ON BOOKS | OPINION: Ken Burns’ 'The American Revolution' and John Fabian Witt’s 'The Radical Fund' revisit the unfinished story of American freedom

American history, when told well, resists the tidy progressions we like to imagine for it. Two recent works -- Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward's "The American Revolution: An Intimate History" and John Fabian Witt's "The Radical Fund" -- remind us that the nation's story has always been a negotiation between vision and imperfection.