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Hello, my friends. This is Professor Greg Jackson and welcome to a special episode of

history that doesn't suck. We're going to return to our narrative

episodes of World War II soon, continuing toward the United States official entry into the fight

on that date which will live in infamy, to quote FDR. But today, I'm sharing with you my

conversation with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and his co-producer Sarah Botstein about their latest film, The American Revolution.

I'm confident that none of you listening today need an introduction as to who Ken is and the importance of his

contribution to the telling of American history. But you may not know that Sarah has been a long-time

collaborator with Ken on such films as the U.S. and the Holocaust, the Vietnam

War, Prohibition, Jazz, The Wars, and Others. I got to attend a luncheon and screening of this

new film with Ken and Sarah in Newark, New Jersey, and I was proud to host a community screening

in Salt Lake City for PBS, Utah. So I've had the privilege of seeing the work in advance,

and no surprise. It's excellent. A-plus.

And so I was grateful for the opportunity to speak with both Ken and Sarah about the American Revolution,

but also their World War II docu-series, The War. As you'll hear, we discussed the continued

relevance and benefit of studying those two events,

two of the most important events in American history.

...