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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, the new six-part, 12-hour series that is currently streaming on PBS (directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt) examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe. The film relies on generations of historians and historical research to reframe the founding story as a global conflict and a civil war. Christopher Brown (Columbia University), Kathleen DuVal (University of North Carolina) and Jane Kamensky (Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello) were advisers and appear in the film. They joined Made by History for a roundtable conversation about the making of the film.
As a historical adviser to the film, what overlooked or underappreciated historical research or perspective did you encourage Ken Burns to include?
Kathleen DuVal: It was important to me for the film to represent the American Revolution in its international context—both European empires such as France and Spain and also Native nations, which were still sovereign powers on the border of the colonies. The Revolutionaries knew that was the world they had to work within, but sometimes Americans forget that.
Christopher Brown: I also stressed the importance of the global lens and I encouraged the team to keep the perspective of the British government in view. Many Americans have a limited understanding of what the American War for Independence was about from the British perspective: why taxation without representation made sense to the British government, why it seemed necessary to send redcoats to North America, why the British army failed to win the war even though they had superior resources. In a similar vein, I encouraged the team to present the loyalists as American dissenters and not merely obstacles to progress.
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