Says Ken Burns, in a Vanity Fair interview. He's talking about his new PBS documentary, "The American Revolution," and Vanity Fair makes its headline spicier than the quote: "Ken Burns Knows Who Won the American Revolution: 'Ne’er-Do-Wells, Felons, and Immigrants.'"
Is VF making the show more about present-day politics than it deserves or is the show pushing a political agenda? I have a feeling Burns does very restrained interviews — in line with the PBS presentation of itself. So maybe the VF headline is helpfully apt. Rereading that Burns quote, I find it plainly political.
I cringe at the sentiment "when you get Maya Hawke reading Betsy Ambler, it comes alive." Hand me a history book and spare me the lively readings of nepo-babies.
I believe I've only ever watched one of Burns's shows, the first one: "Brooklyn Bridge," from back in 1981. I've actively avoided them. And I love documentary film.
By the way, of all the American wars, did the Revolutionary War have the highest percentage of teenagers doing the fighting? No. The Civil War had the most, by far. Here's a chart prepared by Grok, for what it's worth:
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Ever since hearing that line in Hamilton it jumps out at me how the same people can be 'immigrants' in some contexts but 'settler colonialists' in others.
Is VF making the show more about present-day politics than it deserves or is the show pushing a political agenda?
Both
Watching a Ken Burns documentary is like listening to George Winston's folky piano musings. Just because people I like like it, doesn't mean I have to succumb to the emptiness.
Too puritan. I need more dirt and grease in my art.
Something people aren't taught is class. The people who lived away from the center of colonial government, as little as five or ten miles from, say, Boston or Philadelphia had very little contact with their colonial government. In other words they already thought of themselves as Americans. Not subjects of the crown. The settlers in the wilderness even more so.
If it is supposed to be about present politics it is far too strained to draw any equivalence. If you redefine is and the and squint your eyes…but the ner do wells, felons and immigrants works. The Biden cabal with all tjeir felonies, breaking the law fifteen million times to import migrants. Yes. Yes I see it now…
Grok’s Civil War data is sus.
Like the wars before it, you had to be 18 to enlist. Although, my great-grandfather’s oldest brother lied about his age and joined at just 14. He was eventually found out and was sent home for being a minority (age-wise. Not because he was the son of German immigrants who hopped off the boat a dozen years before the war started.)
At the other end of the age scale were the old men who joined up. There was a soldier whose name I can’t find who had something like 12 children; of those, something like half of them were men who also joined up. The old soldier and several of his sons were serving as part of the force that captured John Hunt Morgan. (The first time).
It's a strange thing for Burns to say, because it's wrong. Almost every state had property requirements for voting back then, precisely to keep common people like soldiers from voting. That didn't change until much later.
Of course the troops were low social class; troops always are. Kipling wrote that about the British Army a century later. And yes, it's gross to imply that because there were non-natives and felons in the revolutionary army, we should open our borders and prisons today.
More generally, Burns is trying to diminish the philosophical significance of the American revolution - "of course it ended in democracy." No other revolution up to them had ever done that, though. Even now, plenty of revolutions don't reward their troops with political participation; Communist takeovers being the most obvious.
If there is one thing I have learned from listening to him, it is that Ken Burns always has a political agenda.
I’ll keep my Burns’ complete avoidance streak alive.
Up in New Hampshire the lockjaws drive their boats to Ken’s house and yell stuff at his house…
His "Civil War" series is heavily based on the book "The Killer Angels" which I highly recommend. Read that instead.
I kinda like Maya Hawke. Netflix has an unnecessary tack-on season of Stranger Thinks this month. Maybe she’s in it…
I watched the civil war and the vietnam series. Surprisingly unlike what I was taught, vietnam wasn’t all Nixon’s fault. Burns even kind of strained to point that out, then caught some hell for it…
I would have expected that teenagers did a lot more of everything in the 18th century and before. These were times when someone 40 was a senior citizen.
Burns did a pretty good doco on jazz and big band music in the 20s thru 50s.
Only burns doco I remember watching
John Henry
Big Mike said, "Both"
Beat me to it.
Christopher B said, "Ever since hearing that line in Hamilton it jumps out at me how the same people can be 'immigrants' in some contexts but 'settler colonialists' in others."
Classic case of Schrödinger's Oppressor.
ChrisC said...His "Civil War" series is heavily based on the book "The Killer Angels" which I highly recommend. Read that instead.
The movie Gettysburg was based on The Killer Angels. Burns series was based on the Civil War books of Shelby Foote.
