Winter 2026

The Outback sun is boring holes in us, but the Martu people—whose ancestors roamed these desert lands for more than 50,000 years—seem unbothered. Together with six Martu Indigenous Australians and two Pew colleagues, I’m walking through brittle brush and wildflowers on an August day in Matuwa Kurrara Kurrara, a new national park some 70 miles north of the tiny town of Wiluna, Western Australia, which sits more than 500 miles northeast of Perth.

Trust Magazine

Over the past half century, Ken Burns has become America’s storyteller. His documentaries provide a history of the nation through biographies, sports, music, and other subjects. His most recent film, “The American Revolution,” which was supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, premiered in November on PBS. He spoke about it with Pew recently in his barn office in New Hampshire.

Trust Magazine

Two hundred and fifty years later, the American Revolution is as relevant as ever. The values and the ideas discussed, debated, argued over, and ultimately written down in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution as 13 North American colonies broke from British rule in the 18th century remain essential to how we think about government today. Five prominent historians and filmmakers reflected on the war’s epic impact in a wide-ranging conversation at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in September that then aired as a national PBS special supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts in November.

Trust Magazine