What We Get Wrong About the American Revolution

Filmmaker Ken Burns breaks down the myths surrounding America’s founding, explains how the Declaration’s own contradictions ultimately expanded American freedom, and argues for the continued funding of public broadcasting.

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What We Get Wrong About the American Revolution

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Today's guest is Ken Burns, the filmmaker who has massively reshaped national conversations about everything from the Civil War to baseball to jazz to immigration to national parks with epic documentary series that have aired on public television.

His latest work is The American Revolution, a 12-hour series about the nation's founding that he codirected with Sarah Botstein and David P. Schmidt. As the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary next year, the American Revolution foregrounds the bloodiness of the war for independence from the British and the high levels of disunity among the colonists before and after the conflict, themes especially noteworthy in a society that is increasingly concerned about political violence and polarization. The series can also be seen as a rebuke to recent, overtly ideological attempts to recast the American experiment as morally irredeemable from its origins (The 1619 Project) or as a Disneyfied morality tale (The 1776 Project).

Burns talks with Gillespie about the role of truth in documentaries and why we should embrace contradictions in historical storytelling. They also debate whether PBS, defunded earlier this year by the Trump administration, should continue to receive tax dollars.

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep on the thinkers, doers, and artists who are making the 21st century a more libertarian—or at least more interesting place—by challenging outmoded ideas and orthodoxies.

 

0:00—The American Revolution was a global war

7:52—Slavery in the Revolution and competing narratives

21:48—The logic of the Declaration of Independence

29:14—The impact of Native Americans

32:41—Why the Revolution leaves Burns feeling optimistic

39:09—The importance of New York in the Revolution

46:15—Funding for public broadcasting

53:16—What's next for Ken Burns?

56:26—Why understanding history is important for unity

 

Previous appearances:
"Filmmaker Ken Burns on Prohibition, Drug Laws and Unintended Consequences," October 1, 2011

"Ken Burns on PBS Funding, Being a 'Yellow-Dog Democrat,' and Missing Walter Cronkite," October 1, 2011

"The Vietnam War Is the Key to Understanding Today's America: Q&A with Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick," September 13, 2017

"How Closed Borders Helped Facilitate the Holocaust," September 15, 2022

 

Upcoming Reason Events

Reason Versus debate: Big Tech Does More Good Than Harm, December 10

• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yeah, no. A review says he starts out claiming the Iroquois Federation was more important to the Declaration of Independence than Locke. The Iroquois Federation had some interesting quirks, but last time I looked into it, none of it got into the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution.

I don't think I'll be watching a fauxumentary that starts out so wrong.

[Incunabulum]

The online consensus I see leads me to think the quality of this documentary is making people revise their opinions of his previous work.

[Rick James]

this documentary is making people revise their opinions of his previous work.

So people are starting to like Ken Burns again?

[mad.casual]

I thought The Da Vinci Code was pretty good.

[mad.casual]

The Iroquois Federation had some interesting quirks, but last time I looked into it, none of it got into the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution.

It's interesting that all the documentation of the Iroquois Confederacy, right down to the name... that doesn't look like a text-free piece of the Bayeux Tapestry from several hundred years before the Iroquois Confederacy existed... is adorned with well-executed latin alphabet with French or English flourishes. That the only *real* piece of solid documentation linking the governing of the Iroquois with our own government in any real way is, at best, ambiguous between admiring the "ignorant savages'" ingenuity and incredulous that the "ignorant savages" aren't more prone to eradication, self or other.

Even if he were fairly meticulous, it's still very "In between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles under the
stars." low low (low) fantasy-adjacent speculative docudrama.

[Dan S.]

The part of our Constitution that seems to me to be derived from the Iroquois is the over-rideable veto. Does it have any precedent in Europe? The Iroquois' Great Law of Peace (or Law of Great Peace - it's unclear which noun is modified by "Great") describes a system where the original five tribes are divided into two sets of two, with the fifth being the "firekeepers" who are supposed to approve decisions made by the other four. But they can also be "obstinate" and and refuse to do so, in which case the councils of the other four tribes must consider the measure again. If they approve it again, the firekeepers can no longer block it.

