How to Use this Study Guide
How to Use this Study Guide
This very short video is a teaser to remind you why you need to use this website.
Before you watch Ken Burns, “America’s Storyteller”, enthrall you with an emotional, lengthy and seemingly comprehensive view of an important period in American History, we suggest you learn a few facts beforehand to steel yourself against missing things that Burns has omitted or distorted in his narrative. When you sit down to watch it, we have provided you here on this website, a complete transcript of all ten episodes, color coded, footnoted, hyperlinked or marked to additional information that will allow you to pursue as much information as you wish on this subject. That color coding ranges from “red” indicating serious misinformation; “yellow” to suggest you might exercise caution in digesting the indicated statement, and “blue” to indicate a very important point that Burns is acknowledging and which may need more emphasis than he might be giving it. We have not yet used “green” because things that are unmarked probably are acceptable; Burns has done considerable research to bring this work together and much of it is factually acceptable. We also use other colors – “grey” to point our members to areas we think might need more research and “pink” to highlight loaded language that Burns uses to emphasize his messages. The colors will give you a warning, the footnotes [POINT YOUR CURSOR AT THE SUPERSCRIPT NUMBER BUT DO NOT CLICK. THE TEXT OF THE FOOTNOTE WILL APPEAR] and hyperlinks will explain that warning in detail. Over time, we expect the annotations to become increasingly voluminous.
A Short History of the Vietnam War as we see it.
The Counter History of the Vietnam War as seen by Burns, et al.