Overview
- PBS will air the six-part, 12-hour series over six consecutive nights beginning Sunday, Nov. 16, with streaming available on the PBS app.
- Directed by Ken Burns with Sarah Botstein and David P. Schmidt and written by Geoffrey C. Ward, the film features narration by Peter Coyote and a star voice cast including Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Claire Danes, and Paul Giamatti.
- Reviewers highlight a dense, battle-by-battle approach that uses archival materials, reenactments, and old and 3D maps to track troop movements and strategy.
- The production frames the Revolution as both a fight for independence and a civil war involving enslaved Black Americans, Native nations, women, loyalists, and ambivalent colonists.
- Early reviews praise the series’ unflinching attention to founding contradictions—such as George Washington’s slaveholding, land speculation, and actions against Seneca and Cayuga villages—and advise deliberate viewing to absorb its scope.