He hit a homer his first time up with the Civil War. I've enjoyed some of his other shows, but that was his best. There were extensive quotes from the letters soldiers and their families wrote to each other. The letters were literate and moving, and the letter writers wanted to be literate and moving. Maybe that was the high point of letter writing in America. Lincoln wasn't the only person who grew up reading Shakespeare and the King James Bible.....I always thought that Hamilton, Madison, Adams, and Jefferson were the guiding spirits of the American Revolution. Who knew that it was felons, immigrants, and pimply kids that we have to thank for its ideals.......I guess you can argue that there was some hypocrisy in their appeal to those ideals, but those were the ideals that they propagated.
Burns is always grinding axes. His Jazz series completely glossed over and left out many influential white players as if they had never existed. He's heavily fixated on Race, Race, Race. He's a tiresome self-satisfied New England liberal. In other words, perfect for the NPR-PBS audience.
Ambrose said, "I would have expected that teenagers did a lot more of everything in the 18th century and before."
I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned it, but the etymological origins of the word infantry is rooted in Medieval Latin and Italian, having to do with youth (infantis) and low rank (Italian infantes - servant). As Charles Taylor put it in Lord of War, "a bullet from a 14 year old is as effective as a bullet from a 40 year old...sometimes more effective."
"All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys."
-- Herman Melville
Civil War is worth a watch just to listen to Shelby Foote.
What's with Burn's hair?
Show me the kid who loves the smell of a fight!
Show me the kid who scorns civilians in flight!
Show me the kid who loves feeling steel in his gut!
Show me that kid!
And I’ll show you a nut!
Ken Burns says the Deplorables fought and won the Revolutionary War? I had no idea he’d joined Team Orange.
YouTube is full of videos of Burns interviewing Shelby Foote.
His stuff is beautifully done, but oh-so-boring and many are full of his political leanings -- so I don't watch anymore.
Burns is better on music than war; while I agree his jazz series should have included more people, I really enjoyed his series on country music. He's useful as an introduction to subjects, but if something he presents interests you, it's always a good idea to dig deeper to fill in what he doesn't (or won't) tell you.
Mr. D said...
He's useful as an introduction to subjects, but if something he presents interests you, it's always a good idea to dig deeper to fill in what he doesn't (or won't) tell you.
Agree. Most of Burns' stuff is well presented "American Heritage Pictorial History Of" level. He and his sycophants need to drop the modern day Herodotus schtick.
Doesn't it follow that if the general American demographic of the late 1700s was a much younger cross-section, then those going to war would reflect society? People had more children then, were married and had them younger, and more of them died of disease and nourishment. Of course younger people fought in wars. Younger people matured faster then, as a matter of survival.
It seems to me that Burns is trying awfully hard to re-assign credit away from the founding fathers and their principles, their own courage. Who framed the country's Constitution? Is it barely possible that those second sons were fighting in the name of their endorsement of those beliefs, not out of simple desperation? My reading of history seems to indicate that the revolutionaries were a relatively small, motivated percentage of the mostly-Tory populace.
I'm pretty sure Burns will be forever suspect to some because he centered his 'Civil War' series with a Southern narrator and actually presented the Southerners as human beings. He certainly seems to keep trying to make up for that unpardonable sin.
Ken Burns has gotten very wealthy off of taxpayer-supported broadcasting. His business plan requires him to appeal to a specific audience. On telling history, I trust him not.
Killer Angels includes a scene in which Longstreet shows Lee a new type of trench. Lee was an Army Engineer known for his use of fortifications ("King of Spades"). Longstreet was a quartermaster. Paraphrasing General Richard Taylor, only someone who didn't know either man would believe that Longstreet knew something that Lee did not.
rehajm: I have no doubt what you say is true. The Live Free or Die state is full of retired Boomer Karen's.
I don't understand all the dunking on Ken Burns, one of the greatest documentary filmmakers of all time. Mind you, I don't share his political sentiments AT ALL. But my attitude about that is, if someone makes a movie, it's their movie and they can say whatever they want. I'm not going to purposely not watch a masterfully crafted, highly informative documentary because 5-10% of it is stuff I disagree with.
Burns is an inconsistent documentary filmmaker. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. I look forward to watching his new work hopefully it will be good.
I enjoyed his conversation with Joe Rogan. Although, you people only seem to like Joe when he is praising dear leader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmlhA3dpxnc
What are the lockjaws?
I liked his Civil War doc. The best parts are all the letters from soldiers read out loud. So literate! It's kind of embarrassing compared to our age.
“Civil War” was both informative and enthralling. Burns’s subsequent work was much less so, IMO.
