July 03, 2026

250 Years: Ken Burns; Jon Meacham; Edward Larson; AJ Jacobs

1 hour 49 minutes

For the nation's 250th birthday, some 'Independence-minded' favorites:

Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, co-directors (with David Schmidt) of "The American Revolution," talk about their 12-part docuseries for PBS on the nation's founding.

Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and the author of American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union (Random House, 2026), puts today's political conflicts in the historical context of tensions going back to the country's founding.

Edward Larson, chaired professor of history and law at Pepperdine University and the author of Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025), talks about the change in thinking 250 years ago in the American colonies from British subjects protesting the crown to revolution.

A. J. Jacobs, NPR contributor, essayist, and the author of The Year of Living Biblically, The Know-It-All, It's All Relative and The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning (Crown, 2024), offers his take on "originalism" by living like a "founding father" - tricorn hat and all.

These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity; the original web versions are available here:

Ken Burns on The American Revolution (October 31, 2025)

American Conflicts: As It Ever Was (February 16, 2026)

1776's No Kings (November 24, 2025)

A.J. Jacobs Lives Originalism (May 8, 2024)

image: This is a high-resolution image of the United States Declaration of Independence . This image is a version of the 1823 William Stone facsimile — Stone may well have used a wet pressing process (that removed ink from the original document onto a contact sheet for the purpose of making the engraving). (original: w:Second Continental Congress; reproduction: William Stone, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

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By WNYC

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July 03, 2026

250 Years: Ken Burns; Jon Meacham; Edward Larson; AJ Jacobs

1 hour 49 minutes

For the nation's 250th birthday, some 'Independence-minded' favorites:

Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, co-directors (with David Schmidt) of "The American Revolution," talk about their 12-part docuseries for PBS on the nation's founding.