Professor Alan Wolfe discusses the role of religion in U.S. politics, particularly in the present day. He argues that the "current Christian revival" in the U.S. is not having a negative, "fundamentalist" effect on U.S. government as a whole.

From the Gilder Lehrman website:

"John Demos, Professor of History Emeritus at Yale and the author of several books on early America and witchcraft, discusses the role of religion and witchcraft during the Colonial Era. He places the Salem Witch Trials in context and presents a larger picture of how early Americans viewed the spiritual world and their place in it."

Thomas Jefferson, as played by Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Bill Barker, defends his bill, submitted to the Virginia General Assembly, supporting religious freedom.

Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Bill Barker portrays Thomas Jefferson supporting bills on religion and its place in society he presented to the Virginia General Assembly.

Richard Carwardine of the University of Oxford traces the development and shifts of Abraham Lincoln's religious views and their influence on and appearance in his decisions and public statements.

In this lecture, historian Mary Beth Norton examines the original court documents from the Salem witchcraft trials; she places these well-known events in the context of the Indian wars and other witch trials in New England. The trials, she concludes, were driven more by politics than by superstition.

According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute, "As inscrutable as he was influential, Thomas Jefferson casts a mighty shadow on American history. In this lecture, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis explores Jefferson’s political ideology—his preference for an agrarian nation and a weak national government, his feelings about democracy, his insistence on the separation of church and state, and belief in individual rights—and suggests that as the United States emerges from the 20th century, it may be moving toward a more Jeffersonian ideal of limited government and the primacy of the individual."

Richard Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University, author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, and winner of the 2004 Lincoln Book Prize. In this lecture, he discusses different aspects of Lincoln's life. Why is Lincoln a mythic figure? How early in his career did he develop his views against slavery? What role did religion play in his life? Professor Carwardine analyzes Lincoln's greatness as well as his humility.

Jill Lepore, Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, speaks about her book, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, and traces the meanings attached to this brutally destructive war. Lepore examines early colonial accounts that depict King Philip's men as savages and interpret the war as a punishment from God, discusses how the narrative of the war is retold a century later to rouse anti-British sentiment during the Revolution, and finally describes how the story of King Philip is transformed yet again in the early 19th century to portray him as a proud ancestor and American patriot.

Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities and Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University Andrew Delbanco examines the evolution of the American Dream—the idea that anyone may rise above his or her station, regardless of birth. Beginning with the Puritans, Professor Delbanco traces the origins of the American Dream from the Calvinist fire-and-brimstone of Jonathan Edwards, to the swelling optimism of Emerson and Melville, to the present day.