Product Description
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A riveting adventure of how America was invented, America: The
Story of US focuses on the people, ideas and events that built
our nation, covering 400 years of American history in the most
extensive and in-depth television series ever produced by
History. From the rigors of linking the continent by wagon trails
to the transcontinental railway, the engineering of
steel-structured buildings through to landing on the moon, this
epic 12-part series is a grand cinematic vision of how this
country was built. America: The Story of US brings this story to
life firsthand through patriots, frontiersmen, slaves,
abolitionists, Native Americans, pioneers, immigrants,
entrepreneurs and inventors. From the revolutionary war that
birthed the nation to the civil war that divided it, into the
making of the modern world, America: The Story of US is an epic,
dramatic, heartbreaking and triumphant journey that reminds US
that American history truly belongs to we, the people. Sharing
their thoughts on the building of America, and what it means to
be an American, are a world-class group of individuals including
Tom Brokaw, Michael Douglas, Meryl Streep, Buzz Aldrin, Colin
Powell, Donald Trump, John Legend, Melissa Etheridge, Brian
Williams and more.
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With 12 chapters spread out over three discs and a total running
time of more than nine hours (not including bonus material), the
History Channel's America: The Story of Us is a sprawling primer
on the history of the country and its people. Starting about 100
years after Columbus with the arrival of the earliest white
settlers from across the Atlantic and finishing in the present
day, the series can boast episodes devoted to major conflicts
like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II; the
more gradual but still significant developments that helped shape
the nation (like western expansion and the mass migration to
major cities); and the various elements and forces (the discovery
of oil; the growth of industry, engineering, and infrastructure;
the development of the automobile and other means of mass
transportation, and, of course, the accumulation of vast economic
and might) that combined to make the United States the
world's dominant superpower in the 20th century and beyond. To
the filmmakers' credit, the darker aspects of this
history--slavery and racial strife, the of Native
Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII--are
not given short shrift. And while much of the material is dealt
with in fairly broad strokes, there are also various enlightening
details in each chapter. Who knew that George Washington
established a network of spies who wrote notes in invisible ink
in order to deceive the British, or that the most valuable
currency for those who first explored the West was beaver pelts?
A combination of reenactments, photos, CGI, models, and other
elements delivers a great deal of information here, along with
frequent references to Americans' pioneer spirit, devotion to
hard work, and belief that if you can dream it, you can do it.
Yet this isn't an especially scholarly document. The events
depicted, from the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's midnight
ride to the Alamo and the Gettysburg Address, not to mention more
lurid tales like the Donner Party and the St. Valentine's Day
Massacre, should be familiar to those with even a cursory
knowledge of US history. The emphasis on star power, be it the
comments from a parade of talking heads including actors,
musicians, politicians (President Barack Obama among them),
athletes, soldiers, and so on, or the focus on charismatic
historical figures like John Brown, Daniel Boone, and many
others, reflects our celebrity-obsessed culture. And the constant
hyperbole (narrator Liev Schreiber intones some variation of
"What's about to happen will change things forever!" at least
half a dozen times in the first episode alone) becomes tedious.
Then again, considering the number of Americans who can't find
their own country on a , presenting the material like a
dramatic TV show instead of textbook was a shrewd idea. --Sam
Graham