The West

Unique, amazing, massive project thoroughly documenting the expansion of the United States into the vast territories of the American WEST. Brutally honest, sympathetic insight into the fall of the many Native American peoples... some of the material is painful, sometimes bleak, but an absolute MUST SEE for any feeling person with even a passing interest in the history of America. Outstanding photography and the classic Ken Burns look & feel (executive & senior producer), but with director Stephen Ives' own insightful point-of-view. This series ranks right along side Burns' "Civil War" in scope and depth, IMHO. See it anyway you can, then demand the set on DVD! (DVD not available at this writing).

I am a huge fan of the West so watching a docu-series by Ken Burns on the West was a must for me and he delivered. High quality content and excellent narrating from Peter Coyote!

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.

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.

This documentary mini-series does a decent job of covering such a huge, complex subject in 9 episodes (about 10 hours of time). I like that appropriate focus and time given to American Indians, who played such a crucial role in the story, and to other groups like Latinos, blacks, and Chinese immigrants who played vital roles, as well.

(I'm also offended by a number of reviewers who complain that too much screen time is given to Indians and minorities. These same reviewers complain that whites aren't credited enough for their courage and virtues in subduing the "wild west" and "civilizing" the Indians. The irony is that these reviewers are the very sort of racist people who caused so much trouble and misery while the real history was being played out!)

On the whole, I do recommend watching this mini-series.