BFW Revisited: The Common Cause

Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before Common Sense could ignite a revolution, colonists had to be convinced they shared a cause worth fighting for. So how did Revolutionary leaders turn thirteen very different colonies into “Americans”—and what stories did they tell to make that unity feel real? In this Ben Franklin’s World Revisited episode, historian Robert Parkinson returns to explore how newspapers and wartime messaging helped forge the Revolution’s “common cause”—and how that campaign leaned on fear, race, and exclusion to build a new national identity. Rob’s Website | Book |Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/144 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America🎧 Episode 431: Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked A RevolutionSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Idle money sits in your current account, stuck repeating the same tired tune, never hitting
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0:29.6	Something unexpected has arrived in Happy Meal.
0:32.6	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hello Kitty and friends
0:35.6	are teaming up for the Ultimate Collab.
0:38.3	Joining your little ones on a fun-fueled adventure.
0:41.1	Some fun, some food, it's all inside this happy meal.
0:46.3	Until the 2nd of February from 11am, includes one pre-selected book or toy whilst it's last.
0:50.7	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
1:11.2	Hello, and welcome to Ben Franklin's World Revisited, a series of classic episodes that bring fresh perspective to our latest episodes and had deeper connections to our understanding of early American history. And I'm your host, Liz Covert. Last week, in episode
1:17.6	431, we explored the life and influence of Thomas Payne and how his pamphlet common sense
1:23.3	shaped revolutionary thought in 1776. But Thomas Payaine didn't work in a vacuum. His arguments
1:30.0	reached a population that was already primed by years of storytelling, stories that told British
1:35.6	Americans who they were, what they stood for, and why they should resist British rule altogether.
1:40.9	So in today's episode, we're going to revisit episode 144 with historian Robert
1:45.9	Parkinson, author of the award-winning book, The Common Cause, Creating Race and Nation
1:50.7	in the American Revolution. Rob takes us inside the broader messaging strategy of the revolution,
	...

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