When we think of the American Revolution, we think of the North: Lexington and Concord, Washington crossing the Delaware, the winter at Valley Forge. But it was in the South—in the swamps and backwoods of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia—where the war was decided. Mark Malloy, author of To the Last Extremity: The Battles For Charleston, explains. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: The Southern Campaign: The Fight For the South Presented by Mark Maloy When we think of the American Revolution, we think of the North: Lexington and Concord, Washington crossing the Delaware, the winter at Valley Forge. But it was in the South—in the swamps and backwoods of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia—where the war was decided. By 1779, the conflict was at a stalemate. To break it, the British High Command shifted its attention to the southern colonies. The campaign got off to a promising start. In May 1780, after a catastrophic siege, Charleston fell. It was the worst American defeat of the entire war, resulting in the surrender of over 5,000 men and the loss of the South's major port. Leading the British force was General Charles Cornwallis. While his manner was genteel, his military strategy was aggressive and unforgiving. He fully expected to make short work of the rebels. George Washington sent his most trusted officer, Nathanael Greene, to stop him. Greene was one of those remarkable Americans who emerged out of the crucible of the Revolution. Born in Rhode Island in 1742, he rejected his pacifist Quaker upbringing to join the Revolution. Like many of his fellow rebel leaders, he had no formal military training. He learned tactics and strategy on the job. And at this point, he had a lot of job experience, having been in nearly every major engagement of the war. When Greene arrived in the South, he found a motley collection of about 2,000 fighters. In his own words “…the shadow of an army in the midst of distress.” Cornwallis, in contrast, had a well-provisioned professional force more than twice that size. Greene knew he couldn't win a conventional European-style contest. So, he decided to break the rules. He split his tiny force in two. The idea was to lead Cornwallis deeper into the wilderness, away from his supply lines, and harass him only when conditions favored it. Greene took one-half of his army. The other half he gave to General Daniel Morgan. Whereas Greene was educated and middle-class, Morgan was a rough-hewn frontiersman. His origins were murky—he wasn't even sure what year he was born. All he ever told anyone was that he hated the British. He had a good reason. Years earlier, during the French and Indian War, a British officer had ordered Morgan to be disciplined for a minor insubordination. The punishment was 500 lashes. Morgan carried the scars, and the grudge, for the rest of his life. Cornwallis sent his cavalry commander, Banastre Tarleton, to crush Morgan. They met in January 1781 at a South Carolina pasture known as the Cowpens. Morgan knew Tarleton loved to charge his foe, sabers flashing. The fearsome sight invariably sent the rebels into a panic. This time, the wily Morgan ordered his men not to hold their ground. “Just fire two rounds, boys, and run for the trees.” Tarleton saw the retreat and mistook it as the predictable panic. He ordered his horsemen straight into a trap. Morgan’s veteran Continental soldiers — cocked and ready — were waiting behind cover. They unleashed a wall of lead that decimated the British ranks. It was a tactical masterpiece. In less than an hour, Tarleton’s force was effectively wiped out. Tarleton, himself, barely escaped. Cornwallis reacted with fury. Bent on revenge, he chased Morgan and Greene across North Carolina. But with the help of guerrilla-style fighters like the legendary “Swamp Fox” Francis Marion, Morgan and Greene managed to elude him and, in the process, stretched Cornwallis’s supply lines until they snapped. By mid-March, Greene was ready to make his stand. It happened at Guilford Courthouse near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4uG8yxn

One of the most important battles of the American Revolution… wasn’t a battle at all. In the winter of 1777, George Washington’s army teetered on the brink of collapse. But the General didn’t despair. Instead, he turned ruin into renewal. Renowned historian Allen Guelzo explains. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru)

The future of western civilization hangs in the balance. The struggle is between those who want to create and those who want to destroy, the Lions versus the Scavengers. Who are the Scavengers and why do they despise the very values that protect and support them, even make them rich? @BenShapiro answers these critical questions. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Lions vs. Scavengers: Who Hates the West? Presented by Ben Shapiro For the last decade, radical Left-wing protests have unleashed chaos across our cities. They have vandalized our neighborhoods. They have hijacked our college campuses. There’s nothing new about protest movements, of course. But today, it’s the same people who are constantly marching – they just seem to switch the flags they carry from cause to cause. Radical Muslims, radical LGBTQ+ advocates, communists, anarchists, environmentalists. But virtually all of these causes conflict with other causes in the coalition. “Queers for Palestine,” for example, is a ridiculous and self-contradictory name for a group – and yet it exists, despite the fact that Palestinians throw queers off buildings or drag them behind motorcycles. So, what keeps these disparate radicals on the same side? What unites them? The answer is obvious: the only thing they have in common is hatred of the West and a desire to tear it down. They are, in short, scavengers. Until recently, they have been thwarted by the lions — those who cherish and defend Western Civilization, those who produce more than they take. Elon Musk is a prime example. There are tens of millions of lions, from entrepreneurs and factory workers to your next-door neighbors who work hard every day to provide a better future for their children. But in the last few decades, the scavengers have gained significant ground. So, who are the scavengers? Those who believe — even as they live in a free society — that they have been denied their “fair” share by oppressive systems of power; that those systems are designed by a conspiratorial elite to keep them down. Scavengers come in several forms. Some are looters: those who feel entitled to the fruit of others’ labor. They seek not to earn wealth by creating something of value and being useful. That’s hard. Instead, they take — usually through taxation, but sometimes through actual theft — from those who have done the hard things necessary to achieve success. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4o02QEF

Empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another — is a noble virtue. But empathy can also lead us astray. In fact, it can be fatal. Gad Saad, a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi, warns how misdirected empathy endangers not just well-intentioned individuals but Western Civilization itself. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Suicidal Empathy Presented by Gad Saad How do civilizations die? The great British historian Arnold Toynbee asked himself this question. Here is his answer: They die not by murder, but by suicide. We in the West — the inheritors of the greatest civilization ever created — are witnessing this right before our very eyes. I call this phenomenon suicidal empathy. As an evolutionary behavioral scientist, I believe empathy is a noble virtue and a central feature of our humanity. The Oxford Dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” It sounds great, and often is, especially when you’re empathetic toward the people close to you: your spouse, your children, your friends. But empathy can lead us astray. When empathy serves as the only filter for decision-making, replacing a rational and adaptive calculus of prudence, discernment, and justice — empathy can cause great harm. In fact, it can be fatal. The serial killer Ted Bundy used empathy to lure women to their violent deaths. He would pretend to be injured — sometimes with a fake sling or cast on his arm. He would ask his soon-to-be victim for help loading items into his car, and then, when they turned their back, he would strike. Bundy killed through kindness, exploiting the natural proclivity to be empathetic. Suicidal empathy endangers not just well-meaning individuals. It threatens entire societies — indeed all of Western Civilization. Let’s look at a couple of general and then more specific examples. Mass immigration: In 2015, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, instituted an open-door immigration policy, especially for Muslim migrants, most of whom had no intention of assimilating into their host societies. Perhaps her suicidal empathy toward migrants was meant as penance for her country’s crimes against humanity. But a decade later, Germany — as well as most of Europe, nearly all of whom followed Merkel’s example — is dealing with the consequences: vastly increased rates of rape, murder, and social disintegration. Defund the Police: In the wake of the death of drug-addicted felon George Floyd in May 2020, an idea arose, namely that a racist police system was murdering innocent people of color. Though this was easily refuted by the actual data, suicidally empathetic mayors and city councils in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia cut their police budgets. Who suffered? The very people who were supposed to be protected. Let’s look at a few specific cases of suicidal empathy: Canadian-born Omar Khadr joined the Taliban and murdered an American soldier in Afghanistan. The U.S. gave him a 40-year sentence but turned him over to Canadian authorities after 10 years at Guantanamo Bay. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government — which suffered from stage four suicidal empathy — gave Khadr $8 million and apologized for his detention. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4uB9SCg

The West is in a war for its survival. That war is playing out both at a civilizational and personal level. Ben Shapiro sees this as a war between lions and scavengers. The lions want to defend civilization and the scavengers want to destroy it. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Lions vs. Scavengers: The Values That Built the West Presented by @BenShapiro The West is in a war for its survival. That war is playing out simultaneously at a civilizational level and in every human heart. It is a war between the lion and the scavenger. The lion is the part of each of us that prizes freedom, responsibility, and achievement. It knows that there are rules to success and failure; that we are creative beings with autonomy and power, and that freedom comes with an equal measure of obligation. The scavenger, by contrast, is the part of us that believes that society — from top to bottom — is rigged, that powerful forces, not individuals, dictate outcomes. That personal failures are a result of a Great Conspiracy. And that rage, including violence, is the only response to this corrupt system. We all wake up each morning and must decide: will we be lions, or scavengers? Will we take ownership of our problems and work to solve them, or will we blame others for our failures and wallow in resentment? The values of the lion animate Western Civilization, and provide its founding principles: (1) free minds, because human beings are made in the image of God, with the power to choose and innovate; (2) free markets, because we are autonomous creative beings who fairly earn what our labor produces; (3) public virtue, because virtue and duty — and the institutions that support them — give order to the exercise of liberty; and (4) equal rights before the law, because otherwise justice is impossible. America was founded to be a civilization of lions. And then there are other civilizations: civilizations rooted in grievance and anger, in conspiratorialism and barbarism. Those civilizations revel in a sense of victimhood; they blame their own failings on Western civilization. They see the world as a zero-sum game, in which they are deprived of their proper share thanks to the abuse of power by the West. The scavenger is motivated by envy: what Adam Smith, the great eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, defines as “that passion which views — with malignant dislike — the superiority of those who are really entitled to all the superiority they possess.” In modern speak, if your neighbor has a nicer car or house, he didn’t earn it. There are many types of scavenger civilizations. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4tDw1Pm

