Six months away from its 250th year, the United States of America is still in its infancy. It is an empire forever moving and shifting, trying to decide what it will be. Prolific documentarian Ken Burns and his co-directors, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, bring America’s bloody origin story to life in PBS’ vast, highly detailed series, **“The American Revolution,”** a project that took nearly a decade to create.

Spanning three decades and two continents, this six-episode, 12-hour docuseries is a treasure trove of oft-forgotten history, illustrating who we were and illuminating who we are as a country. Narrated by frequent Burns collaborator Peter Coyote, “The American Revolution” winds its way back well before that fateful day in July 1776 when the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence.

The directors begin the tale almost 20 years earlier, when Benjamin Franklin first publicly called for the British colonies to form a union. Franklin’s proposal was initially rejected, yet as the series highlights, the subsequent years—marked by unfair taxation by the British government, the French and Indian War, the Boston Massacre, and later the Boston Tea Party—led the colonists, who would call themselves Patriots, to revisit Franklin’s plan.

As with many of Burns’ works, such as “The Civil War,” “The American Buffalo,” and “Jazz,” **“The American Revolution” is as intricate as it is dense**. In the absence of photographs and other modern visuals, the crew employs several techniques to bring the era and its hard-won battles to life. Animated maps and portraits, evocative voice-overs by distinguished orators including Keith David, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Samuel L. Jackson, and insightful commentary from historians like Vincent Brown and Maggie Blackhawk, all weave together a multidimensional tapestry of the era, with writer Geoffrey Ward at the helm.

Crucially, the series shares firsthand accounts from loyalists and the English Crown, enslaved and free Blacks, Indigenous people, women, and patriot fighters from across the 13 colonies. Through these diverse voices, the series conveys how varied America has always been and how this revolutionary war impacted everyone.

**“The American Revolution” goes deep—almost tediously so—but it is stuffed with riveting sequences, betrayals, and shocking turns of events.** Episode 3, “The Times That Try Men’s Souls (July 1776–January 1777),” is particularly compelling. It centers on early battles, including the Battle of Trenton, a decisive American victory that boosted morale within the fledgling Continental Army. Audiences are immersed in the horrors of war: fought eyeball to eyeball by landless men wielding muskets, unreliable rifles, and terrifying bayonets.

George Washington, the commander of the Americans, often made costly mistakes, while soldiers frequently went months without pay or proper food and clothing—even as they faced harsh elements and deadly smallpox. (Washington would later demand that all soldiers be inoculated, an early form of a vaccine mandate.)

In true Burns fashion, **“The American Revolution” is exhaustively thorough, leaving no popular figure or person on the fringes overlooked**. By portraying the war not only from the American perspective but also from a global point of view, the series presents a rounded picture of the country at its foundation—a bold idea that eventually became a reality.

The series also highlights the cracks in our ongoing union and suggests how we might overcome our fallacies as a nation, so that America might endure and truly become the place of liberty it was intended to be. For now, however, the American Revolution continues.

**“The American Revolution” premieres on PBS Nov. 16, with remaining episodes airing each consecutive night.**
https://variety.com/2025/tv/reviews/the-american-revolution-ken-burns-pbs-1236582566/