examines U.S. history from 1776 to the present, in advance of the nation’s semiquincentennial (or 250th birthday) in 2026. Taught jointly by Professors Joanne Freeman, David Blight, and Beverly Gage, the course emphasizes the history of the nation-state and the contested nature of American national identity. All three scholars will deliver the course’s first and final lectures together, as an introduction and a wrap-up. In between, they will each deliver eight lectures individually based on their areas of expertise. Joanne Freeman, the Alan Boles, Class of 1929 Professor of History and American Studies, and an expert in the revolutionary and early national periods of American history, will cover the period from the Revolution up through the 1830s, touching on such topics as the birth of party politics, the nature of “Jacksonian democracy,” and the rise of the reform and protest movements.David Blight, Sterling Professor of History and African American Stud