Fantastic, Entertaining and Informative Overview of American History
I think all of the people complaining about the lack of academic level detail and scholarship in this series are missing the point. This 12 episode series is a really fantastic overview of American History. Oftentimes when we study history in school, through long, detailed books, over the course of several months, we tend to lose the forest for the trees. This medium of learning has it's place, watching this series you get a feel through a quick succession of stories, as to how America began and developed over the last two and a half centuries. What it lacks in "legitimate" scholarship it more than makes up for by it's production quality, compelling story-telling and entertainment. Another thing to note is the populist perspective of the series. Most history textbooks and academics focus too heavily on the actions of political leaders, but this series is truly about the "story of us" as indicated by its title. I was surprised to find that there was almost no discussion about the...
Highly enjoyable
First off, I am well aware that this documentary is not perfect. Having studied history, I feel that this documentary was lacking in some parts. Still, this series is solid and tight.
I learned a lot of neat trivia from this that I had not known before. This documentary feels to be geared more towards beginners, rather than scholars. If you're a history expert, you will find some parts lacking. (I am not a expert, but I do love history) but you will also most likely also learn some new things here. This would be a fun documentary for middle or high school students, as well as people who would like a basic (NOT a complete) overview of American history. I mean, it's impossible to give a complete overview of 400 years of history in twelve episodes, (less than twelve hours when you take out the commercials)
I can't say that I enjoyed all of the guest speakers, but some of them were rather relevant. Donald Trump talked about the Great Depression. Al Sharpton talked...
Flawed, but still enjoyable and informative
This six-night miniseries is a quick tour of American history from the first English colonies in the New World to the present. To properly hit every important event, person and place throughout American history is far beyond the scope of a series of this length. Nevertheless, it is a good view of all the most important developments that explain how the United States became what it is, without glossing over the darker spots such as Indian removal and slavery.
Some omissions (such as skimming over almost all of World War I) and some factual "Yeah, but..." moments in an otherwise good series would have earned a 4-star rating, but the 3-star comes from some of the people that they had commenting in the series. While some, such as Michael Bloomberg, make sense in the context of the material (for instance, New York City during the Revolution), there is no good reason to have celebrities along the lines of Sheryl Crow, Margaret Cho or Michael Douglas appearing in what's supposed...
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