374. Ken Burns on the American Revolution and Empire

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnold. Now As the United States marks its two hundred and fiftieth birthday this July, We really wanted to sit with somebody who has spent his entire professional life Thinking about what America is What it promised

More Actually delivered. Ken Burns has fifty years on the clock documenting the American story from the inside. He's covered the Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, Vietnam, the national parks, the American Buffalo. And

The revolution itself. And no surprise then that he's earned the title of America's historian. Ken, a very warm welcome to Empire. Thank you. It's great to be with you, Anita. How does that fit? Um, America's Historian. I mean is that a coat that's comfortable? No, I I live in a tiny little village in New Hampshire and uh all of the notoriety plus fifty cents get you a cup of coffee, you know what I mean? It just doesn't matter. I have in my Kitchen of frame New Yorker cartoon that shows three men standing in hell. the flames licking up around them and one guy says to the other two, apparently my over two hundred screen credits didn't mean a damn thing. And of course they don't. So I'm I'm interested in trying to figure out how to tell complicated stories that resist

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