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An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns has directed film projects such as The Civil War, Baseball, The West, The War, and The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, all of which were developed for PBS. The late historian Stephen Ambrose said, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” While The New York Times has called Burns “the most accomplished filmmaker of his generation.”

His documentary, The Tenth Inning, which first aired in September 2010, picks up where his 1994 epic Baseball left off and captures the ugly, dark side of major league baseball in the 1990s and how the rise of performance drugs has reshaped America’s national pastime.

Prohibition, a three-part series aired in October 2011.

An eloquent keynote speaker, Ken Burns always address what we share in common, not what divides us. He discusses his famous celebrated documentary films, The National Parks, The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz, reveals the leadership models in the unexpectedly dramatic story of Lewis and Clark, delves into the complete and often contradictory lives of great American figures including Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mark Twain, and celebrates the achievements of the common soldier in The War.

“There is too much ‘pluribus’ these days,” Ken Burns says, “and not enough ‘unum.’ I’m in the business of ‘unum.'” He does this in his films, of course, but also in his equally acclaimed and riveting speeches before business and community audiences. Great oratory has all but disappeared from our public discourse, so it is indeed refreshing to have Burns remind us…words matter.

Photo Credit: Tim Llewellyn Photography

Categories: Author and Writer, Campus, Human Interest, Town Halls

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Topics

• Sharing The American Experience
  A compelling storyteller, Ken Burns' electrifying and unusually moving words remind audiences of the timeless lessons of history, and the enduring greatness and importance of the United States in the course of human events. Burns engages and celebrates what we share in common.

• No Ordinary Lives
  Drawing on some of Lincoln's most stirring words as inspiration, this speech engages the paradox of war by following the powerful themes in two of Ken Burns' best known works: The Civil War, his epic retelling of the most important event in American history, and The War, his intensely moving story of WWII told through the experiences of so-called ordinary people from four geographically distributed American towns.

• The National Parks
  Burns discusses, in this unusually moving and personal lecture, the great gift of our national parks. Here both "the immensity and the intimacy of time" merge, as we appreciate what the parks have added to our collective and individual spirit. He begins the talk with a 13-minute clip of the intro to The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

• An Evening With Ken Burns
  Any one of Ken Burns' films contains multitudes, and, on stage, he carefully selects the most relevant and fascinating examples of human courage, dignity and achievement he has chronicled. He can discuss any facet of his famous American trilogy. He can reveal the leadership models in the story of Lewis and Clark, or delve into the often contradictory but historically significant lives of figures such as Jack Johnson, Susan B. Anthony or Mark Twain. Whether discussing Thomas Jefferson or celebrating the common soldier in WWII, Burns addresses what we share in common, not what divides us. The effect of listening to him speak is not unlike that of watching one of his films: you are wholly immersed in a masterfully told story and, when it's over, you leave with a new sense of the history that shaped us, and of all it has made possible today.

• Race in America
  For more than 30 years, Burns has been dealing with the theme of race in his uniquely American documentaries. Now, in the age of Obama, he looks back from the perspective of monumental change in the country to reflect where we've been. With several clips from earlier films.

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