Ben Franklin is known to have admired the Iroquois Confederation. As he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, he may have quietly introduced ideas he knew came from them, without ever saying so out loud.

[mr simple]

The only thing Franklin said about the Iroquois was to the effect that if these savages could create a crude federated system, then the reasoned Englishmen should be able to create a great one.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

Ken Burns is a retarded liar.

[BigT]

No, he is a very sophisticated propagandist. His works bring forward lots of great facts and stories of the past larded up with leftist views and irrelevant woke trivia.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The thing people need to understand about Burns's docs is that they are an excellent window into whatever the current Boomerlib political consensus happens to be at the time.

Go back and watch "The Civil War"--the scripts seem rather quaint by today's standards, such as the reconciliation-influenced dialogue and narration, but that's only because the Overton window has been yanked so far to the left over the last 35 years. If it was made today, the Confederacy and their early victories would barely be touched on, and about 2/3 of it would be devoted to treating black people like idols.

This doc is a good example of how difficult the next year is going to be for the left, because they don't actually love the US as an expression of patriotism or its uniqueness, they only love it if their political team has complete hegemony over everything.

And even then, they're still complaining that it's not the communist utopia yet.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

….and argues for the continued funding of public broadcasting.

LOL , of course he did.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

That would be fine. You could hold that stance. But he did it in the cuntiest way possible, and brazenly lied about the lack of ideology at PBS. His proof? They had William Buckley on 2 or 3 generations ago.

Good job completely capitulating, Nick. You fucking phony. If you can't argue against taxpayer funding of PBS, you aren't fit to represent libertarianism in any capacity.

[damikesc]

Well, a pointless and tedious interview involving two pointless and tedious individuals. Can't wait.

[MWAocdoc]

I will probably watch the series with my wife. I have to admit I enjoyed "The Civil War" and his documentaries about Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. I simply note his progressivist bias at intervals during the programs and move on. I say this as someone who takes his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies seriously, who dresses up in a Revolutionary War Fife and Drum Corps uniform to play "Yankee Doodle" on the fife for patriotic parades; and who dresses up in a Union Civil War uniform to honor veterans for memorial ceremonies: the fundamental principles of liberty enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America were - and still are - worth dying to preserve, no matter how far The People have strayed from their senses.

[Incunabulum]

Burns' 'documentary' is famously stupid. He makes so many factual errors and it's mostly to shit on Washington.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Hmm. I wonder what Ken Burns got wrong about the American revolution?
https://nypost.com/2025/11/24/opinion/ken-burns-makes-a-woke-mockery-of-americas-founding/
Ken Burns’ ‘childish canard’ makes a woke mockery of America’s founding
Burns implies that the Iroquois Confederacy, a union of six Indian tribes or nations in New York state, crucially influenced the founding of the United States.
This is a nice fairy tale, but has no connection to reality — and Burns and his colleagues, who worked on the documentary for about a decade, had time to verify this claim.
At the beginning of the film, the narrator intones that “long before 13 British colonies made themselves into the United States,” the Iroquois had “a union of their own that they called the Haudenosaunee — a democracy that had flourished for centuries.”

[MWAocdoc]

Several of the Founding Fathers wrote of their admiration for the federalist principles encoded in the Confederacy. Whether you accept the conclusions of woke revisionists or not, there is no possible doubt that those principles were cited at the time of the Framing by the Framers.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

It was a military alliance where they agreed to attack other tribes together if they came in to their territory. To imply Jefferson never heard of a military alliance is insanity

[Rick James]

—by challenging outmoded ideas and orthodoxies.

Whatever one thinks of Reason, it's not exactly the spear-tip of challenging outmoded ideas and orthodoxies.

[mad.casual]

Reason is their own sharpest brick bat of challenging the "outmoded" idea that the guys who signed The Declaration of Independence weren't the ones who founded the country.

