Ken Burns has returned to the battlefield. Thirty-five years after his landmark series “The Civil War” defined a generation’s understanding of that conflict, the filmmaker has turned his lens to the nation’s origin story. His new six-part PBS docuseries, “The American Revolution,” is a sweeping, meticulous, and emotionally charged examination of the country’s founding. It is also a significant time commitment, and its deliberate pacing can feel like a marathon.
The Classic Burns Method on Full Display
Anyone familiar with the work of Ken Burns will immediately recognize the signature style. The calm, authoritative narration of Peter Coyote guides the viewer through a richly detailed script from longtime collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward. Slow, panning shots over historical documents and paintings are set to solemn, evocative music. The series feels familiar. It feels important. A-list actors, including Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hanks, Josh Brolin, and Claire Danes, give voice to the letters and diaries of the era, breathing life into historical figures. The result is a deeply sincere and carefully constructed narrative, but one that moves at a glacial pace. At two hours per episode, “The American Revolution” demands patience, a stark contrast to the quick-cut media of today. For some, its formal structure might evoke memories of a history teacher wheeling a TV cart into a classroom.
Painting a Picture Without Photographs
Unlike “The Civil War,” which benefited from an astonishing archive of 19th-century photography, this new series faced a significant visual hurdle: no cameras existed in the 1770s. There is no archival footage. Burns and his co-directors, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, solve this problem with thousands of hours of historical re-enactments. These are not grand, sweeping battle scenes. Instead, the focus is on intimate, visceral details. We see a muddy boot stepping onto a frozen path, a bloodied hand gripping a letter, or the silhouette of a soldier loading a rifle against a dawn sky. These small moments, combined with drone footage of historic landscapes and animated maps tracing troop movements, create a modest but powerful visual language that conveys the human scale of the war.
A Complicated Mix of Ideals and Contradictions
The series is about more than just military strategy. It positions the eight-year war as the first major conflict fought for the “unalienable rights” of human beings, but it refuses to shy away from the profound contradictions of that claim. The story constantly circles back to a central, haunting question: what did freedom truly mean in a new nation built on independence that also tolerated and profited from slavery? The narrative moves beyond the usual milestones of Lexington and Concord to investigate the moral fault lines of the era. It works to balance the perspectives of generals and politicians with those who were often left out of the story.
- Abigail Adams: Her famous plea to “remember the ladies” is presented as an early and essential voice of conscience.
- Phillis Wheatley: A Black poet who was once enslaved in Boston is given her proper place as one of the revolution’s first and most insightful chroniclers.
- Loyalists and Patriots: The series explores the internal divisions that turned the conflict into a civil war, splitting families and communities.
A Reckoning with the American Myth
What truly sets “The American Revolution” apart is its rejection of simple myth-making. The patriotism on display is not the blind devotion of a high school textbook. It is an act of reckoning. Burns presents the founding ideals as an ongoing argument, not a settled fact, directly connecting the unresolved issues of 1776 to the fractures that led to the Civil War in 1861 and the civic discord that persists today. One of the most compelling episodes, “The Times That Try Men’s Souls,” focuses on the brutal human cost of the war, making the choices faced by soldiers and civilians feel immediate and stark. The emotional weight of the struggle becomes heavier with each passing hour.
“From a small spark kindled in America, a flame has arisen. Not to be extinguished.”
The true strength of “The American Revolution” is its humanity. Hearing the desperation in the voices of soldiers freezing by the Delaware River or the soaring idealism of pamphleteers dreaming of self-governance gives the history consequence. At a time when national discourse feels broken, the series serves as a poignant reminder that the fight for America’s soul was never a single event. It was, and remains, an ongoing struggle for justice.