Summary: <p>On today’s show, veteran journalist and biographer <a href="http://www.harlowgilesunger.com/">Harlow Giles Unger</a> talks to Jim Ambuske about revolutionary radical <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/thomas-paine/">Thomas Paine</a>, one of his predecessors in the newspaper business.</p> <p>He is the author of the new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Paine-Clarion-American-Independence/dp/0306921936"><em>Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence</em></a>. It is the latest in a long line of Unger biographies about the founding generation.</p> <p>Unger reveals a fascinating character in Paine, a man who never met a revolution he didn’t like.</p> <p>He also shares with Ambuske about how his previous life as a journalist informs his approach to biography. </p> <p>You’ll get as much of a lesson in twentieth-century journalism as you will in eighteenth-century political radicalism.</p> <p><strong>About Our Guest:</strong></p> <p>A former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Harlow Giles Unger is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian. He is the author of 27 books, including 10 biographies of the Founding Fathers<em>—</em>among them, Patrick Henry (<em>Lion of Liberty</em>); James Monroe <em>(The Last Founding Father</em>); the award winning <em>Lafayette</em>; and <em>The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life</em>. Mr. Unger is a graduate of Yale University and has a Master of Arts from California State University. He spent many years as a foreign correspondent and American Affairs analyst for <em>The New York Herald Tribune</em> Overseas News Service, <em>The Times</em> and <em>The Sunday Times</em> (London), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and he is a former associate professor of English and journalism.</p> <p><strong>About Our Host:</strong></p> <p>Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/">Center for Digital History</a> at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the<a href="http://archives.law.virginia.edu/catalogue/"> 1828 Catalogue Project</a> and the <a href="http://scos.law.virginia.edu/">Scottish Court of Session Project</a>. He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.</p>
