Posted on 11/25/2025 10:27:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Ken Burns and PBS want to teach us the history of the American Revolution. That’s objectively laudable, but from the opening seconds of his new six-part, 12-hour-long series on the Revolution, Burns is off to a truly ludicrous start. Why do I say that? Because instead of beginning with the events that led to the break with Britain in 1775, Burns (after an anodyne quote from Thomas Paine) opens with an Indian diatribe about land.
That is not surprising. Lest there be any question as to what Burns intends for us to learn about the American Revolution, Burns stated in an NPR interview on Oct. 20, 2025, that he believes the driving force of the American Revolution was not to secure for all Americans the ancient rights of Englishmen, but to steal land from the Indians. Really:
The central [motivating force], we’re not taught this in school. It’s taxes and representation, which is super important, but it’s Indian land.
This is obscene historical revisionism. While it’s true that many people wanted to negotiate with Indian tribes to purchase land in the west, that is where the evidence ends. Yet Burns flogs this canard repeatedly throughout the first half-hour of Episode 1.
To go beyond that and claim that desire to steal Indian land motivated the colonists generally—or the Founders particularly—to rebel against Britain lacks a single iota of fact in a massive historic record. Burns’s claim is based on nothing more than—to quote Professor Sean Wilentz’s masterful condemnation of the 1619 Project for similar unsubstantiated calumnies—“imputation and inventive mindreading.”
Moreover, Burns ignores entire political history of Britain—and that history shows that, for Englishmen, the single most abused power of government was taxation. More English blood had been spilled over that one issue than any other in the history of England.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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Utter tripe. We had to stop watching it.
Not surprising after his North South fairytale. 😣
He was “One and DONE.” His Civil War Series was great.
EVERY other series could have been written by the SPLC.
I gave up on him decades ago.
He inflates the importance of females during the Revolution.
[He was “One and DONE.” His Civil War Series was great.]
“He was “One and DONE.” His Civil War Series was great.”
Baseball was good until it became woke.
It is just a well crafted PowerPoint presentation. Anybody can do this. Getting it platformed nationally is something the left has mastered well.
Actually his baseball series was very good- and i detest the guy...
Its funny the villain is once again greedy white men with Burns- a pasty white liberal...i’m sure he’s making a nice $$$ on this...
It’s whoever can conquer it. And right now, the White man’s losing. Thanks in part to White women.
I don’t need to smell crap to know that it stinks.
Turned if off…was a yawner.
Everyday I celebrate knowing that my house stands on lands stolen by white dudes from natives.
It was disgusting. As soon as it became a native thing, I was done (and hell, I’m 50% native).
I think I’ll stick with “The Bicentennial Minutes”. More accurate, more entertaining, and definitely more inspirational.
Etymology note - Michael Shaara and Ahmad Sharaa, the jihadist leading Syria today, may at least be linguistically related, with the Southern Italian name Sciarra being rooted in Arabic, perhaps an artifact of an Arab occupation of Sicily lasting centuries, until the Normans beat the Moorish infidel like a drum.
Who came up with the 19th Amendment?
Why do so many here get butt-hurt when these things are pointed out? The Indians lived here, the white man showed up, we expanded, and they lost. Its a fact. Thats just how life goes. And thats how its gone throughout human history. There are winners and losers.
The contradiction of developing a document saying “all men are created equal” while owning slaves is a historical fact. No sense in hiding it. The founders were great, courageous men, but not perfect.
The need for a nice, santized history where the white colonists were perfect, the Indians were uniformly savages, and slaves just kind of didn’t exist is ridiculous. History isn’t a Saturday morning cartoon.
I’ve watched parts of the series. And listened to an interview with Ken Burns on CNBC. He was uniquivocally clear that George Washington was the greatest man of his age, and without him, there is no successful revolution and no United States.
Spanish and Portugese Explorers aren’t White men.
Been wondering that lately myself.
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