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.
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.
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.
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
