Ken Burns

speaker

195 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Nov 2025 last heard 14 Nov

Ken Burns’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The MeidasTouch Podcast · Ken Burns Discusses his New Series "The American Revolution" · 14 Nov 2025 podcast

But there may be other rhymes that they pick up.

I pay that no mind.

But let me just say, as you suggested.

that the Old Testament says there's nothing new under the sun.

On July 4th, 1776, there was.

Everybody up to that point had been under authoritarian rule, had been a subject.

It was in the interest of their rulers that they'd be uneducated, that they'd be superstitious, that they'd be distracted by conspiracies, and that suddenly had something new.

And they were speaking not just about their present moment, but all of us, the unborn millions, John Adams said, who would benefit from the success of this revolution.

And they were creating a new thing, citizens, and that the pursuit of happiness for them uniformly was not the pursuit of objects in a marketplace of things, but lifelong learning in a marketplace of ideas.

Because if you continue to educate yourself, you would become more virtuous, less susceptible to, as Adams said, ambition and avarice and greed.

And that virtue would allow you to enjoy and be able to have the active idea of citizenship.

This is brand new in the world, and this is one hell of a story.

And it isn't just guys in Philadelphia thinking great thoughts, and we try to remove the opacity of many of them, but we introduce you to scores of other folks who didn't have their portraits painted who are as important.

to the story of the revolution and their women, half the population.

There's out of 3,500,000 free and enslaved black people who've been imported from Africa.

There are native nations coexisting and assimilated within the 13 colonies.

And to the west are native nations really hoping what is going to happen, regardless of who wins,

That their lands will be protected.

And they're, of course, not.

It's an incredible dynamic.

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