Supporting scholarship and promoting popular understanding of the American Revolution is central to the work of the American Revolution Institute. The Institute welcomes distinguished scholars and authors to share their insights and discuss their latest research with the public at Anderson House through lectures, author's talks and panel discussions. The Institute also hosts a variety of other historical programs throughout the year, including our Lunch Bite object talks, battlefield tours, special Anderson House tour programs and other events. Many of the events we offer are free.
December 2025
Lecture—The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774-1776
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American campaign into Canada, historian Mark Anderson examines the American colonies’ efforts to bring Quebec into the Continental confederation and free Canadians from British “tyranny.” Drawing from his research, Anderson offers new insight into the key political and military factors that ultimately doomed America’s first foreign war of liberation and resulted in the Continental Army’s decisive expulsion from Canada on the eve of the Declaration of Independence. This program accompanies our current exhibition,…
Find out more »Virtual Lunch Bite—The Revolution’s First Winter: Loyalist Thomas Ainslie’s Account of the 1775 American Assault of Quebec
The Institute’s library director, Thomas Lannon, discusses the American invasion of Canada during the first winter of the Revolution and the failed attempt to capture Quebec to rally support against Britain and bring Canada into the rebellion as the hoped-for “fourteenth colony.” With unrest spreading in the southern colonies, British leaders worried rebellion might cross into Canada. That fear was justified and Canada figured prominently in the American strategy for an opening campaign in the Revolution. Congress authorized the invasion in…
Find out more »January 2026
Virtual Author’s Talk—Money and the Making of the American Revolution
Historian Andrew Edwards, lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, discusses his new book that offers a fascinating story of power and economic ideas during America’s founding era. Everyone knows that the founders waged a revolt against taxation without representation, though the dispute over taxes was really a dispute over money: what it was, who could make it, and how to keep it from being used at the expense of the colonists in North America. Drawing from his narrative that…
Find out more »February 2026
Author’s Talk— Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters
Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Edward Larson discusses his new book that explores the ideas and battlefield sacrifices of 1776 to remind us why the year matters to all of us. At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot’s lips. The many tyrannies of a king had made an independent republic necessary. In this talk, Larson gives us a compact, insightful history of that pivotal year…
Find out more »Author’s Talk—The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence
Historian Lauren Duval of the University of Oklahoma discusses her new book that vividly captures daily life during the American Revolution through the eyes and ears of those who intimately experienced it. Prior to the conflict, the urban centers of colonial North America had little direct experience of war. With the outbreak of violence, British forces occupied every major city, invading the most private of spaces: the home. Drawing from the new book, this talk considers the dynamics of the…
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