The West

This documentary directed by Steven Ives (not Ken Burns, as several of the reviews in this thread inaccurately state) is a sweeping epic that showcases the salient moments in the settlement of the American West. Using historical documents, academic narratives, scenes of stunning natural beauty, and original photos and documents, "The West" is a gripping and historically accurate overview of this great (and, at times, terrible) period in American history.

The reviews that complain that this series is somehow anti-American suffer from two flaws. The first is selection bias. Parts of "The West" feature cruelty and brutality, usually at the hands of white settlers. But to focus on this as the only distinguishing feature of the film ignores the numerous instances in which white people--e.g., Sam Houston, Brigham Young, Joseph Meek, just to take a few--are portrayed quite deservingly as heroes. Nor are all Native Americans portrayed in a positive light; the film also makes the point that the Lakota Sioux's claims to the Black Hills territory as their ancestral lands are somewhat ironic because the Lakota conquered the Kiowa and other tribes, driving them out of that area in conquests very similar to the Americans' accession of the West.

The second error is simple oversensitivity. The history of the West is both a great and terrible story. It's great because it epitomizes the expansive American spirit that binds us together as a nation. It's terrible because in acquiring the West, we (Americans, that is) more or less decimated an entire people. I think those who refer to this process as genocidal are wrong, but not by much. The history of the West is thus not a story of good or evil, but a story of both, and the film "The West" shows this dialectic unflinchingly. If you have too delicate a constitution to accept that brutality and suffering are the flip side of manifest destiny's glory, you should not watch this documentary. "The West" does not seek to spare anyone's feelings, but rather only to tell the truth about this period in all its great and awful reality.

In response to the ludicrous comments of the aforegoing jingoistic 'type': The writers of The West must have had more than a few facets of their mammoth piece right in order to elicit such a typically moronic right-wing-styled response in its appeal to nationalistic myth, grand-narrative delusion and brazen stereotype positing. Not to mention - the ironic circumstance of contending that 'we' as the Caucasiatic race are being slighted in some way, in order to showcase the romanticised moanings of other races. The series does no such thing... in fact it habitually (and necessarily) DOES turn about much of the essential Ameri-myths of Frontier and Manifest Destiny (and sundry others), which have been/are so central to your much lauded and generalised "natioanl consciousness". The series, in the main, does NOT disparage these! - nor is there essentially any need to - since they're not altogether bad, of course.

So, once you're finished waving your flag about, and - somewhat ironically - prattling on about the reductive "black and white", perhaps consider that an expansive narrative like The West MUST contain motifs and themes... it cannot present a comprehensive or 'complete' history (there is no such thing)... and is perfectly entitled to present perspectives that don't accord with someone-or-other's ideal of a 'balanced' account. 'Balance' is NO objective reality, and shouldn't be thought of as 'existing' as a universal truth awaiting insertion into subjectively-conceived narratives - not even quality history docos such as The West. As far as I could ascertain, The West does NOT prefigure or predetermine to depict white settlement as inherently disastrous in any event. It is celebrated as much or as far its nasty consequences are elucidated. And, the perspectives of native peoples OUGHT factor decisively anyway - it is no narrative flaw of The West to present this perspective... especially when facts abound to corroborate.

Also, to the aforementioned 'patriot' who seems fond of collectivising white America concerning all that overstated 'swell'stuff like "fighting communism" and "winning two World Wars" ... you're okay with maintaining the 'we' for all the OTHER stuff too, right?

The West does present narrative, production and continuity issues for me also, but I'm loathe to be allied to a K.P. such as thee.

I had looked forward to the series as coming from a master of the documentary form. After all, Burns set in motion several documentary devices that have been widely copied since, such as first-person voice-over narration and having the narrator sign off each spoken part with his or her name. The Civil War series was truly an achievement.

This thing, however--

It amounts to a chapters-long indictment of Europeans that verges on racism. It emerges after a while that the only good whites are dead whites. It's true that there was much brutality in white settlement of the west, and that horrible crimes were committed, usually unthinkingly, and many of them by whites. But is there really nothing more to the story than white-folks-bad/red-folks good? With a little effort, Ken Burns might have found, oh, I don't know, at least one good white person. Or, rather, one good white person who wasn't immediately tarred and feathered by his redneck fellows.

It's as if you were to tell the story of World War II and focus on nothing but the fact that the American armed forces were rigidly segregated at the time. Oh, wait, that one's probably Ken Burns' next.

Burns and Ives combine to produce a work that's very much up to Ken Burns' standards. As a viewing experience, it's everything you'd expect.

And then there's the content.

Much has been made about the supposed bias of Burns' presentation of the history of the west. A lot of time was spent on the way the US treated the indigenous populations, on the crimes of the US military, on the theft of lands, and the systematic attempts to eradicate native cultures. The loss of the age before white settlement is lamented.

Is this a balanced perspective? Maybe not, although I don't think it's as biased as other reviews would have you believe. The triumphs of the west are told as well as the losses. Not all whites are painted as evil, nor are all natives painted as innocent. Events are often just told as they happened, and the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions. A lot of the content doesn't concern native Americans at all.

More important that all of that, however, is that it's a story that needs telling. Americans have been indoctrinated with romantic fictions about the west for over a century. Giving Burns a chance to tell the other side of the story doesn't seem too much to ask. A few Hollywood movies that paint the indigenous people of America before westward expansion as noble savages - also a pleasant fiction, incidentally - does not make up for a century of bias, misinformation, and outright lies taught to American schoolchildren. What's worse is that for the most part, these fictions are still taught to American schoolchildren.

At nearly nine hours, The West is an experience that will take up several of your evenings, but it's nine hours that may change the way you think about American history.

The series elides over mentions of how the Apache and Sioux displaced the Cheyenne and other tribes, and how the Spaniards and then Mexicans took over the SouthWest, but none of these are disparaged or spoken of as having "stolen" the land from anyone. Only the evil white Americans "stole" the land and displaced rightful owners.

Also, much is made of the extermination of Indians. I used to live in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. There were once Tuscarawas Indians, but they were extinct, because the Iroquois had warred upon them and broken up their villages and driven every last one they didn't kill or enslave into the forests where they died of exposure and hunger. This was repeated throughout the continent and the history of the American Indian. They should surely have understood genocide and extermination of enemies, because that is how they regularly waged war.

Every piece of land in the world, from the Americas, to Europe, to Asia, Africa and Australia was conquered and displaced the previous residents, most many, many times over, throughout history. But the only time conquering territory and displacing and killing the previous inhabitants is evil: when the Americans did it. The Americans, the most selfless, righteous and generous people history has ever known, who gave their blood and treasure to rescue the Cubans, Phillipinos, all of Europe twice, the Far East, Iraq and Afghanistan and Korea and Vietnam and unlike all the superpowers of the past, the USA never took territory nor enslaved people other than in the contiguous N. American continent (Hawaii joined voluntarily).

Ken Burns did an admirable job of not taking sides in The Civil War, notwithstanding Barbara Fields constant scolding ("I grow impatient with people who say Lincoln couldn't have freed the slaves faster because of the times"). The PC left got to him about that, I'm sure, and everything he's done since then, Jazz, Baseball, The War, The West has focused on minorities, white man's injustice, women's rights and over-played these groups actual contribution, notwithstanding 99% of the history, like the Civil War, was driven by the people who actually did the actions that made history. Like it or not, Howard Zinn fans, those were white Americans.

Quit distorting history with liberal guilt. The conquest of North America was the greatest thing that ever happened in the history of the world, and had the most beneficial results for the entire world, blacks, Indians and all other minorities included. They are all better off in the United States, imperfect as it was and is, than anywhere else in the world.