Ken Burns' American Revolution

Episode 1: In Order to Be Free (May 1754 – May 1775)

 

The Power of Moments

 My notes on The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath 

More on the New History of Capitalism

 Looking more into the "New History of Capitalism" (NHC) movement, I found this article: 

The “New History of Capitalism” grounds the rise of industrial capitalism on the production of raw cotton by American slaves. Recent works include Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton, Walter Johnson's River of Dark Dreams, and Edward Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told. All three authors mishandle historical evidence and mis-characterize important events in ways that affect their major interpretations on the nature of slavery, the workings of plantations, the importance of cotton and slavery in the broader economy, and the sources of the Industrial Revolution and world development.

And also this article:  

The New History of Capitalism (NHC) emphasizes that slavery was a central, global institution that both emerged from and supported capitalist development. This article begins by outlining the intellectual background that supports NHC’s main conclusions. It then argues that understanding capitalism’s transformation requires a global perspective.

The authors raise three main critiques:
1. Overemphasis on Coercion: NHC places too much weight on the role of coercion in driving 18th-century economic growth. The authors suggest that instead of focusing on coercion (sometimes called "war capitalism"), more attention should be given to the influence of European states and empires in shaping global capitalism.
2, Misleading Timeline: NHC incorrectly links slavery—particularly U.S. cotton production—with the rise of industrialization. The article argues that industrialization began much earlier, in the late 1600s, and was already well underway by the time large-scale cotton production began in the American South. In the early stages, sugar—not cotton—was the dominant plantation crop.
3, Neglect of Consumption: NHC focuses too heavily on production, especially slave plantations, and overlooks the importance of consumer demand. The growth in consumption of goods like sugar, rice, tobacco, cotton, and coffee played a major role in the development of industrial capitalism. To fully understand slavery’s impact, we must also consider how it supported expanding consumer markets, not just how it shaped production systems.

All of the above eventually led me to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which explains the debate between historians and economists over slavery. 

Rabbit-Holes about Redlining, 1619, and the New History of Capitalism

 ALL LINKS

First, I was curious that Riley cited only one source about redlining, so I looked it up:

Fishback study on the HOLC maps, which Riley cites as evidence that HOLC wasn't to blame: 

"[T]he maps were made available too late for them to be used in the HOLC’s original program of purchasing and refinancing one million mortgages, and HOLC leaders actively sought to keep their maps out of the hands of private interests. The only HOLC policy that the maps might have influenced was how they disposed of the 200,000 homes on which they ultimately foreclosed. In the final analysis of HOLC policy actions, the HOLC was likely the least discriminatory among categories of lenders in the mortgage markets. ... Given the long history of discrimination against African Americans by governments at all levels before the 1930s, the HOLC might have been the least discriminatory government agency of that time."

Another article on redlining from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which concludes that "Our research leaves no doubt that the existence and legacy of redlining is real. We argue, however, that to the extent that federal agencies institutionalized redlining by drawing specific borders, this largely occurred through the FHA." They also say: 

"While the HOLC broadly loaned to Black borrowers, it did so within the existing system of segregation, refinancing loans that already existed. In contrast, the FHA was instructed to create a new system of loan insurance that departed in key ways from existing practices. In light of the failure of mortgage insurance companies from the 1920s, the FHA was instructed to make only “economically sound” loans—a phrase that the FHA interpreted as a mandate to avoid core urban neighborhoods or those whose racial composition might potentially be in flux. Neither program was tasked with defying the existing patterns of segregation, and neither did."

I was curious about the 1619 debate.

Nikole Hannah-Jones article "What is Owed" in the NY Times.

1. She equates law enforcement with slave drivers: "The names of the mechanisms of social control have changed, but the presumption that white patrollers have the legal right to kill black people deemed to have committed minor infractions or to have breached the social order has remained," and lists black people who have been "legally killed by the institutional descendants of those slave patrols for alleged transgressions like walking from the store with Skittles, playing with a toy gun in the park, sleeping in their homes and selling untaxed cigarettes."
   
2. She says about the 2020 George Floyd protests, "No one can predict whether this uprising will lead to lasting change. History does not bode well." Denying any history of change?
3. She claims that, "At the time of the Civil War, the value of the enslaved human beings held as property added up to more than all of this nations’ railroads and factories combined." But historian James Oakes disputes this. (See below.)
   
4. She writes, "Reparations are a societal obligation in a nation where our Constitution sanctioned slavery, Congress passed laws protecting it and our federal government initiated, condoned and practiced legal racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans until half a century ago. And so it is the federal government that pays. / Reparations would go to any person who has documentation that he or she identified as a black person for at least 10 years before the beginning of any reparations process and can trace at least one ancestor back to American slavery." Is this fair? Our Constitution hasn't "sanctioned slavery" since the 13th Amendment. What about when the federal government stepped in to prevent segregation in the 50's and 60's?
   