@AyaanHirsiAliOfficial grew up in Africa and the Middle East. Her life was steeped in danger and chaos. In contrast, young people in the West today are steeped in comfort and security. But ironically, they face the same challenge Hirsi Ali did. What that challenge is, and how to overcome it, is the topic of PragerU’s 2026 commencement address. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Have Courage, Face Reality Presented by Ayaan Hirsi Ali Class of 2026: Congratulations! Of the many pieces of advice a commencement speaker might impart, I think the most important one is this: stay connected to reality. This is a more difficult task than you might think. Reality can be deeply painful, and there will be many temptations to run from it. When I was growing up in Africa and the Middle East, I lived in uncertain and often dangerous circumstances. Hardship was universal. My life, and the lives of everyone I knew, were touched by war, poverty, disease, famine, and disorder. Our reality was brutal. The temptation we all faced was to run from that reality — to give away our minds to strongmen, false prophets, and radical ideologies. We were encouraged to channel the pain of our reality into tribal and religious enmities. But these were just coping mechanisms, ways to run from a reality that felt hopelessly difficult. Ironically, you face the same challenge — running from reality — but from the totally opposite perspective. Whereas my life was surrounded by chaos, your life is surrounded by comfort. For you, real poverty is virtually non-existent. Physical danger is barely a concern. But you are not free from psychological danger, and this can also be perilous. Boredom and anxiety are your enemies. As you struggle to find your purpose in life — something we all must do — you will be tempted not to run from your reality, as I was, but to go to war with it, to attack the very institutions that make your life so comfortable. You will be drawn to a counter-cultural cause that you think will give your life meaning. But this is a false god. Bad actors will seek to take advantage of this and attempt to control your mind—to buy your attention, to win your loyalty, to influence you—by confirming the worst doubts you have ever had about yourself, your family, and your country. Friends, teachers, and “influencers” will encourage you to reimagine your good fortune as “privilege.” They want you to be ashamed of your cultural inheritance so that you will willingly give it up. At the same time, they will urge you to dwell on times you have “suffered” and to see yourself as a victim of injustice, insensitivity, and inequality; to reject the love and guidance of your parents, your family traditions, and your heritage and to escape from reality by finding meaning in destruction. Do not give in to these temptations. Stay anchored in reality. In reality, the life upon which you are embarking—the opportunities afforded to you by growing up in the United States, by receiving an education, by being young in the 21st century — is one of tremendous promise. Your inheritance is a political, legal, and social order that has afforded more prosperity and more freedom for more people than at any other time or place in history. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/42W5SA6

In 1777, in a shocking turn of events, a professional British army surrendered to an American force at Saratoga, New York. The surrender dramatically changed the course of America’s war for independence. Phillip Greenwalt, author of The Winter that Won the War, explains how and why it happened. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Saratoga: The Turning Point of the Revolution Presented by Phillip Greenwalt It’s unlikely the Americans could have won the Revolution on their own. They needed a powerful ally. This is why they sent their greatest diplomatic asset, Benjamin Franklin, to Paris soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin made little progress with the French. Nobody wants to back a loser. And that’s what America looked like…until the Battle of Saratoga. At the start of 1777, the British were eager to end the war. This is how they would do it: General John Burgoyne would move down from Canada into the Hudson River Valley of New York, isolating New England from the rest of the country. General William Howe would move up from New York City to support Burgoyne. That was Burgoyne’s plan, anyway. But Howe had his own plan: capture the American capital, Philadelphia, and destroy Washington’s army in the process. In other words, there were two plans, which is tantamount to saying, there was no plan. Not a good way to run a war. In June 1777, Burgoyne ordered Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger, to seize Fort Stanwix near present-day Rome, New York. This would secure Burgoyne’s supply lines from Canada, a crucial linchpin to his overall strategy. When St. Leger arrived outside the fort, he presented its twenty-eight-year-old commander, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, with a choice: surrender or face annihilation. But the cool-headed colonel wasn’t intimidated: “It is my determined resolution...to defend this…garrison to the last extremity...” Gansevoort was true to his word. After a three-week siege, the English colonel was no closer to achieving his objective. It was a harbinger of what was to come: nothing would go the way it was supposed to for the British. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4unp9WP

In the winter of 1776, it looked like the battle for independence was doomed. The British army had chased Washington out of New York. To salvage victory from defeat, the American general had one last play to make. He would attack his enemy on Christmas night. The password was “victory or death.” Historian Mark Maloy tells the desperate and inspiring tale. Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Trenton: The Night Washington Crossed the Delaware Presented by Mark Maloy In spring 1776, the British sent a massive armada of 400 ships, carrying 32,000 men across the Atlantic. Led by General William Howe, a seasoned veteran of the French and Indian War, it was one of the largest invasion forces in the history of the world up until that time. Its purpose was straightforward: quash the American rebellion once and for all. It almost did. That August, Howe thoroughly trounced George Washington and his fledgling Continental Army, driving them entirely out of New York City. It was a humiliating defeat. When it was over, Washington’s army of 20,000 was reduced to 5,000 from death, disease, and desertion. “The game,” as Washington admitted to his brother in a letter, was “pretty near up.” What to do now? Whatever it was, it would have to be something bold, something that would reignite the patriot cause, prove once again that the Americans could stand up to the British. Was such an option even available? Washington thought so. He had identified a chink in the British armor: an isolated garrison of 1,400 Hessian soldiers — German mercenaries hired by the British — encamped at Trenton, New Jersey. Here was Washington’s plan: cross the Delaware River on Christmas night and surprise the Hessians in their beds, presumably where they’d be recovering from a night of revelry. Washington would attack from the north, supported by two smaller forces, led by General James Ewing and Colonel John Cadwalader coming from the south to seal off any escape. The password for the attack perfectly encapsulated the stakes: “Victory or Death.” As the world sang yuletide carols, Washington led his 2,400 men and artillery across an ice-choked Delaware River. This is the scene immortalized in perhaps the most famous painting in American history by Emanuel Leutze. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/41QEN11

It was the “shot heard round the world”, the spark that officially set off the American War for Independence. But on that cold morning, neither the colonial militia nor their redcoat opponents were looking for a fight. So how exactly did an unplanned confrontation become the opening volley of the Revolution? Robert Orrison, author of A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord, explains. Watch Road to Liberty: Battles of Lexington and Concord: https://l.prageru.com/42gojiG Watch Leo & Layla's History Adventures—Paul Revere: The Revolutionary Legend: https://l.prageru.com/3O88w2g Listen to 5-Minute Videos on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday! ➡️ Spotify: https://l.prageru.com/3OSGlUL ➡️ Apple Podcasts: https://l.prageru.com/3Nfs9on Watch our content ad-free on our app: https://prageru.onelink.me/3bas/vgyxvm79 Donate to PragerU: https://l.prageru.com/4jiAT85 Follow PragerU: Instagram ➡️ (https://www.instagram.com/prageru/) X ➡️ (https://twitter.com/prageru) Facebook ➡️ (https://www.facebook.com/prageru/) TikTok ➡️ (https://www.tiktok.com/@prageru) Transcript: Lexington and Concord: The Shot Heard 'Round The World Presented by Robert Orrison Of all the battles of the Revolutionary War, the very first one—Lexington and Concord—is probably the most famous. It’s where we get the idea of the Minuteman (ready for action at a moment’s notice), Paul Revere’s midnight ride (“the British are coming”), and the “shot heard round the world” (the first musket fire that ignited the War of Independence). Despite its renown, it’s also, ironically, the least typical. First, George Washington was not involved. He had yet to be named commander of the Continental Army. Second, all the other major battles were fought in a conventional, late-18th-century European way: two forces confronting each other at a specific battlefield location. Third, nobody planned a battle at Lexington and Concord. It’s only by looking back that it seems inevitable. By April 1775, tensions between the British and the Americans had reached a boiling point. From the colonists’ perspective, the British were making their lives intolerable. A year earlier — to reassert its control over the colonies — Parliament had passed the so-called Coercive Acts: closing Boston Harbor in the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party, ending self-rule in the Massachusetts colony, and forcing Americans to house the king’s troops. From London’s perspective, the colonials were flirting with treason. Not only did they refuse to accept the new laws; they violently resisted them. British general, Thomas Gage, knew he was sitting on a powder keg. He ordered his troops not to provoke the locals. One false move could set the continent ablaze. So, why were the British in Lexington in the first place? Gage had information that the rebels were storing arms in Concord and sent a detachment to confiscate them. By this point, the Americans, with their surprisingly sophisticated spy network, knew almost every move Gage was going to make before he made it. Here’s where Paul Revere comes in. Along with fellow patriot William Dawes, Revere set off on the night of April 18 to warn of the impending raid. Access the full transcript here...👉 https://l.prageru.com/4eu4DPJ