Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States"

Thought this might be of interest. Was going to post it in the hangout, but I'm quite sure debate will follow.

This is a 10 part (one hour each) series which is being aired on Showtime. The book was recently released. First episode aired:

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Watched it and it looks like a tremendous piece of work. Obviously much of this will be known to a few, but it does seem to offer a perspective which is not usually expressed in most texts and videos.

There are a lot of interviews with him on youtube talking about this. This has been written with American University historian Peter Kunick, and has been fact checked 3 times including once by Showtime. It would seem everything is factual and potential problems would be with the interpretation of the facts and with things that might not be included. From watching it, I didn't notice anything outrageous but would like to hear from others.

Will post the remaining episodes as they become available.

 

I disagree that it's meaningless to have it fact-checked by Showtime though I am not surprised someone would think so. In general, the point of the show is that mass media such as Showtime tend to allow through programming that expresses a certain narrative of historical events. An illuminating example is that HBO declined to pick it up, and HBO refused to air his first documentary about Fidel Castro when he made it years ago. The point of the show is that academicians have failed in getting many facts through to the public due to the filters between their work and public consumption. This is another attempt to bypass those filters. A very good attempt if you ask me. Showtime is one of those filters albeit a relatively small one, but their check on the facts is significant as far as they would have declined to air anything outrageous and Stone would refuse to alter it had they asked.

I'm of the school of thought that academicians have failed in bypassing those filters because - well, they are academicians and not communications experts. Can't really blame them for that. Stone is in the field of communications and a talented star at that. He brought on board a historian, which means that he recognizes his lack of expertise as a historian.

Many people will watch this and think "what's untold about this?" - the reality is that the information is available publicly but dissemination is very poor as evidenced by the "why does Stone have wood for commies" posts. The irony is that it's exactly what Stone is trying to address - that there is very visible a huge portion of Americans that were succesfully brainwashed through television and schools to believe that communists can not possibly have ever done anything which is considered good according to typical American ideals. You may not be one of those people, but suffice to say there are many people who cannot fathom the possibility that a communist state achieved such a "great" feat in World War 2.

IMO whether you know this stuff or not, it's worth watching. For those who pre-judge the work, there is little can be done but this type of work generally is essential to ensuring the next generation of Americans choose their principles based on a variety of perceptions which includes those espoused in your typical American History textbooks and those espoused in other academic works. Stone's perspective is an attempt at a global truth through the eyes of a historian and a Vietnam veteran movie maker with tremendous credentials in war and in movie making.

There is only one historical truth, but no single movie or book is going to encapsulate such a huge historical story 100% truthfully. Providing a variety of perspectives is crucial. The more the better. Teaching history from a single perspective is one of the purest forms of brainwashing. Our kids should be given all the perspectives available otherwise ideology will burn a single perspective into the psyche.

If you watch some of the interviews, you will hear Stone and Kuznick say many times that they are not discounting other perspectives, rather they have excluded the prototypical narrative because it is already being widely taught through tv, books and schools. In a way, he admits that this is a differently biased piece of work, but it is a less known bias which gives people a richer variety of information on which to make their decisions.

If you're looking for history through video, you could do far far far worse than a team which includes: