Ken Burns Is Off To A Hard-Left Start
With His American Revolution Series
American Thinker,
by
S. David Sultzer
Original Article
Posted By: DVC,
11/25/2025 12:34:14 PM
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.
[snip] 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.
Post Reply
Reminder: “WE ARE A SALON AND NOT A SALOON”
Your thoughts, comments, and ideas are always welcome here. But we ask you to please be mindful and respectful. Threatening or crude language doesn't persuade anybody and makes the conversation less enjoyable for fellow L.Dotters.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DVC 11/25/2025 12:49:24 PM (No. 2033984)
Read what the Founding Fathers wrote about why they were revolting. NOTHING ever mentioned about land. ONLY taxes without representation in Parliament. Taxes, taxes, taxes.....
Burns is inventing fairy tales from the thin air. Or as the author reports, quoting another professor who was taking the equally garbage 1619 Project to task for their hateful inventions, Burns was using “imputation and inventive mindreading.” as his primary historical source.....while studiously AVOIDING reading what the Founding Fathers wrote, and said at the time.
He quotes a long section from Ben Franklin's questioning by Parliament about why the colonists were very unhappy. And nothing at all was said about Indian lands.....ONLY taxes.
Burns is a hack, a propagandist and primarily a LEFTIST revisionist, pumping fake history.
66 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
marbles 11/25/2025 12:56:43 PM (No. 2033986)
Started watching.............the slant was immediate. No thanks.
49 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
billa57 11/25/2025 1:05:59 PM (No. 2033990)
The MSM and their democrat co conspirators HATE the Constitution and the individual rights and liberty they provide. They want the middle class bankrupt and dependent on government and will slander this country every way they can get away with. They are truly the enemies of the American people.
36 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
ladydawgfan 11/25/2025 1:15:46 PM (No. 2033993)
Thanks for letting me know. I had recorded this series on my DVR and was just waiting for the time to watch it. I deleted it after reading this. I already know a lot of history. I don't need a leftist skew of it, thank you very much!! In fact, I have the DVD series of the excellent "John Adams." I think I'll watch that one again once I have time after the holidays.
32 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Ruhn 11/25/2025 1:20:33 PM (No. 2033995)
Ken is a leftist twit. He's been dishing out editorial agitprop masquerading as historical documentaries for decades on PBS. Sometimes Burns peppers stories pretending to be history when, if fact, was manufactured out of whole cloth. Burn's segment of Ty Cobb in his "Baseball" series was a smear of Cobb's character based on hearsay and innuendo, not on actual historical record. And that's just one example.
38 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
rochow 11/25/2025 1:20:34 PM (No. 2033996)
American Indians wandered over here on a frozen day from Siberia. Many other countries today are occupied by people other than the 'original' inhabitants. Sick of hearing about Americans stealing the land,
52 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DW626 11/25/2025 2:06:36 PM (No. 2034002)
While at first I enjoyed Burns’ The Civil War documentary, it hasn’t held up to repeated viewings from me.
My dad and myself were excited about the Baseball one. I quit watching less than halfway through telling my dad, if he wanted to do a documentary on the Negro Leagues, fine do that.
So there is no way I would waste time on this new one on the revolutionary war. The comments I’ve read so far from those who have watched confirmed my suspicions and thoughts.
When I’m in the mood to watch a civil war documentary Civil War Journal is my main go-to.
18 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
mseegal 11/25/2025 2:07:43 PM (No. 2034003)
Ken Burns was very tedious lauding the noble native Americans and sneaking in "enslaved people" in nearly every sentence. Nothing about the Pilgrims going from socialism to private enterprise to avoid starvation. Nothing about the English buying shares in the enterprise called Jamestown. Did our founders make mistakes? Yes, but they were brave sailing off to parts unknown and resourceful when they encountered many obstacles.
32 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
seamusm 11/25/2025 2:08:23 PM (No. 2034004)
Ken Burns EQUALS PBS. So who could possibly be surprised? MY tax dollars once again went to support this.
29 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
paral04 11/25/2025 2:41:08 PM (No. 2034010)
That is outrageous! There are no mentions of that in any documentation about how the Constitution was written. This is just another left-wing tactic to divide this country.
29 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Ditto1958 11/25/2025 2:47:29 PM (No. 2034013)
Much as I try to not put on my tinfoil hat, you gotta really wonder about situations like this. He’s a celebrity historian. What is he trying to accomplish? From a purely historical standpoint, he’s wrong, wrong, wrong. He’s alienating half of his potential audience by presenting woke revisionist “history”.
The American Revolution has been thoroughly chronicled since it occurred. I don’t see where any new information could be unearthed that could truly change the story of our founding. Growing up in the 60’s the three biggest history stories I was exposed to as a child were (in no particular order) World War II, the settling of the American West and the Revolution. The Civil War back then was a distant fourth.
