Ken Burns

Making documentary films for 40 years

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Book Recommendations:

KB

Recommended by Ken Burns

Looking forward to this new book by the great @ThePluckyOne on National Park Lodges, some of the most gorgeous and comfortable places on the planet. I contributed a short intro. Check it out: https://t.co/wVDb6IRuBk (from X)

Lodge: An Indoorsy Tour of America’s National Parks book cover

by Max Humphrey, Kathryn O’Shea-Evans, David Tsay, Rob Schanz·You?

"LODGE is a beautiful reminder to go somewhere rustic with spotty wifi once in a while.”―Barbara Corcoran, Shark on ABC's Shark Tank, Business Unusual Podcast Host, and Founder of The Corcoran Group 2024 Reading the West Awards, Longlist, Nonfiction (MPIBA) Striking photos and personal, experiential stories lure park rookies and obsessives alike to the rustic charm of America’s National Park lodges. “The lodges shown in these pages have lessons for everyone, from professional interior designers to someone who may want to bring some of the outdoors inside.”―Mountain Living Max Humphrey shines a light on 10 rustic National Park lodges in all their airy, timeworn splendor. No historic photos here; the images of the architecture and interiors are as they look today, highlighting these storied places in a fresh, alluring way. Sure, the lobbies are the main stage, but Humphrey touches on grand dining rooms, guest rooms, and rustic canteens alike. He writes about the buildings themselves in terms of the historical goings-on at the time, why they were built, and the players involved, highlighting notable architectural moments and period-specific furnishings. A smattering of pop culture history adds extra bursts of levity throughout. Lodges and national parks included: The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park, CaliforniaCrater Lake Lodge, Crater Lake National Park, OregonCurry Village, Yosemite National Park, CaliforniaEl Tovar, Grand Canyon National Park, ArizonaLake McDonald lodge, Glacier National Park, MontanaLake Quinault Lodge, Olympic National Park, WashingtonThe Oasis, Death Valley NP, CaliforniaOld Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, WyomingParadise Inn, Mount Rainier National Park, WashingtonZion Lodge, Zion National Park, Utah More Accolades A Best Coffee Table Book to Add to Your Collection, Elle Décor Interviewed in The New York Times, National Geographic, and Publishers Weekly “A heartfelt homage to these hotels that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a golden era of parkitectural experimentation not to be repeated.”―Sunset Magazine “A witty, savvy, and welcoming national parts pictorial, Lodge spotlights the beautiful harmony between dwellings and natural wonders.”―Foreword Reviews “A fascinating look at their stories infused with hints of pop-culture history and a bit of wit throughout.”―Boston Magazine “An intimate look into the lodges found in America's national parks.”―Veranda “No historic photos here; the images of the architecture and interiors are as they look today, highlighting these storied places in a fresh, alluring way, with a smattering of pop culture history throughout.”―House Beautiful “Not everyone has a river-stone hearth, wrought-iron ring chandelier or exposed beam ceiling, but cozy comes in all forms, as seen in Max Humphrey’s new book.”―The Oregonian “Interior designer Max Humphrey brings the great outdoors in with his new coffee table book.”―Luxe Interiors + Design “What a cool idea to go into these beautiful old lodges and get inspiration from how they look in 2022.”―Style by Emily Henderson “A love letter to the history and design of our country’s beloved National Parks outposts.”―Domino “Yosemite’s Ahwahnee and the Crater Lake Lodge are among the 10 gorgeous National Park Service lodges in this beautiful coffee table book by interior designer Max Humphrey.”―The Mercury News

KB

Recommended by Ken Burns

What a gem of a book! To read, to see, to hear the history of America, right and wrong, in song. This is an unusually well-written and moving story; it’s about us and U.S. all at the same time—as intimate as it is majestic in scope and reach. (from Amazon)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A celebration of American history through the music that helped to shape a nation, by Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham and music superstar Tim McGraw “Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw form an irresistible duo—connecting us to music as an unsung force in our nation's history.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin Through all the years of strife and triumph, America has been shaped not just by our elected leaders and our formal politics but also by our music—by the lyrics, performers, and instrumentals that have helped to carry us through the dark days and to celebrate the bright ones. From “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “Born in the U.S.A.,” Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw take readers on a moving and insightful journey through eras in American history and the songs and performers that inspired us. Meacham chronicles our history, exploring the stories behind the songs, and Tim McGraw reflects on them as an artist and performer. Their perspectives combine to create a unique view of the role music has played in uniting and shaping a nation. Beginning with the battle hymns of the revolution, and taking us through songs from the defining events of the Civil War, the fight for women’s suffrage, the two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and into the twenty-first century, Meacham and McGraw explore the songs that defined generations, and the cultural and political climates that produced them. Readers will discover the power of music in the lives of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and will learn more about some of our most beloved musicians and performers, including Marian Anderson, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, and more. Songs of America explores both famous songs and lesser-known ones, expanding our understanding of the scope of American music and lending deeper meaning to the historical context of such songs as “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” “God Bless America,” “Over There,” “We Shall Overcome,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” As Quincy Jones says, Meacham and McGraw have “convened a concert in Songs of America,” one that reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been, and what we, at our best, can be.

