. Why did Philadelphia matter so deeply to both the British and the Continental Army? How did strategy, logistics, and personalities shape the campaign that culminated in Brandywine, Germantown, and the winter at Valley Forge? And what did the occupation of the revolutionary capital mean for civilians caught between armies? Michael C. Harris tells this story in his new book, Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge. This campaign around the new country's largest city, in the marshes, woods, and fields of Pennsylvania and New Jersey was a critical turning point testing the resilience of the American people and military and reshaping the war's momentum. .

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Who was Thomas Jefferson? Do we really need another book about him? Andrew Burstein has written other books on Jefferson, and his new book, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait answers both questions with depth and grace. Jefferson was an extraordinarily interesting person, and Burstein navigates his ambition, friendships, rivalries, political controversies, and intellectual inquiries. Biography, Burstein shows, is not just storytelling but interpretation, recovering what Jefferson and his generation thought they were doing as they built a new nation, reconsidering the Revolution as lived experience rather than legend/ Burstein shows Jefferson and his contemporaries as vividly human architects of an unfinished experiment.

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On today’s episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison charts a course across storm-tossed legal waters with historian Suzanne Amy Foxley, author of The American Experience of British Prize Law, 1776–1804.

From the decks of daring privateers to the hushed chambers of admiralty courts, Foxley reveals how the American Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with writs, warrants, and meticulously argued cases. Together, they explore how captured ships became “prizes,” how neutral nations navigated perilous seas of diplomacy and commerce, and how early Americans learned to play a global legal game while still inventing their own nation.

Listeners will discover the human stories behind the paperwork: sailors gambling their lives for profit and patriotism, merchants insuring fortunes against the tides of war, and judges wrestling with British legal traditions in a world suddenly unmoored from the Crown.

It’s a conversation where maritime adventure meets courtroom drama, and where the Revolution emerges as a battle for legitimacy as much as liberty. Set your compass, trim your sails, and join us for a voyage into the law that helped shape America’s place on the world’s oceans

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