The American Revolution took place two and a half centuries ago, but the battle over how to frame the story of the country’s independence continues to rage.
Step forward Ken Burns, king of US documentary making. His prolific catalogue — whose subjects range from baseball to the Vietnam war — has earned him many awards, including 15 Emmys. Now the 72-year-old’s new six-part docu-series The American Revolution seeks to cast aside the “mythology of cloying nostalgia” with fresh insights, he tells me.
Contrast that with President Donald Trump’s romanticising executive order signed earlier this year to remove “revisionist” interpretations in museums and on monuments that question the “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights and human happiness”.
Trump’s Department of Education has forged a partnership with more than 40 rightwing organisations, including the America First Policy Institute, Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation — “dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation” — as part of celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary in July. On the White House’s official America 250 website, Larry Arnn, president of the conservative Hillsdale College, compares Trump to Abraham Lincoln in his desire to make America great again.
Sitting in a café in lower Manhattan, Burns says of his new series: “I would call our perspective . . . accurate. We always yield to the facts. History is really surprising. There is a neon sign in our office saying: ‘It’s complicated.’”
Filming for ‘The American Revolution’ takes in a re-enactment at Monmouth Battlefield State Park, New Jersey © Mike Doyle
Burns has offered sharp criticism of Trump in the past, calling him “an insult to our history”. The revolution was associated with issues that resonate today: racial tension, inflation, violence and an epidemic that sparked debates on the wisdom of inoculation. As Maya Jasanoff, one of the historians interviewed in the documentary, argues, it was the first American civil war, with families and friends fiercely divided over the case for independence.
Yet Burns says the launch of his series this year was coincidental and uncertain, the result of the vagaries of fundraising and production over nearly a decade. “We started filming during [Barack] Obama’s time, and it was unpredictable when it would come to fruition. It was a less conflictual time.”
While some might seek to view the documentary as a window on contemporary events, “we have to tune out the noise,” Burns says. “I’m embarrassed that, as a country, we don’t grasp our history. Everyone approaches it from the arrogance of the position of how it turns out. We are all in the grip of the present, but if you point out the parallels, they are dated immediately. People are always trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.”
He certainly sees the American Revolution as a highly significant event in global history, with fundamental importance for his country. He points out that our café is in a neighbourhood of street names that illustrate New York’s continued connection to figures of the revolutionary era: Varick, Lafayette, Thompson and McDougall.
The documentary devotes much time to diverse perspectives, including scholars working on the history of slavery and Indigenous people. Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, says: “For the general public who might not be avid readers of history, but are vaguely familiar with the revolution from elementary or high school courses, this will be eye-opening. Burns brings it to life in ways that just text doesn’t.”
A still from Ken Burns’ ‘The American Revolution’
Perhaps the most noteworthy insights emerge from a focus on Indigenous history. For instance, the documentary argues that the six tribes who formed the Iroquois Confederacy provided an example of democratic union that inspired Benjamin Franklin.
But while the loyalists defended many Indigenous people west of the Atlantic seaboard — albeit for cynically pragmatic reasons — the American patriots sought to push them aside, motivated in part by promises of 100 acres and $20 if they fought for independence until the end of the war. Burns stresses that although the patriots are often portrayed as anti-colonial, “we [Americans] were an empire from the beginning.” He says the use of the phrase the “continental army” revealed that “we knew where we were going.”
Burns compliments his fellow long-standing co-producers and directors Sarah Botstein (who joins us in the café) and David Schmidt. He stresses that the three work as a team, while conceding that ultimately he has the final say: “It’s a benevolent dictatorship.”
Botstein agrees that “while Americans have a collective understanding of our history of race, they do not appreciate the role of native people.” Other surprises she had while working on the series include the role that America’s expansive landscape and extreme weather played in influencing the war — for instance, the thick fog in the Battle of Long Island in 1776 that allowed Washington to evacuate thousands of troops.
At 12 hours’ duration, The American Revolution is intense viewing. Without the powerful testimony of surviving participants, which made his series The Vietnam War (2017) so compelling, or even early photographs to illustrate The Civil War (1990), his latest work relies on military re-enactments, lingering shots of maps, paintings and landscapes — his slow camera rolls across images dubbed the “Ken Burns effect” — interspersed with talking heads of historians. He draws on many distinguished voice actors including Kenneth Branagh, Meryl Streep and Morgan Freeman.
A scene from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s classic documentary ‘The Vietnam War’
Burns rejects the suggestion that today’s diminishing patience among viewers will limit its appeal. “You could have said that with the invention of the telegram. Attention spans have eroded but human nature hasn’t changed,” he says. “The response has been binge watching.”
With his documentary and an accompanying book now out, and an extensive roadshow of interviews and presentations under way, he says: “I’m surprised we’ve got this far without the normal criticism. We think we’ve done a good job. There’s a vast middle ground of Americans who are curious but ignorant of history. That’s OK as long as you are curious.”
Although now into his seventies, Burns is hard at work on other ambitious documentaries about sensitive topics likely to spark controversy, from Emancipation and Martin Luther King to cold war history with a focus on the CIA.
Trump recently sought to remove federal funding from PBS, Burns’s broadcaster. The documentarist stresses that he long ago cultivated philanthropists with varied political views, who have funded the development of resources for educators and schools to accompany The American Revolution. He is sanguine about his own ability to raise money for future projects, but notes that “the problem is for the next generation.”
His own children express concern about the existential crises of the current moment, he tells me, but he draws reassurance from the historical swings shown in his own past documentaries. “I tell them it’ll be all right.”
‘The American Revolution’ is streaming now on PBS in the US
