The American Revolution

[Cipher]

Yes PBS a mighty counterweight and answer to the plaint: I got elastic bands keeping my shoes on ? Got those swollen-hand blues ? I've got thirteen channels of *@%^$*@%^$*@%^$*@%^$ on the T.V. to choose from.......

PBS is a national treasure. Nova, Frontline alone stand as sufficient atonement for the degenerate crap popular media has made and continues to make.

There is a series of vids by Burns explaining his methods. Interesting insight.

[LAB3]

Here's an eight minute run down on the series that was broadcast on a local PBS station earlier today. Yes, Peter Coyote is narrating.

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/12/nx-s1-5606359/ken-burns-american-revolution-review

[Buffalo Bill]

Looking like a pretty good series. Troops in the cities echos today. The class society is repulsive, another echo of today.

[salty_monk]

PBS is great... Some of it can be achieved with a VPN to the BBC but that's also under threat.

In this same sort of vein I read a good book recently.... Anyone who likes to read & likes this show might also like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon_of_Unrest

All his books are entertaining whilst also being educational....

[Rich82GS750TZ]

I have my DVR saving it so I can watch during some upcoming vacation time.

No spoilers, please, I want the ending to be a surprise.

[Buffalo Bill]

I've read a few books about the war, even a memoir of Washington's retreat from Brooklyn all the way up the Hudson.
This series is the first I heard they were also suffering a smallpox epidemic. omg…
A friend of mine when I lived in NYC 77-79, talked about how they drained the pond In Prospect Park and found cannon balls from the Battle of Long Island. Washington got outflanked.

[dpep]

I have my DVR saving it so I can watch during some upcoming vacation time.

No spoilers, please, I want the ending to be a surprise.

Join your local PBS affiliate and you will get a streaming service called Passport. You can stream any of Burns' productions including this one.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Join your local PBS affiliate and you will get a streaming service called Passport. You can stream any of Burns' productions including this one.

Thanks Don. Good to know. I actually have YouTube TV and have the AR series saved to watch in the next few weeks. I’ll look into the PBS service for more.

[dpep]

Another great episode. So far the thing of which I have the most increased awareness is how much this was a civil war--in many ways more of a civil war at the human level than was the civil war.that kicked off fourscore and four years later.

The latter was predominantly one region of the country against another region, each with a minority of sympathizers and agents among the other side. In the American Revolution loyalists and patriots lived side by side, shopped with the same merchants, went to the same churches and, yes, were more likely to be members of the same family.

[Buffalo Bill]

Loyalists and rebels did live side by side at the beginning of hostilities. Less and less as exposure to war impacted their local lives.

[dpep]

Join your local PBS affiliate and you will get a streaming service called Passport. You can stream any of Burns' productions including this one.

Thanks Don. Good to know. I actually have YouTube TV and have the AR series saved to watch in the next few weeks. I’ll look into the PBS service for more.

The above exchange is to me a great illustration of how things have changed since the airing of The Civil War 35 years ago. The rise of streaming has served the decline of shared experience in our country and, well, everywhere.

Back in 1990 almost everyone watched each episode all at the same time and the next day talked about it with their friends, neighbors, and coworkers who just had virtually the same experience. I can remember going to a client's office the day after an episode and everyone chiming in on the presentation. Today it would for many just go on the stack of programs to later be binged if there were time.

Technology has given us so many choices of what to see and when to see it that for large numbers of us to experience the same event in the same way is uncommon. I am not a Luddite. I avail myself of those technologies as much or more than most. Still I can't help but feel they have in some ways reduced our sense of community and contributed to our divisiveness.

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We will now return you to our regularly scheduled thread subject.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

“Get off my lawn!!” Just kidding, Don. I appreciate your comment and do somewhat concur. Streaming has definitely changed the way we consume media and the way in which we enjoy sharing it with others. I no longer know, nor care, what day, or time, or on what channel anything “airs”. I find the things I want to watch and watch whenever I feel like it.

[rphillips]

I've never thought of it that way, but after reading your post, totally agree....We've probably had conversations about texting instead of talking. Many times a text doesn't give a tone of voice, sometimes needed to get the correct context of the typed words.

[Burque73]

Ken Burns is certainly diving deeper than our history books did. I'm learning and re-learning a lot. The names of these places in New York are bringing back vivid memories of my 5th and 6th grade years. I lived on Griffis Air Force Base, just outside of Rome, NY. We swam and fished in the Mowhawk River. Our 6th grade class went to Fort Stanwix on a field trip in 1985. They had folks in period correct positions and attire. Oh, this is neat, decades later here in Albuquerque I was chatting with a friend at church about work. He was an archeologist and oversaw the reconstruction of Fort Stanwix. He gave me a book that he wrote about it called Casemates And Cannonballs.

On the Air Force base there were untouched wooded areas that were used for combat training. The forest was, as mentioned in the PBS show, so dense it was hard to see more than three feet in front of you. To hide from one another we simply knelt down in the thick foliage and disappeared. We hid so well the soldiers would be firing their M-16's with blanks at each other within a few feet of where we were. To be in actual combat, especially against indigenous people that knew the area, would be insane. Not to mention trying to manuver through the thick woods with a six foot long (without the bayonet) musket.

It's been challenging to watch as the episodes air so I've used the app.

Hope that didn't spoil anything for you Rich. I've tried not to comment on things and spoil your experience.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

No worries Roger.