Quote · Empire: World History
374. Ken Burns on the American Revolution and Empire
Where this was said
Americans and Their Own History: Detached and Unreal
At 5:54 · chapter starts 4:55
Burns wastes no time: Americans are 'woefully ignorant' of their own Revolution, and their relationship to it is, as historian Maya Jasanoff states in the opening of his new film, 'detached and unreal.' [1] — Ken Burns "Americans relate to the Revolution in a way that is 'detached and unreal,' says historian Maya Jasanoff in the opening of Burns's film. Nob…" 03:46 The Washington-crossing-the-Delaware image is his exhibit A — nobody would stand upright in a boat during an ice-clogged snowstorm, yet this theatrical myth defines the national memory of the founding. The Revolution is 'encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality and nostalgia,' Burns argues, focused on big ideas signed in Philadelphia, while the conflict actually began 15 months earlier in Lexington, Massachusetts, and would not formally end until the Treaty of Paris — whose semi-quincentennial falls in 2033. Jasanoff's second intervention is even more provocative: the United States is born in violence, and any account that skips that does a disservice to the full story.
The American Revolution did not truly end until the Treaty of Paris, whose semi-quincentennial will be in 2033, not on July 4.
The Continental Congress didn't call itself the Eastern Seaboard Congress by accident. Washington openly used the word 'empire,' warning rivals they were 'drowning our rising empire in blood.' From the very beginning, the Founders knew they wanted everything from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
