American documentary filmmaker. His latest work, "The American Revolution", co-directed with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, is a six-part series of two-hour episodes. It debuted in November 2025, timed to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The documentary portrays the revolution not as a tale of plucky Yankees but as a "bloody epic of cruelty, rape, betrayal and dispossession"—a years-long, multinational clash of imperial ambitions and a civil war. It details how some 15,000 black Americans joined the British in hope of freedom, while only about a third of that number served with the patriots, making American forces more racially integrated than they would be again for nearly 200 years. After the British surrender, George Washington demanded the return of enslaved people, including his own. The film also records Washington's orders for "total destruction and devastation" of certain Native American towns and his capture of prisoners "of every age and sex."
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting helped finance the documentary. In July 2025 Donald Trump's budget "rescissions" bill eliminated the CPB's financing; the organisation planned to close its doors in January 2026.
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