Professor Alan Taylor

I think it's very surprising to people that a modest amount of exercise and dietary changes can lead to these kinds of benefits.

I think it's very surprising to people that a modest amount of exercise and dietary changes can lead to these kinds of benefits.

This is the heart and soul and guts of the American Revolution.

When I hear the term founding fathers, I wince.

This idea that there's a few very special and very wise men who basically determined who we should be as a country, it so simplifies and it so negates who the American people are.

The colonists were very proud members of the British Empire.

They exulted in the victories of the empire over the French and the Spanish.

They celebrated the king's birthday with a fervor that matched anything in Britain.

So they thought of themselves very much as British people who happened to live in the Americas.

And they were proud of belonging to an empire that was so militarily powerful.

that generated so much prosperity and that offered more civil liberties than did any other empire in the world.

The norm was that every community would have one church, one faith, usually the one favored by the colonial government.

In the southern colonies, that meant the Anglican church.

In the New England colonies, it meant the congregational church.

Now, what the evangelicals, starting with Whitefield, do is they say, no, every individual gets to choose his church, and the government should not interfere with that.

So it encourages people with the notion of they don't have to follow community norms.

They don't have to follow government's norms if it violates their individual conscience.

And you can see how that might be a parallel then when people a generation later are thinking about rejecting the authority of Britain.

It's not the wealthiest people who are showing up in this mob.

There are a lot of sailors, artisans, shipbuilders.