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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

As always I’m in, but I assume they’re going to use more reenactments. 12 hours of Peter Coyote narrating historical paintings is a heavy lift for most viewers. 

I’ve spent several hours listening to and watching her walk around Revolutionary battlefields and other sites and discussing maps, so yeah, let’s keep the paintings down and focus on re-enactments and tours of famous places and maps.  

https://www.youtube.com/@AllRevolutionaryWar

 

 

 

 

Edited by atomheartbevo
Posted
49 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Has a sequel been announced?

We don't talk about the Whiskey Rebellion.

6 minutes ago, Dutch said:

Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney voicing the Adams was a very nice touch. 

Very nice. I had not looked at the credits leading up to tonight, so was very pleased.

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Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, squib said:

Enjoyed E1.

Same. I was extremely pleased with the pacing - I wondered how much time they would put into the build-up to Lexington and Concord and the British retreat (or "World-building" as the kids say) but working through the early years (1750s/60s with Washington and Franklin) and up to those battles in the first episode was well-done. I hope the uneducated masses now know Washington and Franklin didn't spring into existence in the 1770s, and that Sam Adams is a great name for a beer, given how much shit he was constantly stirring up, and that it was truly a civil war.

I like the re-enactments as well - lots of showing stuff happening (things being made, hands carrying rifles, etc.) but not fixated on faces (the mobs were in shadows, etc.). I was kind of worried we'd see re-enactments that take us out of the series, but everything blended together well - paintings, illustrations, etc.  I'm so used to really bad re-enactments from various History Channel shows, but Ken is not going to let us down.

I'm assuming a lot of the watercolors were done recently, since they depict some very specific things being mentioned in the narrative, and the look was very distinctive, making me think they wanted to differentiate those from the various historical paintings they used.

I knew of every historian they mentioned except for two, and had read books by several of them, which was cool.

They did a good job of building up the tension of the British soldiers being quartered amongst the population and the build-up in Boston and how it was perceived by the locals.

I watched it with my middle-schooler, and he's now fixated on the Revolution.

Also, Peter Coyote is a national treasure, and while he's still doing well apparently (being in his 80s) I would support future use of AI to recreate his voice for any future Ken Burns series.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Posted
49 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I'm assuming a lot of the watercolors were done recently, since they depict some very specific things being mentioned in the narrative, and the look was very distinctive, making me think they wanted to differentiate those from the various historical paintings they used.

Loved this and thought the same thing. 

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Posted
On 11/13/2025 at 6:10 PM, atomheartbevo said:

I’ve spent several hours listening to and watching her walk around Revolutionary battlefields and other sites and discussing maps, so yeah, let’s keep the paintings down and focus on re-enactments and tours of famous places and maps.  

https://www.youtube.com/@AllRevolutionaryWar

 

 

 

 

No clue how you made it several hours. I was out after several seconds. That's unlistenable.  

Posted

I enjoyed episode 1 and am now watching episode 2 on the PBS app.

Their app is great. All of the episodes are up already. I really love having the app because Fubo doesn’t carry PBS here, and it’s the only local channel I can’t get over the air here for some reason.

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Posted

Good stuff.

Watched the first two episodes tonight after just recently watching Kelsey Grammer's hosted series Blood on the Bridge (Lexington&Concord battle). Whether watching this or just reading about the revolution, it always amazes me about how very common (and young) men or women shaped this country during it's foundation. 

I'm sure I'll watch one or two more episodes tomorrow.

 

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Posted

A few months ago, I came across this video about the American Revolution from the same guy who did that "Checkmate Lincolnites" one from a while back, if any of you recall it. It's a tad over 40 minutes, so be prepared for its length, but I find his discussion of not just the politics but also the economics fascinating, especially when contrasting the Puritans and merchant classes in New England (along with their history) against the landed gentry (i.e., planters and slave holders) in the South a worthy one to make. Anyway, there's more to it, but I think this makes for a nice complementary piece to last night's episode. 

 

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Posted

burns explains the approach to this series, excellent read, essential for the connisseur:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ken-burns-says-his-new-documentary-forced-him-to-revisit-everything-he-thought-he-knew-about-the-american-revolution-180987667/

 

if you really want to geek out, lexington was a false flag orchestrated by hancock, adams and revere:

http://www.redcoat.me.uk/Secrets.htm

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Posted
20 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

that it was truly a civil war.

 

I watched a BBC documentary mini-series about 20 years ago called Rebels and Redcoats.  It was really great and it was the first time I'd heard the revolution described as a Civil War.

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Posted
26 minutes ago, Hellraiser97 said:

I watched a BBC documentary mini-series about 20 years ago called Rebels and Redcoats.  It was really great and it was the first time I'd heard the revolution described as a Civil War.

I had a history teacher in high school who talked about how everybody involved had been British citizens outside of the Hessians and French and Indians, and it stuck with me.  Even Hamilton was born in the West Indies under British rule,

Posted

"Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Iceman said:

Dumb question amnesty:  why is every episode available to me, save for #1?

I'm not sure, man. To be clear, I don't "subscribe" to PBS and the Midland transmitter is too far away to get it over-the-air, but my TV has a PBS app built into for streaming it on line (I don't have cable). But, at the moment, the entire series is available to me if I'd like to binge it. That said, I'm just watching one episode a night with the live stream.

 

Do you have a laptop available to you to check there?

Posted
2 hours ago, Hellraiser97 said:

I watched a BBC documentary mini-series about 20 years ago called Rebels and Redcoats.  It was really great and it was the first time I'd heard the revolution described as a Civil War.

Pretty sure I watched it a few years ago during the pandemic. This appears to be the documentary in full on YouTube, where I think I watched it.

 

 

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Posted

I do like that they really hammered home a couple of major points that many don't realize:

  1. Washington's army got pretty fucking small as many Americans were not fully committed to this endeavor.
  2. A lot of British would have been fine with the colonies leaving if it stopped the hemorrhaging of money and they still had trade, and a lot of American patriots/rebels would have been fine staying within the empire if things would go back to the way they used to be.

#2 is an amazing alt-history topic to run down the rabbit hole on - had the Brits backed off, listened to the American grievances, compromised in some manner (yes, they had enormous war debts still left over) and you don't have Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and all of the other Founding Fathers getting together and building a new nation, what happens?  If American remains a colony (or 13 colonies) into the 19th Century, what does that do with British military engagements and foreign policy into the 19th Century, Napolean, etc. What about the French Revolution?  Just crazy to ponder.

Posted

the french revolution was teed up by the success of the US revolt so not much highcastle there....

the napoleonic wars would have been totally different

but then the uk ending slavery in 1834 would have eventually created a divorce war

Posted
6 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

the french revolution was teed up by the success of the US revolt so not much highcastle there....

the napoleonic wars would have been totally different

but then the uk ending slavery in 1834 would have eventually created a divorce war

Yep.

Napolean who?

The UK in 1834, with the American colonies/Canada/Caribbean would have been a massive economic and military powerhouse on a level hard to imagine. I think they could have pulled it off.

 

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