The West

This documentary was incredibly well done and well researched. A lot of very sensitive white people on IMDB have been leaving reviews about how this documentary is a "revisionist" history and framed as all white men are evil. As a guy who teaches history I find it fascinating that so many people believe whatever version of history they learned growing should be the only version that future generations learn about. History is something that can be interpreted differently by different generations. Just because you were raised with some baby boomer propaganda filled version of American history does not mean that any other version is "revisionist" or "PC."

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 history of 'The West', the area of the United States west of the Missouri River, from the 16th century to the early 1900s.

Interesting documentary series. Well-researched, with some great detail. Doesn't cover just bigger-picture history but also some of the micro stuff, the lives of everyday people involved.

While the facts are interesting, this negated to some extent by the editorial bias. Instead of just giving the history, the writers decided to centre the series on the native Americans. This means that the common theme is that the white/US expansion into the west is bad and that whites are evil. You can sense the delight in Peter Coyote's voice as he details Custer's Last Stand.

Covering the native American perspective was necessary but it didn't have to be the only perspective or a good vs bad, us vs them sort of thing. This focus extends into everything, including the intro theme, the music of which became very irritating, very quickly, yet got played ad nauseam in the series.

In addition, the one thing most people would have looked for in this series was stories of famous gunslingers and outlaws from the late-1800s. There's a brief mention of people like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, but that's it. This is consistent with a comment towards the end of the series that the actual West wasn't as glamourous or action-packed as Hollywood makes it out to be. This is true, but they could still have covered some of that history.

Overall, worth watching for a detailed history of the West. Just don't expect stories of gunslingers or a balanced approach to history.

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 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.