Here is a quick summary of the series content:
John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan rose from obscurity and in the process built modern America. Their names hang on street signs, are etched into buildings and are a part of the fabric of history. These men created the American Dream and were the engine of capitalism as they transformed everything they touched in building the oil, rail, steel, shipping, automobile and finance industries. Their paths crossed repeatedly as they elected presidents, set economic policies and influenced major events of the 50 most formative years this country has ever known. From the Civil War to the Great Depression and World War I, they led the way.
Using state of the art computer generated imagery that incorporates 12 million historical negatives, many made available for the first time by the Library of Congress, this series will bring back to life the world they knew and the one they created. The event series will show how these men took a failed experiment in democracy and created the greatest superpower the world has ever seen. We see how their historic achievements came to create the America of today.
In discussing the episode on Cornelius Vanderbilt, The New York Times noted,
The episode recaps his career through the familiar combination of narration and re-enactment (with the re-enactments being of especially high quality for this type of series), but there’s a twist. Instead of using biographers and academics as talking heads, the series gets its color commentary from modern-day figures who have loomed large in the worlds of business and finance, like Mark Cuban, Jack Welch and Steve Wozniak.
And if you are eager for more, earlier this week (November 12) Showtime premiered a new 10-part mini-series Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. Stone has a knack for either discovering or creating lost pieces of history, depending on who you talk to. Here is Showtime's take on its new series:
There is a classified America we were never meant to see. From Academy Award-winning writer/director Oliver Stone, this ten-part documentary series looks back at human events that at the time went under reported, but that crucially shaped America's unique and complex history over the 20th century. From the atomic bombing of Japan to the Cold War and the fall of Communism, this in-depth, surprising, and totally riveting series demands to be watched again and again.
The series, written with American University History Professor Peter Kuznick, was originally titled the "Secret History of the United States," but the stories being told were not classified but rather forgotten over time. And the series itself has been in the works for many years, with various parties asking that it never be shown. Back in 2010, controversy about Stone's comments regarding Jews controlling the media stirred up a storm of protests and requests to CBS to cancel the series. Oliver Stone himself is Jewish and it appears apologies regarding the quote were eventually sufficient for the series to be shown (two years later).
That is not to say the series is no longer controversial. While former Soviet President Gorbachev enjoyed the program, saying the creators "perspective is indispensable at a time when decisions are being
taken that will shape America's role in the global world of the
twenty-first century," others were slightly less impressed. David Horowitz writes, Even the title of Stone’s rant is a lie, since his narratives of the Bolshevik Revolution (idealists whose noble vision was thwarted by capitalist pigs), World War II (Stalin won it) and the Cold War (launched by American imperialists but ended by peace-loving Mikhail Gorbachev) are a twice-told story: the first time by Kremlin propagandists and their minions, the second by leftwing diehards who can’t handle the truth, and who have now been joined by the executives at Showtime in airing a miniseries that is malignant and unbelievable crap.
So what should you expect to be revealed in Stone's new show? The Amazon book summary provides these hints:
-- The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were militarily unnecessary and morally indefensible.
-- The United States, not the Soviet Union, bore the lion’s share of responsibility for perpetuating the Cold War.
-- The U.S. love affair with right-wing dictators has gone as far as overthrowing elected leaders, arming and training murderous military officers, and forcing millions of people into poverty.
-- U.S.-funded Islamist fundamentalists, who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, have blown back to threaten the interests of the U.S. and its allies.
-- U.S. presidents, especially in wartime, have frequently trampled on the constitution and international law.
-- The United States has brandished nuclear threats repeatedly and come terrifyingly close to nuclear war.
Okay, so you may hear a few new things and foam at the mouth here or there. With this in mind, you cannot go wrong dropping some of the brain-dead dramas for a night or two to learn a little bit about American history or at least some of its more controversial episodes. While these shows will not have the final say, they may lead a few of us to crack open a book. Yes, that dusty thing in the corner propping up your DVD collection.
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