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Ken Burns's American Canon

Even in a fractious era, the filmmaker still believes that his documentaries can bring every viewer in.
by Ian Parker via The New Yorker on September 4, 2017
U.S. Marine Corps soldiers usher suspected Viet Cong members through the rubble of a village in 1965.

Ken Burns' New Documentary Exposes the Emotion Behind the Vietnam War

An interview with the filmmakers.
by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, Ryan Bort via Newsweek on September 2, 2017

A New View of Grenada’s Revolution

The documentary, "The House on Coco Road" tells the little-known story of Grenada's revolution and subsequent U.S. invasion.
by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro via New York Review of Books on July 26, 2017
A man holding a sign detailing oil production

All-Black Towns Living the American Dream

Rare footage from the 1920s, when Oklahoma was home to some 50 African-American towns.
by Rhea Combs via National Geographic on October 2, 2016

The Split Personality of Ken Burns’s “The Civil War”

The documentary's accommodation of the Lost Cause narrative may have left viewers with a skewed understanding of the conflict.
by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on August 31, 2015

Thanks a Lot, Ken Burns

Because of you, my Civil War lecture is always packed with students raised on your romantic, deeply misleading portrait of the conflict.
by James M. Lundberg via Slate on June 7, 2011
A contact sheet of portraits of James Baldwin, 1972.

For Those Who Would Be Real

James Baldwin’s testimony in images.
by Harmony Holiday via Harper’s on April 29, 2025
Filmmaker Oliver Stone speaks to journalists following a hearing with the House Oversight Committee at the US Capitol on April 1, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Oliver Stone Goes to Washington

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone says we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.
by Oliver Stone, Ed Rampell via Jacobin on April 18, 2025

The Meaning of Kony 2012

The Kony 2012 campaign pioneered a new form of online activism — one that served empire more than the people it claimed to help.
by Benjamin Fogel via Jacobin on March 9, 2025
Ken Burns speaking into microphone (left) and Donald Trump (right).

Ken Burns, Donald Trump, and the Lies that Bring Us Together

It may sound counterintuitive, but Ken Burns’ version of U.S. history actually has quite a bit in common with Trump’s version.
by Akim Reinhardt via 3 Quarks Daily on February 24, 2025
Still from "The Apprentice."

The Power Broker: Roy Cohn on Screen

The closeted right-wing operative has become a tragic character in the American repertory.
by Mark Asch via Mubi on December 5, 2024

You Had to Be There

Whose side is the war correspondent on?
by Zoë Hu via The Baffler on November 5, 2024
John B. Calhoun and his rats from a 1970 photograph.
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Rats Are as Bad as Human Beings in Some Ways

In which John B. Calhoun begins to study the lifestyles of rodents, and the public listens.
by Lee Alan Dugatkin via HNN on October 9, 2024
Still from the film Medium Cool, 1969.

That Ain't Cool

Capturing the 1968 DNC.
by Sammy Feldblum via The Baffler on August 20, 2024
John Wayne plays Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror" (1956)

The John Wayne Flop Linked to High Cancer Rates

"The Conqueror" was filmed downwind of a nuclear test site. A new documentary tells the story of the fatal film set, and the community affected.
by Zach Budryk via The Hill on June 30, 2024
A collage of photographs of the cast and crew of "The Real World" over the show's logo.

How “The Real World” Created Modern Reality TV

The rules governing everything from “Big Brother” to “The Real Housewives” started three decades ago, with a radical experiment on MTV.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on June 15, 2024
A scene from "Time Bomb Y2K" depicting a situation room filled with computers.

Heritage 2000

Some years wield such power that you must comply with them.
by Dan Piepenbring via n+1 on January 26, 2024
Sedat Pakay, James Baldwin, Istanbul, 1966.

James Baldwin in Turkey

How Istanbul changed his career—and his life.
by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi via The Yale Review on June 12, 2023
Route of Horatio Jackson's and Sewall Crocker's coast-to-coast road trip in 1903.

