Histoire de l'Amérique

This is a Cliff notes version of American history. Initially visually engaging, as it moves into the second disc, they keep reusing their favorite re-enactments of Civil and Revolutionary war and many other CGI effects that they were obviously very proud of. The repetition started to really drive me nuts. I did enjoy seeing actual footage of things when they got into the 1930s, but then they kept inserting the reenactment footage, and it was maddening.

As a teacher, I am using the first two episodes to help fifth grade students understand and appreciate the challenges of the American Revolution. I will admit I have not watched beyond these episodes, but feel that at least the first two give an abbreviated but accurate window about the challenges of the American Revolution. I would have liked to see more about the French and Indian Wars, as well as the Stamp Act and Intolerable Acts, but there are few videos available that open the many topics of interest about the American Revolution without being COMPLETELY boring. This video, in my opinion, will interest students to research beyond what they have seen on screen. Sadly, the youth of today need a video to motivate them to learn more, so I feel this video series does a nice job of making the American Revolution interesting and accessible to young people.

From the narrator mispronouncing names like Powhatan and Antietam to repeating well-refuted legends such as buckets of blood and human flesh at the Donner Party campsite, I spotted one factual error after another in this series. The show even goes so far as to speculate that modern day computers are based on 19th century textile machine "technology" but states it as if it's fact. Add to that the annoying "shaky cam" effects during action scenes and flashing camera cuts and it all adds up to colossal disappointment which outweighs anything good the series might have to offer.

I was pleased to see some attention given to the presence and contributions of free blacks early in our nation's history. Native Americans were also presented in a more even-handed manner than I've seen in other historic shows. Some of the special effects, such as the computer simulations of the growth of cities, were well done. Other special effects done in the manner of "CSI" were unnecessary and seemed out of place.

The commentators were a mish-mash of celebrities and "experts" with only a handful of them adding any kind of useful or factual insights. Again, so much of the information was incorrect or slanted to support certain modern day perspectives that it was difficult to know what was credible and what wasn't which, in my humble opinion, makes this a pretty useless history show.

I can't believe all the bad reviews. I think they were all written by history professors or buffs, which are most definitely not the target audience.

Someone said this was "for the sesame street generation". Well count me in! I enjoyed the CGI, the appearances by singers and other figures, the fast pace. I'm not going to split hairs because they mispronounced an Indian name.

This is a great history lesson for the 90% of us who would never watch a history lesson. It was a great, light, fun to watch story that reminded me of all the things I had forgotten in the decades since I took history in school.

If you don't like documentaries, but want to feel good about America, to be reminded how far we've come, how we struggled and how we still made it, what is in our blood that makes us unique, watch this show.

I've watched this series once and currently watching it again, but just curious why some wars and some things were left out that were part of our history.