History As It Happens – "Ken Burns' Revolution"

Podcast with Martin Di Caro
Guests: David Schmidt (Co-Director/Producer), Geoffrey Ward (Writer/Historian)
Published: December 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores Ken Burns’ new documentary The American Revolution, a 12-hour, six-part series airing on PBS. Host Martin Di Caro is joined by David Schmidt (co-director and producer) and Geoffrey Ward (writer/historian), to discuss how the film re-examines the complexities and contested narratives of the American Revolution, aiming to capture the lived experience of ordinary people as well as political elites. The conversation engages with themes of historical memory, inclusivity, the documentary process, and the enduring impact of America’s founding on the nation today as it approaches its 250th anniversary.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

New Approaches to the American Revolution Documentary

• Immersive Scope: The documentary spans the war's global dimensions, civilian experience, indigenous perspectives, and complexities often missed in traditional retellings.
• Visual Storytelling:
  • The filmmakers eschew traditional face-to-face reenactments in favor of evocative visuals: "You're going to see people walking through mud...see the effort that it took." (David Schmidt, 08:31)
  • Use of partial reenactments (hands, weather, movement) but not actor portrayals of Founders to maintain historical immediacy and seriousness.
• Iconic Narrators: Actors like Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, and Josh Brolin bring gravitas to historical voices, including less-heard perspectives such as James Forten, an African-American patriot.

Humanizing History: The War’s Everyday Actors

• Narrating the Ordinary: A substantial part of the documentary and discussion centers on the voices and perspectives of regular people—their fears, hardships, humor, and skepticism about the war and its leadership.
  • "It sounds just like a GI in World War II: 'These officers don’t know what they're doing. It’s all up to us.'" (Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward, 14:04)
• Collecting Diverse Viewpoints:
  • Native American, Black, women’s, Loyalist, and other marginalized experiences are woven in not to check boxes, but "because that's how it really happened." (Geoffrey Ward, 15:53)
  • Emphasis on how "the revolution meant something different to whoever was involved in it"—for enslaved people, for Loyalists, for indigenous communities.

The Complex Scholarship

• Changing Interpretations:
  • Earlier documentaries/book treatments tended to glorify "guys in white wigs having great thoughts," whereas the Burns documentary integrates recent scholarship reflecting broader social realities. (Jeffrey Ward, 15:10–15:53)
• Collaborative Historical Consultation: The team credits a multidisciplinary group of historians for keeping the narrative honest and complex.

Causes of Revolution: Beyond Tax Protests

• Many Causes, Many Experiences:
  • It wasn’t just about taxes; land (especially westward expansion), sovereignty, and local self-determination were potent factors.
  • "For somebody like Harry Washington...it’s about ending slavery. For Dragon Canoe in Cherokee country, it’s about sovereignty." (David Schmidt, 19:40)
  • The British Proclamation of 1763, which banned settlement west of the Appalachians, sparked continued resentment and underpins the colonial urge for expansion.
• The Rubicon Moment: Consensus that the "Coercive Acts"—particularly the heavy-handed British punishment after the Boston Tea Party—galvanized resistance and transformed the crisis into revolution. (22:22–24:43)

The Loyalists and the Civil War Within

• Sympathy for Loyalists: The film works to foster understanding for those who remained loyal to Britain—“a defensible position”—and notes how violence and plunder produced both Loyalists and Patriots. (26:38–27:18)
• A Civil War at Home: Emphasizing that the war included rough violence, property destruction, and deep social disruption—"the fighting is not at home" in most later American wars, but the Revolution was "in everybody’s backyard." (27:54)

Strategic and Military Challenges

• Geographic Scale and Logistical Hardships: Marching distances that seem trivial today were grueling ordeals then: "How would you like to march from Westchester County to Yorktown, Virginia?" (29:22)
• Comparisons to Other Revolutions: Discussion touches on why the American Revolution did not descend into terror as the French Revolution did—attributing this to differences in social structure, city size, and outcomes.

Wrestling with Controversies & Mythmaking

• Iroquois Confederation Influence: Addressed criticism—clarifying they do not claim Franklin copied the Haudenosaunee model, but note the historical proximity of union ideas. (34:00–35:22)
• Dunmore’s Proclamation: Explores the British offer to free enslaved ‘rebel’ people if they joined the royal cause, noting that the event heightened southern white fears and shifted strategic calculus but probably did not cause mass realignment.
  • “It deepened the anger of white Southerners.” (Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward, 36:13)
• Washington’s Leadership: Recognized for resilience, civilian control, and adaptive strategy (the "Fabian" approach). Praised as a leader who “kept everybody together,” even if he made mistakes in battle. (40:30–41:32)

Lasting Legacies and Modern Resonance

• Revolution as Ongoing Argument: The hosts resist hagiography, stressing how the power lies in the Revolution’s unfinished promises—equality, liberty—and the right of the people to persistently re-negotiate them.
  • “Democracy is a state of perpetual argument. You can be inspired...while also embracing the complexity.” (Jeffrey Ward, 46:21)
• Historical Empathy: Encouragement to approach both contemporary and past figures with humility, recognizing “they did not know what was going to happen on Tuesday, just as we don’t.” (Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward, 48:11)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Visual Style and Storytelling

• 08:31 – David Schmidt: “We realized...if you’re going to see an eight-year war...it takes an awful lot of human effort. And in order to see that, you need to see people...you’re going to see the effort that it took.”

On the Shift Toward Ordinary People

• 14:04 – Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward: “It’s often funny, and it’s often ironic and wry, and it sounds just like a GI in World War II...These officers don’t know what they’re doing...Why don’t we get paid again?”

On Complexity of the Revolution

• 19:40 – David Schmidt: “The American Revolution meant something different to whoever was involved in it...it’s about ending slavery for [some], for others it’s about sovereignty.”

On Inclusion & Historical Memory

• 15:10 – Geoffrey Ward: “A film made a while ago would have been the revolution that I remember from school...just those guys in white wigs...We really tried...to include as many different kinds of people on different kinds of stories as we could.”

On the Iroquois Confederation

• 34:00 – David Schmidt: “We’re not trying to say one thing influenced the other necessarily, but the truth is this union existed before...and what we’re getting at here is that here’s a union of six nations that is threatened, maybe even broken, by the American Revolution.”

On Washington’s Leadership & Limits

• 40:30 – Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward: “To me, the most important thing about Washington is his absolute loyalty to civilian control. That doesn’t happen in revolutions.”

On the Open-endedness of Revolutionary Ideals

• 45:52 – Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward (quoting Dayton Duncan): “He said he was glad there had not been a press conference after the passage of the Declaration...The first question would have been, ‘What do you mean by all men are equal?’...We are still working on that.”

On Historical Humility

• 48:11 – Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward: “It’s really important for people to understand that historical figures did not know what was going to happen on Tuesday, just as we don’t...If you accept those things, you realize people now can do great things.”

Important Segment Timestamps

• 02:06–05:54 – Introduction to the documentary, scope and stakes of the Revolution
• 07:27–10:30 – Visual storytelling & documentary choices
• 10:30–12:46 – Writing the series, synthesizing scholarship, new approaches
• 14:04–17:30 – Representation of ordinary people, new voices and perspectives
• 17:55–20:56 – The Caribbean, economic and global context, land as a fundamental cause
• 21:24–24:43 – From protest to revolution, the tipping points, British responses
• 25:00–28:32 – Loyalists, civil war aspects, civilian experience
• 29:22–32:03 – Logistics, hardship, violence, comparisons with the French Revolution
• 34:00–39:20 – Contested interpretations: Iroquois influence, Dunmore’s Proclamation, African American agency
• 40:30–44:53 – Washington’s strategy, military setbacks and resilience
• 44:53–49:14 – Relevance to today, unity & debate, democracy as ongoing negotiation

Episode Takeaways

• The American Revolution documentary seeks to restore missing complexity to the founding story, drawing on new scholarship and previously overlooked voices.
• All groups—including Loyalists, enslaved people, Native Americans, women—had a stake in the outcome, and their stories are essential to an honest account.
• The war’s causes and consequences were deeply varied and remain contentious; land, liberty, economic interests, and the global context all played key roles.
• The Revolution’s legacy is ongoing argument and striving for ideals that are not finished—“democracy is a state of perpetual argument”—and the effort to live up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence is far from over.

“If there’s any reason why I like doing history, it’s that the Declaration of Independence was formally ratified on July 4, 1776. Just 1,337 words that ended with the phrase, ‘We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”
— Drew Ski/Geoffrey Ward (49:14)

For listeners and viewers alike, this episode and the associated documentary encourage a deeper, more inclusive, and ongoing inquiry into America's revolutionary experience and its significance today.