KB

Recommended by Ken Burns

Among the many lessons in Jamie Margolin's inspiring manifesto Youth to Power is the counsel to 'find your why.' It is the advice of a wise elder in the voice of a young activist. Everyone, young and old, should read this enlightened and engaging call to action. It is a roadmap for a new generation of social activists and perhaps a critical piece of what may save us as a species and a planet. History will remember this book. (from Amazon)

Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It book cover

by Jamie Margolin, Greta Thunberg·You?

**Winner of the 2020 Nautilus GOLD Award for YA Nonfiction** "Jamie Margolin is among the powerful and inspiring youth activists leading a movement to demand urgent action on the climate crisis. With determined purpose and moral clarity, Jamie is pushing political leaders to develop ambitious plans to confront this existential threat to humanity. Youth To Power is an essential how-to for anyone of any age who feels called to act to protect our planet for future generations." --- Former Vice President Al Gore Climate change activist and Zero Hour cofounder Jamie Margolin offers the essential guide to changemaking for young people. The 1963 Children's March. The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. March for Our Lives, and School Strike for Climate. What do all these social justice movements have in common? They were led by passionate, informed, engaged young people. Jamie Margolin has been organizing and protesting since she was fourteen years old. Now the co-leader of a global climate action movement, she knows better than most how powerful a young person can be. You don't have to be able to vote or hold positions of power to change the world. In Youth to Power, Jamie presents the essential guide to changemaking, with advice on writing and pitching op-eds, organizing successful events and peaceful protests, time management as a student activist, utilizing social and traditional media to spread a message, and sustaining long-term action. She features interviews with prominent young activists including Tokata Iron Eyes of the #NoDAPL movement and Nupol Kiazolu of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, who give guidance on handling backlash, keeping your mental health a priority, and how to avoid getting taken advantage of. Jamie walks readers through every step of what effective, healthy, intersectional activism looks like. Young people have a lot to say, and Youth to Power will give you the tools to raise your voice.

KB

Recommended by Ken Burns

I’ve spent my life telling stories about America, and the role of pioneers cannot be overestimated. A new chapter in America’s story is now being written in cities all across the nation, as a new generation of innovators build new companies and help rebuild communities. Steve’s book tells those riveting stories, and gives us hope for America’s future. (from Amazon)

Steve Case, New York Times bestselling author of The Third Wave and cofounder of America Online shows how entrepreneurs across the country are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs—reimagining the American landscape “and [giving] us hope for America’s future” (Ken Burns). In 2014, Steve Case launched Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, an initiative to accelerate the growth of tech startups across the country. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: cities can be renewed and rise again if they develop a vibrant startup culture. A visionary entrepreneur himself, Case believes that great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, and can thrive with the proper support and investment. In fact, they’re key to the American DNA. After all, America itself was a startup. It struggled to get going and almost didn’t make it. Today it’s the leader of the free world, in part because it has the world’s largest economy—a testament to several generations of pioneering entrepreneurs. But America needs help keeping its promises, as it is harder today for innovators who live outside the major tech hubs. For most of the past decade, seventy-five percent of venture capital has gone to just three states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—while the forty-seven states making up the rest of the country have been forced to share the remaining twenty-five percent. And it’s even harder for some people no matter where they live. Less than ten percent of venture capital currently goes to female founders, and less than one percent to Black founders. Since new companies—startups—are responsible for net new job creation, it is essential that entrepreneurs everywhere have the opportunity to start and scale companies. Rise of the Rest is about leveling the playing field for everybody, and in the process creating opportunity and jobs for the people and places that have been left behind. This book tells that story and provides a hopeful perspective on the future of America. In The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream, Case takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the startup communities that are transforming cities nationwide. Rise of the Rest’s signature road trips, on a big red tour bus, have created significant local and national buzz and spotlighted communities large and small that have committed to a new tech-enabled future. Along the way, Case introduces readers to dozens of entrepreneurs whose inspirational stories of struggle and achievement match the most iconic examples of American invention. To date, Case has traveled to forty-three cities on his Rise of the Rest bus tour and has been featured on 60 Minutes, and in The New York Times, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. With dedicated venture funds, backed by an iconic group of investors, executives, and entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Meg Whitman, John Doerr, Sara Blakely, and Ray Dalio, Rise of the Rest also invests in the most promising high-growth startups located anywhere in the US outside of Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. The fund has invested in more than 175 companies across more than eighty cities, including: Phoenix, Chattanooga, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Columbus, St. Louis, Green Bay, Madison, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Miami, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and dozens of others.

KB

Recommended by Ken Burns

Nostalgia is the antithesis of history. Andersen brilliantly exposes how nostalgia—the strategic oversimplification of our past—has erased complexity and friction from our country’s narrative to serve a single goal: to preserve the status quo for the benefit of those in power. Evil Geniuses documents how history and nostalgia are engaged in hand-to-hand combat that may determine our future. (from Amazon)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change—and charts a way back to the future. “Essential, absorbing . . . a graceful, authoritative guide . . . a radicalized moderate’s moderate case for radical change.”—The New York Times Book Review During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself. Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster.