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The Triumphs and Tragedies of the American Revolution

The Triumphs and Tragedies of the American Revolution

The David Frum Show vor 1 Jahr

Ken Burns joins David Frum to discuss how his new documentary series captures both the triumphs and tragedies of the nation’s founding. Plus: Donald Trump’s TikTok giveaway and Benjamin Nathans’s “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause.”

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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum
opens with an urgent warning about TikTok’s looming sale to Donald
Trump–aligned insiders—a move David calls the “biggest giveaway
since the days of the railway grants.” He argues that the American
media landscape has been quietly transformed, and political power
has shifted from legacy outlets to algorithmic platforms loyal to
the president. Then David speaks with the filmmaker Ken Burns about
his new documentary series on the American Revolution. Together,
they explore the Revolution’s competing legacies—liberty and
exclusion, heroism and hypocrisy—and how its unresolved
contradictions still shape the nation’s identity. Burns reflects on
the moral complexity of figures such as George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson, the forgotten role of Loyalists and Indigenous
nations, and the Revolution’s echoes in contemporary America.
Finally, David discusses Benjamin Nathans’s Pulitzer Prize–winning
book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause, an exploration of the
Soviet dissident movement and the story of Alexander Esenin-Volpin,
who defied tyranny by insisting that Soviet laws be obeyed exactly
as written. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when
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