The Coast-to-Coast Road Trip is 120 Years Old

In 1903, a doctor bet $50 that he could cross America by car. The first coast-to-coast road trip in history took 63 days and cost $8,000.
by Frank Jacobs via Big Think on April 11, 2023
U.S. soldier in Iraq

Iraq Veterans, 20 Years Later: ‘I Don’t Know How to Explain the War to Myself’

Nearly 20 years after their deployment to Iraq, veterans grapple with their younger selves and try to make sense of the war.
by Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker via New York Times Op-Docs on March 15, 2023
For most of her 74 years, Ruth Ann Hills took a certain innocent pride in her family’s story and its place in Staten Island history. Generations of her family had resided in Mariners Harbor on the island’s North Shore. She and her brother David Thomas live in the house their grandfather built on Van Pelt Avenue. They had found Black ancestors on Staten Island as far back as the 1700s, and incredibly they had all eluded slavery. Or so Hills thought. All of that changed one day in 2021, when Hills received a visit from a filmmaker. Heather Quinlan was working on a documentary about a nearby graveyard. Over the course of her genealogical research, Quinlan had discovered that one of the people buried there was Hills’ great-great-great-grandfather. Neither Hills nor Thomas had ever heard of the man, Benjamin Prine, but his death in 1900 at the age of 106 had been covered by the New York Times and the wire services. Prine, a U.S. veteran of the War of 1812, had been the last enslaved person born on Staten Island, Quinlan told them. A photograph of a man, seated, holding a cane. The photograph has a long caption beneath, that is headlined "THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME." Hills' and Thomas' great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Prine. Staten Island Historical Society. Prine had once been enslaved by Peter Van Pelt, a highly influential Dutch Reformed Church minister – meaning that the street on which the siblings now live took its name from the same white family that enslaved their ancestor. “I thought I was a big history buff. ‘Oh, I know about history,’” Hills said. “I guess I was naive.” A crosswalk scene underneath two large street signs that both read "Van Pelt Av." The intersection of Van Pelt Avenue and Forest Avenue on Staten Island. Reece T. Williams/Gothamist

How the Remains of Formerly Enslaved People Came to Rest Beneath a Staten Island Strip Mall

Benjamin Prine's descendants didn’t know about their family ties – or their connection to his enslaver.
by Arun Venugopal via Gothamist on February 9, 2023
Collage of images of fetuses and placentas.

Fetal Rites

What we can learn from fifty years of anti-abortion propaganda.
by S. C. Cornell via The Drift on October 27, 2022
Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 22, 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat in a bus for a White passenger.
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Pitting Rosa Parks Against Claudette Colvin Distorts History

A new documentary explores the origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott — with lessons on how we see movements.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Say Burgin via Made By History on October 19, 2022
The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 3, 2022
Image from the documentary "Descendant" showing a man standing on a beach looking over the water.

Reckoning with the Slave Ship Clotilda

A new documentary tells the story of the last known slave ship to enter the United States and takes on the difficult question of how to memorialize America’s history of racial violence.
by Vera Carothers via The New Yorker on September 21, 2022
Mural of Harriet Tubman in Cambridge, Maryland, by Michael Rosato

Harriet Tubman Is Famous As An Abolitionist and Political Activist, but She Was Also A Naturalist

The Underground Railroad conductor's understanding of botany, wildlife biology, geography and astronomy allowed her to guide herself and others to safety.
by Liza Weisstuch via Smithsonian on March 10, 2022
Silver medalists Karen Chen and Nathan Chen pose for a photo after the team event in the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing.
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The ‘Miracle on Ice’ Shaped the Olympics Coverage We’re Seeing Every Night

How rooting for American athletes became part of Olympic TV coverage.
by Bruce Berglund via Made By History on February 9, 2022
A man stands beside a sign that reads: future home of the Africantown welcome center

The Last Known Ship of the US Slave Trade

The discovery of the remains of the Clotilda, 160 years after it sank, brings new life and interest to the settlement built by the original survivors.
by Zoey Goto via BBC News on February 8, 2022
“Our first camp.” Vado de Piedra, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 26, 1921.

The Photo Album That Succeeded Where Pancho Villa Failed

The revolutionary may have tried to find my grandfather by raiding a New Mexico village—but a friend’s camera truly captured our family patriarch.
by Stacey Ravel Abarbanel via Zócalo Public Square on February 2, 2022
William Faulkner in front of bookshelf

William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision

In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.
by Jonathan Clarke via City Journal on January 4, 2022
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