In recent years the Civil War and WWII have dominated, and the Revolution has been relegated to the back burner. I’m sure Burns knows this and thinks he can get away with a woke telling of the story with mostly poorly educated audiences. But why? With this travesty he has soiled an otherwise good legacy. Is he being paid to do this? It Joey makes no sense.
15 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
stablemoney 11/25/2025 4:31:39 PM (No. 2034030)
I finished with PBS in 1995, same with Ken Burns. I thought Congress pulled their funding.
15 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
crashnburn 11/25/2025 4:38:36 PM (No. 2034032)
I've watched bits and pieces while working out at the gym. I was considering purchasing it but didn't really want to support PBS. Also, I have a lot of videos yet to be watched. So, I think I'll pass on this one. The parts I've watched have nothing to do with the rationale, just the battles.
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Northcross 11/25/2025 4:51:20 PM (No. 2034034)
This "documentary" reveals more about Ken Burns and leftist dogma than it does about the founding of America.
20 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 11/25/2025 5:06:22 PM (No. 2034036)
I was afraid of this. I just watched the on FOX Nation narrated by Kelsey Grammer about young George Washington. It was wonderful. There was so much that we didn't learn in school constrained by time, I presume, but the stories about the tragedies in his young, his character his love of his country. By the time he was twenty years old the had accomplished more than many men in an lifetime. The only thing that I hate about it is that I have to wait for the next episode. Forget Burns.
16 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
RussZilla 11/25/2025 5:58:07 PM (No. 2034041)
Ken Burns, once very in vogue, a sad thing happened to him. The past left him behind. He showed great promise once, but now he’ll just fade away quietly.
9 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
BeatleJeff 11/25/2025 6:58:30 PM (No. 2034049)
Ken Burns produced what I consider to be the greatest piece of television viewing ever created, the Civil War. But it's been mostly downhill ever since. His follow-up, Baseball, was a massive disappointment to me, because the same format that worked so well in telling the story of a four year long war couldn't do justice to a sport that had been in existence for 120+ years. Both World War II and the Roosevelts were OK, but then he hit rock bottom with Country Music, where he gave short shrift to some truly talented stars of that industry while giving lengthy puff pieces on mediocrities who engaged in left-wing activities outside of making music. I haven't watched any of his productions since. I was giving some consideration to watching the American Revolution, but given this scathing review of his historical revisionism, I now will take a pass on that one, too.
8 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
oldmagnolia 11/25/2025 7:13:10 PM (No. 2034050)
Knowing that Burns is a lefty to boot, didn't want to watch it not now or in the future. I rather stick to real history.
7 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
downnout 11/25/2025 7:31:33 PM (No. 2034055)
You almost have to admire leftists. The despise nearly everything about America except that its opportunities made them rich.
11 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
red1066 11/25/2025 8:59:25 PM (No. 2034066)
This clown is still living off his Civil War series and thinks he can do no wrong making a series about the American Revolution. Stealing land from the Indians? Really?
8 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
hershey 11/25/2025 9:21:08 PM (No. 2034069)
What do you expect from PBS????? They have 'left' buried in their genes...
5 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Highlander 11/26/2025 2:09:20 AM (No. 2034080)
I ignore anything from Mr. Burns. His narrative style bugs me.
3 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/26/2025 8:44:35 AM (No. 2034156)
Once the colonies took a firm hold, the never-ending push to find gold and rich farmland began. The Indians were merely an obstacle in their path.
2 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/26/2025 8:53:12 AM (No. 2034160)
Did Burns rub in the fact that Baseball is a simple derivative of Cricket and Football is a variation of Rugby? Everything came from England, you know.
2 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
happywarrior 11/26/2025 9:25:37 AM (No. 2034183)
And of course, Burns lives in a town in New Hampshire that is 100% white.
1 person likes this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
Kafka2 11/26/2025 9:29:18 AM (No. 2034188)
About 30 years ago, I was searching the internet about how we got ur constitution and came across an article that Ben Franklin base his Albany plan on the Iroquois Confederation. I looked up Iroquois Confederation and found it had nothing in common with the Albany plan. Burns didn’t do his homework on this one. The Albany plan failed because each colonies’
Constitution was different and they could find common ground. Shades of the “salad bowl” in action.
3 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
MickTurn 11/26/2025 12:25:13 PM (No. 2034333)
Kenny Boy, if you stopped LYING you would go Broke, is that right?
2 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 11/26/2025 9:12:11 PM (No. 2034481)
The 3rd time I watched his Civil War series it struck me that it was a bunch of revisionist propaganda. I've never watched any Ken Burns propaganda since. Ken Burns is a sanctimonious fraud(D).
1 person likes this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "DVC"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Comments:
I started watching but got very sick of Burns' hateful propaganda overriding the basic history. I quit watching, won't be going back.