When Ken Burns’s series The Civil War was first shown on five successive nights in a single week in September 1990, it caused a sensation. In the era before streaming and catch-up, to see the series you had to watch it when it was transmitted. The average viewing figure was 14 million per episode, and it was estimated that about 39 million Americans watched at least one episode. It was said that, as the week progressed, bars and restaurants closed, and people cancelled dinner parties because everyone wanted to stay at home to watch the next two-hour episode.
Burns went on to make several other major historical series, including projects on Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The National Parks (2009), The Roosevelts (2014), and The Vietnam War (2017). They were all very watchable and powerful television. His latest effort, The American Revolution, first shown on PBS in November 2025, is impressive – but at six two-hour episodes, it is also very long, and may lack the impact of earlier series, especially The Civil War (see box below).
The United States is deeply divided today in the run-up to what will be the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence this summer. President Trump’s policies on foreign affairs, on the use of the justice system, and on the expulsion of illegal immigrants are immensely popular with some Americans, but deeply opposed by others who fear that traditional American values are being overruled or forgotten. The American Revolution is a timely reminder by Burns of the idealism behind the founding story of the US. Not many nations have an origin like that of America and the team behind the series works hard to present this as a grand and noble project.