The article itself connotes how this is about the 3rd "reimagining" of American history in recent years.

If we go back to a time some 100 yrs. before they were born or before any of their ancestors arrived on our shores and just assume the country began there, then why not include Oliver Cromwell and Guy Fawkes too?

[creech]

Yes, he over emphasizes the Native American and enslaved persons contributions. He could have spent two hours alone on the rebel/ loyalist conflict and atrocities. Most of us heard zero about such matters in typical school history classes so maybe a lot of viewers were shocked to hear our Founders weren't marble men.

[EssssJ]

Ken is patronizing, arrogant and interrupting. I heard a couple of exhausted sighs from Nick.

[MWAocdoc]

I tend to judge artists by their artistic product, not their personalities or their politics. If their art is disfigured by their biases, it affects my assessment of the quality of their work. I appreciate good art and try to avoid bad art.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I listened to the first couple of minutes to give you the benefit of the doubt. He starts by claiming he wanted to make a documentary so he could better understand the revolution; that's strike 1. You learn more about something from books, not by making a movie, unless what you want to learn is how to make a movie.

Then he claims the modern view is the Madison Avenue view, romanticized etc etc etc. Strike 2: name one modern 1 minute capsule history which isn't romanticized. Strike 3: he romanticizes all his fauxumentariies. Why else would he pan still pictures to make them appear in motion?

Nope, he's a fraud, always has been.

I remember when I first actually learned more about the Revolution than the one minute summaries of Concord and Lexington, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Valley Forge and the Hessians, and Yorktown. I saw a history of the war by a retired British General. Aha! thought I, this will be interesting, finding out all the stuff the American authors don't want to talk about.

It was very interesting. I learned that Saratoga was mostly won by the militia harassing Burgoyne all the way down from Canada; that Burgoyne and the other two generals bickered so much about the best plan that one left his post to attack Philadelphia and wasn't present to help Burgoyne when called to help, and Burgoyne forbade the third general from leaving Canada, who saw no reason to help Burgoyne when called to help; that Cornwallis left the southern campaign and went north to doom at Yorktown because the southern militia had hounded and harassed his foragers so much that everything but water had to be shipped across the Atlantic; and that the French Fleet was able to blockade Cornwallis at Yorktown because the British admiral who was supposed to fight the French and rescue Cornwallis had instead looted a Dutch island in the Caribbean used by smugglers and used his fleet to ship all the booty back to Britain, to pay his gambling debts which had caused him to flee to France before the government recalled him and held off his creditors, and the British courts later ruled against him.

Well, more or less. That's my one minute romanticized version. The point is, this is just one book, and there are probably thousands like it. His fauxmentary is a fraud; he makes fauxmentaries because he likes getting paid for it, and his hook is making up the fraud.

[mad.casual]

What We Get Wrong About the American Revolution

Listening to Ken Burns, apparently.

It's retarded to think the Iroquois were more critical to the American Revolution than the French Revolution, The Glorious Revolution, The Magna Carta, and the Norman Invasion and we generally don't proceed step wise through the named and dated charters, battles, and exchange of thrones that lead to the formation of parliament, multi-cameral, and representative democracies that were set up in those countries and kingdoms well before the Iroquois Confederacy was founded.

This is "10 (obscure) historical facts you might not know about the American Revolution! No. 8 will surprise you (one Massachusetts Senator's ancestors may've helped construct our modern government)!" by Ken Burns

[Stupid Government Tricks]

.

[Syd Henderson]

The French Revolution started in 1789, so it didn't have much influence on the American Revolution.

[mtrueman]

The French and Indian War and the measures taken by Britain to pay for it were direct precursors to the Revolution. The French Revolution had no influence, though they both shared the inspiration of Enlightenment thinkers.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Hoping that someone makes a mistake and clicks on you handle to double the number of monthly hits on your web site?
Or just spouting your inane lefty bullshit?