"A Matter of Facts" by Sean Wilentz, responding to Jake Silverstein, the NYT Magazine's editor, who defended the 1619 article.

1. Wilentz agrees slavery and racism are crucial to U.S. history. But he insists a responsible retelling must also include (a) the antislavery tradition (including white and Black abolitionists) (b) Internal conflicts in the founding era, and (c) Complexity in figures like Lincoln
2. He rebuts NHJ's claim that American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery. In 1776, Britain was not actively threatening slavery in the colonies. The Somerset case (1772) was limited in scope and had little real impact in the American South. And colonists were already restricting the slave trade themselves and that motivations for independence were broader.
3. He also challenges her claim that Lincoln opposed Black equality. Lincoln, while imperfect, risked his presidency and life for Black freedom and later Black citizenship.
4. He pushes hard against her statement that Black Americans “fought back alone.” This erases white allies who were beaten, jailed, or killed in the fight for racial justice, from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement.
5. The 1619 Project has an important mission, but replacing one myth with another weakens its cause. To defend democracy and fight oppression, Wilentz insists we must remain committed to "plain, provable facts"—even when confronting painful truths.
   

Historian James Oakes (one of the scholars who signed a letter to the NYTimes challenging the 1619 Project) on "How the 1619 Project Distorted History"

1. He criticizes the project’s tone of discovery, suggesting it insults generations of historians and teachers who have long taught the significance of 1619.
2. He strongly objects to the claim that the protection of slavery was a “primary” motive for the American Revolution, calling it “absurd” and unsupported by historical evidence.
3. He asserts that the 1619 Project ignores or downplays white antislavery activism, from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War.
4. Oakes criticizes sociologist Matthew Desmond’s essay for misstating how cotton was grown, how plantations operated, and how accounting practices evolved.
5. He contends that the project exaggerates the role of slavery in building the broader U.S. economy, especially in the North, and ignores evidence that slavery harmed long-term Southern development, and most Northern wealth was not generated by the cotton economy. (See more below.)
6. He argues that the 1619 Project treats emancipation as a footnote, rather than the revolutionary transformation it was.
7. He emphasizes the radical social and political changes that followed the Civil War, including the end of legal slavery, Black family formation, education, and land ownership—none of which are given due attention in the 1619 narrative.
8. Oakes accuses the 1619 Project of promoting a “monocausal” theory of U.S. history—that racism and slavery explain nearly everything.
9. Oakes affirms that slavery was central to U.S. history, but criticizes the 1619 Project for flattening complexity, erasing conflict, and distorting evidence to serve a present-day political agenda—namely, reparations.
10. He concludes that a better understanding of slavery involves recognizing both its deep entrenchment in capitalism and the powerful antislavery movements that arose in response.

Stanford professor of economic history, Gavin Wright's article, "Slavery and Economic Growth in the Early United States" (He was cited in James Oakes' article above, which is how I got to this.) He argues that while slavery was crucial to certain regional economies, especially in the colonial period and the South, it was not central to the overall acceleration of national economic growth in the 19th century. He challenges claims made by the "New History of Capitalism" (NHC) movement that slavery built American capitalism.

1. Slavery Was Important in Colonial Commerce Before the Revolution, slavery was widespread, including in the North. Northern commerce thrived on trade with slave economies in the Caribbean, with industries like shipping, meat, grain, and shipbuilding benefiting from the Atlantic slave economy.
2. The rise of cotton in the South was part of national growth, but cotton production didn’t inherently require slave labor. Wright argues that cotton could have been cultivated using free labor, as in the Old Northwest (e.g., Ohio, Indiana). Slavery persisted not because it was economically necessary, but because of “path dependence”—it was already embedded in Southern society.
3. The South’s economy was highly productive in cotton, but underdeveloped in other areas: Weak infrastructure, Low public education, Little immigration. Most wealth went to enslavers, not the broader society; by contrast, free states saw infrastructure investment, population growth, and industrialization.
4. Free States Powered National Economic Growth. Growth in the 19th-century U.S. was driven by: Expansion of free family farming in the Midwest, Transportation networks (e.g., the Erie Canal, railroads), Urban-industrial development in the North, A mass public school system
5. Complicity ≠ Centrality. Northern businesses (e.g., banks, shipping firms) were often complicit in slavery, facilitating trade or offering credit to planters. But complicity is not the same as driving the national economy through slavery. Wright argues that slavery was profitable for some, but not the engine of national growth.
6. Reparations Debate: Not Directly Addressed. Wright notes that these economic findings don’t negate calls for reparations or moral accountability. He clarifies that while most gains from slavery went to slaveowners, the system was constitutionally protected and nationally sustained.
   