He’s a low-T twit PBS lefty who runs around wearing a dead squirrel on his elfin head.
Yes but then again rob reiner was once talented at the same time
That's interesting. I had a friend whose grandfather served in the union army as a drummer boy and later wrote a book about it. He was an escaped, white slave. Not all slaves were black.
I thought the average age in VN was na-na-na-na-nineteen:
https://youtu.be/0sajngb0W6I?si=t4ACon9upnzaW4Ab
CC, JSM
"All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys."
The way to eliminate wars is to require all soldiers to be older than 50.
"Infantry" is aptly named
@chuck, “You are young and young men must have their say. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.” – Prince Faisal, Lawrence of Arabia
Another conjugate problem...young men might "make war", but "make wars" is most definitely old men's work.
“Paraphrasing General Richard Taylor, only someone who didn't know either man would believe that Longstreet knew something that Lee did not.“
Although Taylor was one of the South’s smartest Generals, the statement is bs considering that Longstreet knew that Lee ordering the assault known as Picketts Charge was stupid.
There was a multi hour CSPAN interview of Foote hanging around the web that is completely engrossing. Old Shelby was quite a character. I bet he was a chick magnet even into his old age.
Anybody who remembers the record "Nineteen" from a few decades back would question Burns' assertion about teenagers and US wars.
Anybody who saw Al Pacino in "Revolution" would be familiar with Burns' view of who fought and who really won. It wasn't one of his better films, but as films about the Revolution go, it wasn't the worst.
Ken Burns' documentaries, love them or hate them, are one of the few things holding the country together. Watch them before Civil War II starts.
I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-in Vietnam, the average age was ni-ni-ni-ni-ni nineteen, nineteen.
Ugh I was beaten to it a couple of times. But that song was pretty inescapable in its time; I'd expect many people aged 50+ to be familiar with the assertion.
Burns used all kinds of talking head experts in his ACWABAWS doc; Foote was just the most exotic and has stuck in peoples' memories.
Foote's trilogy is overrated, and was not the basis of what Burns produced. His often gorgeous writing hides some pretty shallow and slipshod research at times--but then he was writing to cash in on the centennial, and at a time when (as William C. Davis put it on CSpan) "if something was published it was a good source."
Burns’ docs are spinach and I say to hell with them.
Curious George said: "Civil War is worth a watch just to listen to Shelby Foote."
I agree. I ended up reading Foote's 3 volume "Civil War" history as a result of watching Burns' documentary. It was so good that I've now followed up by reading Rick Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy" about the war in Europe 1942-45, and Ian Toll's "Pacific War" trilogy about the war with Japan. I am waiting for Atkinson's third volume on the Revolutionary War to come out before starting that series. On Foote specifically, I never really understood the genius of Robert E. Lee until I read Foote's description of his Cold Harbor defense. Grant had to attack uphill on both sides of Lee and Grant had to cross a river twice to take advantage of gains on one side were they to occur. Of course, it was only a tactical advantage, as Grant could continue to out flank Lee on the way towards Richmond. But still, amazing tactics on Lee's part.
I interviewed Foote in his home back about '96 (19-96).
He was gracious but always playing the game--invited me to his study-office (spare bedroom as seen in photos) and had me sit in a smallish armchair with a deep seat, balancing notepad and recorder on my knees, which were about at chest level.
I think we were both relieved when it was over.
Longstreet launched an assault at Knoxville in '63 that had as little, or less, prospect of succeeding as Lee's assault on Cemetery Ridge did.
In 1918, the German High Command considered whether or not to send their 18 year olds into the fray. You could volunteer of course, but not many did, and they decided it wouldn't help since that class weren't that healthy, and growing defeatist anyway.
Better to keep some seed corn for the future.
The Numbers for the Civil war are wrong. The South ended up putting everyone 18-45 into uniform. The North was more like WW 2 or WW1, pretty much everyone was under 35 with most 18-25. Minimum Draft age in 1863 for the North was 20 with a proviso at the start that married men over 30 had to be drafted last.
I agree about Foote. His Civil war books are thick and well-written. But somewhat superficial. He was a novelist before he starting writing history. I like his novel "Shiloh" and wish he'd written more civil war fiction.
Lucky you. I wish I could've talked to foote. He seemed like the kinda of guy who loved to talk to people who loved to talk. But maybe he had that Novelist/Artist crankiness in him too.
Aggie said...
Doesn't it follow that if the general American demographic of the late 1700s was a much younger cross-section, then those going to war would reflect society? People had more children then, were married and had them younger, and more of them died of disease and nourishment
Except people didn't marry younger then and have children at a younger age. Colonial America was populated mostly from settlers who came from West of the Hajnal Line, and those who came from East of the line quickly adopted the marriage customs of the majority.
I have over 33,000 people in my extended family tree. Teenage marriages are rare until the mid 1900s. Well, relatively uncommon even then. Going back 5 generations on either side one teenage marriage and birth in my direct ancestors. My paternal great-grandmother married just before her 16th birthday and my grandfather was born "prematurely" 5 months later. There's a whole other story about that.
As for Burns, he got lucky with that first Series "civil war". He cast it well, and the subject is a great one. I tried to watch Jazz but got tired of the race crap and senationalism. Parker (aka bird) was reduced to a junkie looking for a fix. I wanted some discussion as why his music was so great. Sorry, we gotta talk about Dizzy G. hiring a woman.
The Baseball series when it wasn't pompous and boring was...wait for it..more race crap and hey look at all those immigrants. Babe Ruth son of immigrants. Hank Greenberg vs. The Nazis. St. Jackie. Oh vey
Ken Burns makes his documentaries, whatever the main topic, relate to modern day politics and social movements. His historical view is through the lens of social movements. Leftward social movements, generally.
Of course the Continental Army was filled with immigrants. Who wasn't an immigrant in the 18th century?
And yes, teenagers. People got married at age 16 and on back then. Teenagers were considered adult-enough in many aspects of life throughout decades, until today really, when teenaged mentality is accepted in 40 year olds.
And ne'er do wells. Well yes. What was considered ne'er do well activity back then would not even get you noticed today. Today you can literally murder a guy and get elected into office. Angela Walker.
Longstreet was one of those people who are good, but think they're much better then they are. And his attitude of superiority toward R.E. Lee in his book was intolerable when it wasn't unintentionally funny.
The militias fought in the Revolutionary war and they were a cross-section of the men in their society. Not all teenagers. As for the Contentinal Army, being a soldier in 18th century was brutal. Bad food, Bad pay, harsh disclipline. Lots of time spent in camp. Lots of disease.
Not shocked that not many volunteered.
I keep meaning to get over to Rhodes College and access the Foote Papers, which I understand to contain the research files and notes for the trilogy that he always claimed had been destroyed.
It's a bit ironic that for all his expressed disdain of professors, his own work fits almost perfectly into the Dunning School of ACWABAWS scholarship that prevailed in academe before the 1960s.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading Foote's trilogy and getting what they can from it--it really picks up after the first 350 pages.
I couldn't watch more than samplings of Burns's other docs, and wouldn't watch the Civil War one again.
Having met and spoken to both Foote and Burns, I can reveal that they're both on the runty side, Burns more so than Foote.
An eighteen year old man in 1860 was entering middle age.
Ever since hearing that line in Hamilton it jumps out at me how the same people can be 'immigrants' in some contexts but 'settler colonialists' in others. That's a great point. If this country was built by immigrants, doesn't that make them the colonizers? How do you "decolonize" immigration?
It wasn't one of his better films, but as films about the Revolution go, it wasn't the worst. No, that honor goes to The Patriot. And I say that with a healthy respect for Gibson that survived his crazy phase.
Foote was born in 1916 and was almost 50 when the Civil Rights act was passed. Not surprised that he didn't like the Radical Republicans. He was a big opponent of Nazism and joined the Army in 1940. Later he courtmartialed for supposedly lying on travel voucher in Northern Ireland. Going back to the USA, he joined the Marines as a private in 1945.
One of the things that has stuck with me from Michael Herr's Vietnam book "Dispatches" was a quote he attributes to (IIRC) a decorated veteran:
There's not much on this planet that's more cruel than your average American teenaged boy.
Foote, whose mother was the daughter of a Jewish immigrant, always liked to say that he joined the National Guard as a protest against Nazi aggression; his court-martial was for altering an official record--he had exceeded the allotted mileage on a jeep while courting a local woman in Northern Ireland, who became his first wife (of three IIRC).
Foote also claimed that if it came to another secession crisis he would go with his people, white Mississippians.
Longstreet's memoirs came out when he was a very old man and his contemporaries were mostly gone, and need to be viewed with skepticism.
He evaded responsibility for his poor performance under Johnston at Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, and came into his own at Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness under Lee.
Chickamauga was the only victory away from Lee IIRC, with Suffolk and Knoxville being dismal failures.
Gettysburg can only be understood in the context of the victory of the Army of Northern Virginia at Chancellorsville two months earlier, which included infantry charges as desperate as Pickett's assault, but which succeeded in defeating the Army of the Potomac.
“I watched the civil war and the vietnam series. Surprisingly unlike what I was taught, vietnam wasn’t all Nixon’s fault.”
Almost none of it was Nixon’s fault. JFK got us involved. LBJ cranked up our presence there from maybe 50k to 500k, right after the 1964 election. He had been able to call (AF BG) Goldwater a War Monger for saying either win it, or get out. Not surprisingly, LBJ’s escalation had been planned for months fore the election. Max casualties were in 1967, then 1968, (both under LBJ).
My stint as an undergrad paralleled Nixon’s first term fairly well. We had the memory of 1967 and 1968 casualty levels hanging over us throughout our four years as undergrads. I went 1-A (from 4 years of 2-S) in June, 1972, fully expecting to be called up by the end of the summer. Nope. By September, they had quit drafting. Nixon had won the war in under 4 years, by fighting it intelligently, and exploiting our strengths, instead of trying to win the numbers game, as LBJ and McNamerra had. But then there was Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, Ford’s pardon, and so when the NVA came south, the Dems in Congress denied the replacement arms that we were treaty obligated to supply South Vietnam, causing it to fall.
Of course, just as Dems have the habit of getting us into wars, they also have the habit of losing the peace bought with American blood. Similar to their brain dead withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden.
It ain’t what the documentarian Puts in it’s what he leaves out.
"Gettysburg can only be understood in the context of the victory of the Army of Northern Virginia at Chancellorsville two months earlier, which included infantry charges as desperate as Pickett's assault, but which succeeded in defeating the Army of the Potomac."
True. Johnston and Beauregard mentioned later in life that if the South had had any chance of winning the war at all then Gettysburg needed to have happened way sooner (I disagree, the cause was always lost). The "gentleman's defense against Northern aggression" being slow suicide.
60 years later Ferdinand Foch would emphasize the pointlessness of "gentleman's defense" in modern warfare when he said "Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque!" Opportunities manifest for aggression...defense not so much.
One of my 9th great-grandfathers turned out for militia duty after the Lexington Alarm with his musket and gear at the age of 75. They made him drive wagons instead of fight.
If we ever have to muster the militia to defend ourselves against communist enemy invader scum like Mamdani, I'll be there at any age. I have a precision rifle that can drop a redcoat from farther away than he could hear the gunshot. Could do it from a wheelchair.
If the intended audience only has a cursory knowledge of the subject, then partial knowledge hardens into a certain point of view. Omission allows the documentarian to reinforce his opinion as fact. It’s basically propaganda.
During the revolution, Ken Burns would've turned in his neighbor.
My own great grandfather, here in East Tennessee, at 13 went over to the next county and joined the Union Army.
I loved Burns' doc on The Civil War. Enjoyed his Country Music. Who knew Dylan and Cash worked together?! I liked what I saw of Jazz, but wasn't compelled to watch more.
Burns made a good living by producing product broadcast via PBS. He’s a reliable lefty who produces programming for reliable lefties. No surprise there. I’ve always found his programs to be like watching paint dry. So I stopped watching them.
"Greg TCT Knows Who Won the American Revolution: 'Cis het white males.'"
FIFY
Lee had to go somewhere other than northern VA, which had been thoroughly et out. The move north in 1863 was required by logistics, and the CS forces stole everything that wasn't nailed down.
Yes Longstreet was a contributor to the loss at the siege of Chattanooga by ignoring the approach of Hooker and lack of follow through at Wahatchee but he was just being an ass because Bragg was being a greater ass. And Bragg sent him to Knoxville to get rid of him because of his shining moment at Chickamauga where his first corps showed Bragg up.
Ego and arrogance was a theme of the southern Generals, except for Cleburne. To use a term of the time, we have their mules. When ownership of humans is your norm, you can’t be a regular kind of guy.
Historical hallucinations inferred from memory devices.
R.E. Lee had a very high opinon of Longstreet but its odd how mixed his record is with the Army of N VA. Before Gettysburg, Stonewall Jackson was usually given the independent command and Lee went with Longstreet to fight with the other part. Longstreet missed Chancsorville (sic), and after being wounded at the Wilderness didn't do much in the Overland Campaign or the Siege of Petersburg.
He kept giving unasked grand strategy suggestions to Davis and pesting Lee to help him go West. Once there, he started complaining about Bragg and tried to get the Army Command. He finally got an independent command at Knoxville and did poorly. And to cap it all off, tried to blame his subordinates for the failure.
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