"YOU WILL TEACH ME ENGLISH PROFANITY. I WILL TEACH YOU TO FIGHT."
#americanrevolution
The #KenBurns #AmericanRevolution documentary is surprisingly good. Diverse, critical perspectives. Hits the highs and the lows of the revolution, tackles complicated topics from personal perspectives. Recommended.
Loser flag OUT, take the rebels who fought to make society slightly better instead of worse
@mcquiniac These folk generally were full of contradictions. All this talk of "liberty," but what it meant in practice was ... becoming landowners just like the British upper classes, but in this case by taking land from the native nations adjacent to the west, and by enslaving folk kidnapped from Africa in the east.
Massively weird time and place. And yet it produces timeless documents like the DOI and later the federal constitution. Roses from shit.
Can someone explain to me why CarlyFiorina the proud Honorary Chair of #Virginia 250 is posting pictures of Red Coats in celebration of the #AmericanRevolution ? Is it standard now for #GOP pols to side with our enemies?
We've been watching Ken Burn's "The American Revolution" on PBS. I've learned a lot (we're through ep. 3), in particular, the detailed movements of the continental army from Boston to Valley Forge, Howe in pursuit. I can't get my head around Thomas Jefferson though, writing "all men are created equal" while an enslaver, and later expressing the wish that native nations be driven across the Mississippi. A man of deep contradictions.
I am not aware of any atrocities committed by General Sir Tarleton here, which may explain why a prominent tree bearing his name thrived for so many years. He is not so kindly remembered in South Carolina, where the term “Tarleton’s Quarter” became famous, meaning no quarter at all, kill everyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waxhaws #BattleOfWaxhaws #TarletonsQuarter #AmericanRevolution #RevolutionaryWar
The Ten Best History Books of 2025 – Smithsonian Magazine
Smithsonian magazine’s picks for the best history books of 2025 include We the People, The Stolen Crown and Medicine River. Illustration by Emily LankiewiczThe Ten Best History Books of 2025
Our favorite titles of the year resurrect overlooked histories and examine how the United States ended up where it is today
By Meilan Solly – Senior Associate Digital Editor, History November 25, 2025
Smithsonian magazine’s picks for the best history books of 2025 include We the People, The Stolen Crown and Medicine River. Illustration by Emily LankiewiczNext July, the United States will mark the 250th anniversary of its founding, a milestone set to be celebrated across the country. American history will serve as the centerpiece of many of these events, with the semiquincentennial offering a chance to reflect on the nation’s triumphs and failures alike. But the question of which stories will be told—and how they’ll be framed—remains a point of contention.
This debate over how to tell American history is unfolding at a “moment that people have described as existential, certainly a moment of division,” documentarian Ken Burns told Smithsonian magazine earlier this month, in a wide-ranging interview about his new American Revolution series on PBS. “Maybe there could be some understanding that during this revolutionary period, we were more divided than we are now. And maybe by going back and reinvesting some time in this origin story, we’ll be able to put the ‘us’ back in the U.S.”
Against this backdrop, the ten history books we’ve chosen to highlight this year serve a dual purpose. Some reflect on the fraught nature of the current moment, detailing how the nation’s past—including the American Revolution and the creation of the U.S. Constitution—informs its present and future. Others offer a respite from today’s reality, transporting readers to places like Tudor England and ancient Egypt. From a biography of Amelia Earhart to the story of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, these are ten of Smithsonian magazine’s favorite history books of 2025.
We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore’s 700-page history of the U.S. Constitution revolves around a central conceit: that this founding charter, written by a group of white men in Philadelphia 238 years ago, was never meant to be a static document. As Lepore, a historian at Harvard University and staff writer at the New Yorker, writes in We the People, “Through experiment and experience, Americans came to agree that if such a strange, fragile thing as a written constitution were to endure, it would, as time passed … need to be both revised and repaired, improved and updated.”
This argument runs counter to originalism, a theory that promotes interpretation of the Constitution as it was understood at the time it was written. In Lepore’s view, originalists “rely on an artificially bounded historical record that disadvantages the descendants of people” who had no say in the creation of the Constitution, including women, the enslaved and Native Americans. Legal scholars rely on the published writings of powerful men to debate the Constitution, she argues. But historians must consider the opinions of those who didn’t serve as delegates to the Constitutional Convention and had no way of publishing their opinions in 1787. “For the historian,” Lepore writes, “unpublished documents written by less powerful people do not ‘count for nothing,’” as former Solicitor General Robert Bork argued in 1990. “In fact,” she says, “they count for rather a lot.”