7. Follow up question: If slavery wasn't central to national economic growth, does that weaken the case for reparations? Or is the moral and social harm enough, regardless of how much wealth it generated?

Dierdre McCloskey's article on how "Slavery Did Not Make America Rich," cited in Jason Riley's book

Settler Colonialism

 Because this has come up in the Kathleen DuVal book I'm reading now...

What is Settler Colonialism? in the New York Times (Jan. 22, 2024)

🔍 Definition and Origins

• Settler colonialism is a concept from academic and activist circles referring to colonialism where settlers displace Indigenous populations to establish permanent societies.

• It differs from extractive colonialism (focused on resources) by aiming to eliminate and replace the existing population.

• It emerged from postcolonial studies and gained traction particularly after Patrick Wolfe’s 1998 work. Wolfe famously called settler colonialism a “structure, not an event”, meaning it persists through legal and political systems.

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📚 Academic Development

• The concept has spread across many disciplines (history, law, literature, etc.).

• Scholars like Caroline Elkins and Aziz Rana argue it’s a useful analytical tool, not a blanket condemnation.

• Critiques exist, even within academia: Some argue it's overly simplistic or erases Indigenous agency and survival (e.g., historian Ned Blackhawk).

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⚔️ Controversies and Misunderstandings

• Using the term often ignites fierce political debate, especially regarding Israel, where it's used by critics to describe Zionism as a colonial project.

• Supporters of Israel argue the label ignores Jewish indigeneity, refugee histories, and historical trauma.

• Scholars like Barnett Rubin argue the situation is ambiguous, noting that Israelis can be seen as both indigenous and settlers.

---

🌎 Beyond the West

• Some argue settler colonialism isn’t just a Western/white phenomenon.

• Examples include Japan in Manchuria, Indonesia in West Papua, and Liberia (settled by freed African Americans).

• Critics like Lachlan McNamee caution against viewing settler colonialism solely through a Euro-American lens.

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🇺🇸 Application to the U.S.

• While the concept is less politically charged in the U.S., it underpins many practices like land acknowledgments.

• Scholars like Aziz Rana use the framework to critique U.S. history and its racial and legal hierarchies.

• However, even advocates caution that it is not a master key to all historical understanding — it reveals some truths while obscuring others.

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🧠 Bottom Line

• Settler colonialism is a powerful but polarizing concept. It helps analyze patterns of land seizure and domination but can become politicized or overgeneralized.

• It reveals hidden continuities in legal and political structures but must be applied with historical nuance.

Thanks, Obama!

 Obama's interview with Heather Cox Richardson this past June

Talking about LBJ in the Civil Rights Movement: "As flawed and tragic a figure as he was in a lot of ways, his capacity to overcome the constraints of his background and his politics as a Dixiecrat and then say, “You know what? At this moment in history, I’m going to help make this happen.” That was important, too."

Talking about how change comes both from inside the system and from pressure without: "That, I think, continues to be the recipe for change when our democracy is working. I do believe the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen. That change happens because ordinary people get together and reimagine what their lives could be and push on the system, but I also think that you have to have people inside that system that can translate those impulses into laws and institutional practices. I’ve been on both sides of that equation, and there have been times once I was in office where I got pushed, and sometimes it was annoying to me, but it was necessary. It was sometimes necessary for me when I was on the outside and I pushed to hear that those who were working within government or in politics, it was important for them to be able to explain that you’re not the only interest group, you’re not the only constituency, there are other equities. We have to balance those equities. That’s part of our job.That I think is how a healthy democracy works."

When asked about the Trump administration: "But what we are also witnessing is that when the system is captured by those who, let’s say, have a weak attachment to democracy."

Talking about liberal democracy: "...understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work. When I say liberal, I don’t mean left. I mean liberal in the sense of believing in rule of law and independent judiciary and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, protest, compromise, and pluralism.

All those institutional norms and laws that were embodied in the Constitution imperfectly and then over time, were expanded so that we had a basic understanding of I can’t just be picked up on the street and hauled off to another country. That wasn’t a partisan view, that wasn’t a Republican or a Democratic notion that that shouldn’t happen. That was an American value and norm.

What I believe it continues to be that there has to be responses and pushback from civil society, from various institutions and individuals outside of government, but there also has to be people in government, in both parties who say, “Well, no, you can’t do that. You can’t do that.” What we’re seeing right now is when you do not have those constraints or guardrails, when you don’t have people inside of government who say, “No, this is how the law works, and we should follow it.”

Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. It requires them to take that oath seriously. — (Applause.) — When that isn’t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies."

About how progressives' values are being tested now: But what’s been fascinating about this period in our history, and it’s anomalous, is that things got steadily better. I mean, the world became hugely wealthier and healthier and better educated, and infant mortality dropped. Women and girls suddenly had access to education. Human rights became an idea that people violated but were guilty about.