[DesigNate]

If I’m going to watch historical fiction about the Revolution, I’ll stick with “The Patriot”.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Who is “we”? I didn’t learn much at all new from this

[Sequel]

The childish fantasy that the American Revolution is a moral fable isn't worth preserving. David and Goliath has a few shallow resonances here and there, but basically it is not a morality tale at all.

There is no need to argue that it was "morally irredeemable" either. It simply was what it was. And from the bloody civil war that resulted, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly all entered our newly-created national bloodstream.

Casting it all as a divine deliverance may make some people happy, but it makes many others sad, and contributes to never-ending underlying political tensions. England's CIvil War and Glorious Revolution play much the same role in Great Britain's identity and self-image.

[ddcannady]

Sure, effectively ending two millenia of theocratic monarchy based on parentage is no biggie. I'm sure you've posted many comments on the internet that are much more historically significant.

[mtrueman]

"and contributes to never-ending underlying political tensions."

I don't think the Revolution contributed to today's tensions. The tensions were a British import, the conflict between the Parliamentarian Roundheads, and the Royalist Cavaliers. The tensions also arose from the Constitution, which seems designed to make effective governing exceedingly difficult. Both Russia and Brazil managed to abolish serfdom and slavery without much ado. The Civil War that accompanied America's effort remains the bloodiest stain on the nation's history.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Hoping someone makes a mistake and clicks on you handle to double the number of monthly hits on your web site?
Or just spouting your inane lefty bullshit?

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

What Ken Burns gets wrong about the American Revolution: Just about everything.

[shadydave]

[shadydave]

Bill Murray was on Joe Rogan and he said he read the first five pages of Bob Woodward's book on John Belushi. Then he put the book down and said, "oh my God, they framed Nixon."

I feel the same way about Ken Burns: I know not much about the American Revolution, but I do know a lot about how Ken Burns treated topics I do know something about. "Unimpressed" I think understates it.

[BigT]

On top of all his other flaws, Burns complains when Nick tries to get in a word, but endlessly talks over him. Rude, arrogant, self-righteous clown.

[kevrob]

I was disappointed that Nick didn't opine that tax funding of radio &/or TV stations violates the first amendment. He got close when he mentioned state broadcasting, but that was a glancing blow.

"Who takes the king's shilling......"

[AT]

Oh my.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMsJGnn-h_4

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Interesting interview and very illuminating. I had planned to watch his documentary, but after listening to Ken Burns have decided that it's not worth watching anything he puts out. He strikes me as a woke leftist revisionist who is pitching a narrative. I'll stick to unbiased sources.

Particularly disgusting is his support to wasting taxpayers money to fund his biased narratives. In today's day and age, there is absolutely zero reason to fund PBS and NPR with taxpayer money. There are plenty of other media outlets that will fill the void.

Ironically Ken Burns is so fearful of losing access to rural America, which is largely politically polar opposite of the biased PBS and NPR reporting. He sounded more like a freeloader fearful of losing access to free cash, than seriously concerned about all the "Deplorable" rural voters that Hillary Clinton openly despised.

Ken Burns is just a woke leftist, not a historian. His documentaries are now all suspect of leftist bias to me. They may be pretty, but film-making is an art and everyone knows that it can be used and abused to push propaganda. After this interview, it is clear that Ken Burns is a brilliant propagandist and not to be trusted.

[mepton]

Wow. Burns came across as pretty awful in this interview, and even more, came across as a guy too enamored with his own status to care.

One substantial point I noticed was his contention that public broadcasting needs to fund projects like his because he's akin to longterm scientific research. I think he gets that EXACTLY backwards because he doesn't appreciate his own role in the process.

ASSUMING government should be funding basic research as he asserts, the funding should go to historians, not to him, as he plays the role of commercializing the basic research. He's the corporation profiting off of medical discoveries.

But standing as a guy whose job is to engage with the public, in this interview he was awfully bad at engaging. He lacked the social awareness to converse with Nick. It was astonishing.