We the People builds on the Amendments Project, an initiative Lepore spearheaded that tracks more than 11,000 amendments proposed in Congress between 1789 and 2022. The vast majority of these efforts never came to fruition, with just 27 amendments ratified by the states since 1791. But that doesn’t mean the failed proposals are insignificant: As Lepore tells the Guardian, “It’s so hard to amend the Constitution. If you look at efforts to do it, you just see this really big, colorful canvas of contestation, which is narratively rich and politically important.” Written in lyrical prose, Lepore’s new book unpacks this history, presenting a timely argument about the need for the Constitution to keep evolving to meet society’s needs.
Editor’s Note: The featured image at the top is by WP AI.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Ten Best History Books of 2025
#2025 #250thAnniversary #americanRevolution #bestHistoryBooks #founding #history #jillLepore #kenBurns #meilanSolly #momentOfDivision #smithsonian #smithsonianMagazine #uSConstitution #unitedStates #weThePeople #whichStories
Rightly Righting and Writing the Right American History
My review on the new PBS documentary 'The American Revolution"
Hype for the Future 27/284: Thanksgiving Special on Social Roles
Preamble Upon the founding of the Town of Plymouth and the Plymouth Colony circa 1620, following the realization that a plague had wiped out the Wampanoag population of Patuxet, the first settlers of the Plymouth Colony had given thanks to the God of Pilgrim Christianity. Puritanism was initially meant to "purify' the Church of England, effectively removing all Catholic-coded elements that had supposedly made the Church "impure." Unfortunately, however, the history of Thanksgiving is […]
"The war serves a nationalist purpose, and the revolution threatens it."
"Allegiance and protection are reciprocal; withdrawing that protection dissolves allegiance."
"The transformation happens in minds before it happens on battlefields."
#KenBurns #AmericanRevolution #History #HumanRights #CivlRights #CivilLiberties #Politics #Democracy #Justice #HalfHeartedFanatic
I finished watching all 6 episodes of #KenBurns' documentary on the #AmericanRevolution yesterday.
So many things I didn't realize about the revolution.
I knew that the "patriots" had it tough but didn't realize it took 8 yrs to conclude the war; that they probably wouldn't have won but for the assistance of the French; how often they came to losing the war; & how devoted the volunteers who were able to survive the war were in continuing to fight on faith, often without being paid & nearly starved &/or frozen to death.
Learning that Washington ordered the return of runaway slaves (who volunteered for both sides) to their "owners' (including himself & Jefferson) after the Americans won was disconcerting & put the lie to the phrase: "all men are created equal."
So much more to consider & ponder about the war that led to the foundation of our country, which was not as clean & neat as the mythology about it would suggest.
I think that I, for the near future at least, will look back at how I spent the third week of November, 2025, and call it "The American Revolution period".
Watching #PBS #KenBurns #americanrevolution
A good companion piece for anyone watching the Ken Burns American Revolution documentary. :ben: 🍻
https://share.inquirer.com/bJpU95
Revolutionary tavern culture. Gift link no paywall
Been watching the "American Revolution" by Ken Burns on PBS. It's very good, but very clearly, based on the facts:#PBS #KenBurns #AmericanRevolution
I know, people who brag about their #ancestors can be tiresome. But I am, I guess. This 19-year-old fought in the #RevolutionaryWar under General #GeorgeWashington. He was there. Here is another page, showing the officers and battles in which he was verified to be involved - there are also pages of testimony from officers vouching for his claim. Watching the #AmericanRevolution documentary series will feel a bit more meaningful. My dad grew up among the same #RhodeIsland towns mentioned in his application.
/end
My wife and I plan on watching the new #KenBurns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt documentary series, The American Revolution. We watched an interview recently, where Ken Burns described Washington's battles in Long Island, retreat to New York, retreat to New Jersey. Imagine my surprise when, doing some (boring!) genealogy to fill in some gaps in my family tree, I came upon this 1832 pension application from my g-g-g-g-g-grandfather, Othaniel Young.
"I was born in Smithfield in said County on the 29th of January 1758. I have a record of my age in a family bible at home. I lived in Smithfield when called into Service. Since the revolution I have lived in Smithfield, North Providence & Burrillville in said County. I now live in said Burrillville. In November 1775 I enlisted in Capt Coxwill Olney’s Company Col Hitchcock Regiment RI troops for twelve months to commence on the 1st of January 1776."
(My transcription may have errors.)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ytryhWw7_7z2eFa-N8uR3GzZ2p9bAdNel_ldkC2IpAs/edit?usp=sharing
1/
@RememberUsAlways @hunterw.bsky.social
Where is the burial site of the 'Maryland 400'? 2019 report by William Parry documents history and findings.
Dennis E. Powell writes, “George Washington, we are told by #KenBurns's latest documentary series, was a (mostly) great man and a terrible general. He was inspiring, yes, but an awful tactician. Oh, and *unforgivably* he was a slaveholder.” https://ofb.biz/sa1370
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.07
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst