Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” is a compelling story of an emerging nation

History lovers, get ready to binge.

Documentarian and unofficial national historian Ken Burns is back this month with a revealing new PBS series. Alongside co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, Burns’ latest, The American Revolution, is six-part 12-hour extravaganza that premieres on PBS Sunday, November 16. The series looks at the struggle that upended an empire and gave birth to a new nation - the war, the politics, and the people, the tale of “how America’s founding turned the world upside-down.”  

The series revisits the era of the American Revolution with fresh eyes, presenting the conflict as more than simply a war of independence, but more a war of conquest, a civil war, and a world war simultaneously. With no video or photographic evidence from the era to draw upon, the documentary focuses on the written and illustrated record, and includes voices from across the spectrum - rank-and-file Continental soldiers, British officers, Native Americans, enslaved and free African Americans, Loyalists, and civilians. It’s not always pretty - the conflict frequently divided neighbors and families. Moreover, the military picture was often bleak; at times, more soldiers died from disease and exposure than in battle.

To learn more about the series, we spoke with Botstein and Schmidt recently by phone. Both have worked with Burns on numerous prior projects including Jazz, The Vietnam War and The U.S. and the Holocaust. “At the heart of the film is the dynamic between the idea of the American Revolution, this total upheaval about what it means to have a revolution, kicking the British monarchy aside and winning, such an unlikely underdog story, and really important to study when it comes to that American Revolution of ideas,” says Botstein. “But it's also a really bloody, deeply complicated, and brutal civil war, which becomes a world war. And you have to understand both those things at the same time to understand what's important.”

For the documentary's live-action scenes, the filmmakers attended and recorded numerous historical reenactments. “We spent some time with the reenactment groups without our cameras,” says Schmidt. “We filmed the big reenactments that they do, and then we spent the last couple of years sort of curating specialized groups - Hessian soldiers, the First Rhode Island, the New Jersey Grays, and British reenactors to do smal scale shoots that were much more impressionistic and specific to what we were doing,” says Botstein. Those reenactments included coverage of the famed First Rhode Island Division, and a profile of RI native Nathanial Greene, “Washington’s most trusted Lieutenant,” notes Schmidt. 

Rhode Island’s Gaspee Incident gets some attention as well. “After the Boston Massacre (1770), the British withdrew from occupying Boston,” says Schmidt. “There was a time of relative lull, which somebody like Samuel Adams was a little anxious about. He wanted to keep up the scare, as it were, keep the momentum going for this revolution that he was invested in. It kind of went by the wayside for a bit until the Gaspee Affair (1772) and a few other events which reignited the engine of revolution. That's the big one, it really started raising the temperature again. And then it picks up, of course, with the Tea Party.”

The film presents a more nuanced view of the “enemy,” including loyalists living in America, plus many enslaved Americans, who were promised freedom if they fought on the British side. “I think it's really important when doing a story of any war, to try to explain or understand why and have empathy and context for why different people make different decisions,” says Botstein.

“If you look at Rhode Island itself, Providence had a much closer tie to the mainland than Newport, which had a closer tie to the sea,” adds Schmidt. “Newport is occupied for much of the war by the British and later the French army. I think in places like that, you want to understand that an awful lot of Americans are people who will make the best decision that they can make in that moment in time. And sometimes, whose army is in my city right now? What can I do to protect myself, my property, my family? Other times it's ideological. You can't fault somebody for making the decision that this has been working out pretty well for me, I don't want to break the law, I want to go along with what's gotten us to where we are now, and that person might call themselves a loyalist.”

Schmidt recalls an “aha” moment during the film's production. “Sarah's probably sick of me saying this, but there's a moment in episode three where (Harvard) historian Maya Jasanoff says the United States was born out of violence. Now that is self-evident, right? It's a war that created this nation, but it's not how we think about the war. Once you get past that moment, I think it unlocks all the doors to understanding what happened. And what happened is that millions of people went through a real ordeal over the course of eight years of war and many more years of uncertainty and emerged on the other side with something that we're still dealing with today. The country was divided at our founding. We have a great tradition of political divisions.”

The American Revolution premieres Monday, November 17 on WSBE (RI PBS). Leam more at OceanStateMedia.org.