If you listen to sometimes like just Nixon in the Nixon tapes, just talking about bombing Cambodia, crazy how indifferent they were in ways that were taken for granted then. Now, whatever differences I have with the Bush administration, they wouldn’t have conversations like that. That happened just in 20 years. I think a lot of us started to take it for granted. Part of what happened was if you were relatively privileged to have grown up in the United States of America during this period, you could be as progressive and socially conscious as you wanted, and you did not have to pay a price.

You could still make a lot of money. You could still hang out in Aspen, Milan, and travel and have a house in the Hamptons and still think of yourself as a progressive. Now things are a little different. Your commitments are being tested, not the way Nelson Mandela’s commitments were tested where you go to jail for 27 years, you might lose some of your donors if you’re a university. If you’re a law firm, your billings might drop a little bit, which means you cannot remodel that kitchen in your house in the Hamptons this summer.

Some recent articles I've read and annotated

 Why Study History? by Paul Gagnon in The Atlantic in 1998.

Has America Given Up on Children’s Learning? in The New York Times in May 2025. I love how it describes changes in reading instruction and validates content knowledge subjects in this passage: " But now, some of the attention has shifted to additional aspects of literacy instruction that are backed by cognitive science, and crucial for turning beginning readers into proficient ones; namely, the finding that to become a good reader, and thus a well-educated worker and citizen, children need a strong vocabulary and knowledge about the world. The subjects that best build vocabulary and knowledge are social studies and science...."

Fifty years of campus expression: revisiting the role of university leaders from Nov 2024. I like this part: "Free expression must be protected even when social norms are compromised by the speaker. The answer to speech that offends us is, most often, our own speech; the response to hateful speech is speech that effectively counters the words of hate."

Below are all glimpses of the rabbit-hole I went down into when I was reading Jason Riley's book on affirmative action and the 1619 debate (which was especially fascinating). First, I got side-tracked trying to learn about the debate over the New History of Capitalism:

• Slavery Did Not Make America Rich by Deirdre McCloskey
• Slavery and Economic Growth in the Early United States by Gavin Wright
• A Few Random Thoughts on Capitalism and Slavery by James Oakes

Then I got into critiques of Nicole Hannah-Jones and the 1619 project:

• A Matter of Facts by Sean Wilentz in The Atlantic
• How the 1619 Project Distorted History by James Oakes
• What is Owed by Nikole Hannah-Jones in The New York Times back in 2020

The Feminist Case for Spending Billions to Boost the Birthrate in The New York Times just a couple weeks ago. Am I a free-rider?

The Last Empire, for Now a 2004 book review in The New York Times trashing Niall Ferguson's claims about US Empire. I can't remember how I got into this!

David Wengrow's 2024 article in Aeon about Beyond kingdoms and empires. Trying to remember the book he wrote with David Graeber, I fell down a rabbit-hole that I documented here.

Some Farnam Street articles I've annotated in the past few months

The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught: How to Think Better

One great passage: "I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing." It goes on to talk about the value of writing as a way of processing your thoughts and compressing ideas to their essentials.

Choosing Your Next Book

I especially like the part about letting time be a filter: "What has been will continue to be. The second idea is the Lindy Effect, which is just a fancy way of saying what’s been around will continue to be around. In his book Antifragile, author Nassim Taleb, who builds on the idea of Benoit Mandelbrot, writes: 'For the perishable, every additional day in its life translates into a shorter additional life expectancy. For the nonperishable, every additional day may imply a longer life expectancy. So the longer a technology lives, the longer it can be expected to live.'"

The Best Summary of How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler on the four levels of reading: Elementary, Inspectional, Analytical, and Synoptical Reading

Stop Reading News: One great line is, "News is a cropped photo, not the whole picture."

"Two incompatible sacred values in American universities" Jon Haidt, Hayek Lecture Series

 

Noteworthy articles I read in 2024

I'm in the middle of my trip through presidential biographies. Started with Ron Chernow's biography of Washington in summer 2023, and got to David Herbert Donald's bio of Lincoln by winter break. In between books, here are some notable articles I enjoyed and wanted to save:

• ‘They Always Say the Younger You Start, the Better’ by Daisy Schofield in New York Magazine (October 2023)
• The Misguided War on the SAT by David Leonhardt in the NY Times (January)
• California’s Push for Ethnic Studies Runs Into the Israel-Hamas War by in the NY Times (February)
• Why So Many Children of Immigrants Rise to the Top by Peter Coy in the NY Times (March)
• The Colorblindness Trap by Nikole Hannah-Jones in the New York Times Magazine (March), along with Five Takeaways follow-up article