Anyone Else watch "The History of Us" on the History Channel

[jluetjen]

Visually engaging, but with some awfully strange choices. A couple of observations...

The got off on the wrong foot when they had the President of the United States introduce the series by saying "...200 years ago an experiment was started, and this experiment was called America."

America? Is he the President of "America" or the President of the "United States of America"? If the show was about America, it was awfully silent regarding regarding the influence of the Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Chileans, etc. It struck me as a strangely ignorant way to start a history show.

Later on they had people like Michael Douglas discussing colonial life. Michael Douglas??? What does he know about colonial life?

Just sort of strange. What are others' thoughts?

[legion]

Was that the one featuring Matt Damon and a bunch of other celebrities pitching a carefully-constructed revisionist view of history?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by legion

Was that the one featuring Matt Damon and a bunch of other celebrities pitching a carefully-constructed revisionist view of history?

Yup, that's the one.
When it comes to US history, there's no one I trust more than donald "hair-do" trump

[Dan J]

I saw the commercials and thought (hoped) it might be good.
However 15 min. in I had to change the channel. I think it's BoAs version of history Lame-o. A shame as it's certainly one of my favorite subjects

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by jluetjen

...

America? Is he the President of "America" or the President of the "United States of America"? If the show was about America, it was awfully silent regarding regarding the influence of the Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Chileans, etc. It struck me as a strangely ignorant way to start a history show.
...

- it is common for the inhabitants of the US to call it America and to call themselves Americans

it may not be accurate, but who can stop the big dawg?

besides we stole salsa from 'them' so why can't we have the name too?

just remember:

"South America stole our name...
Let's drop the big one -- see what happens"

[jluetjen]

Having now sat through the complete first two episodes, I have to admit that my first impressions have been borne up. It is very much a 'Hollywood" version of the history of the US. Long on visual gimmocks while glossing over 95% the subtleties of the subject in order to maintain it's "narrative" (Boy, I hate that word!). A couple of examples...

- The HUGE British fleet is shown sailing up on New York, from the Southeast, with the wind behind them (which happens rarely here on the East Coast), followed by a zooming shot into a view of the fleet from under water! Huh???

- The point is made that General von Steuben came to the US for reportedly being gay, while glossing over the fact that he and many other Prussian officers were made redundant (laid-off) after the 7 year war, and that his training as a General Staff Officer is what really made him valuable to General Washington. von Steuben gay was gay??? That never seemed to come up during history class. In tracing down the gay reference, I started with Wikipedia figuring that it would certainly be referenced there. I was correct.

In 1776, Steuben's career at Hohenzollern-Hechigen ended in scandal: he was alleged to be a homosexual and was accused of improper sexual behavior with young boys.[2] Whether or not Steuben was actually a homosexual is not known, but the rumors compelled him to seek employment elsewhere.[2]

The references [2] were to " Philander D. Chase. "Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von". American National Biography Online, February 2000." I haven't had a chance to check that reference out at my local library yet, but it apparently is billed as a successor to the "Dictionary of American Biography", a reference that has been around for generations. I found an on-line copy of that -- which reads very much like the wikipedia listing, but without the gay reference. They merely said:

Steuben, Frederick William AugusTus, baron, maj.-gen. Revol. army, b. Magdeburg, Prussia, 15 Nov. 1730; d.'Steubenville, N.Y., 28 Nov. 1794. Educated at Neisse and Breslau. At 14 he was a volunteer under his father, an officer of Frederick the Great, at the siege of Prague; disting. at Prague and Rossbach in 1757; made adj.-gcn. in 1758, and wounded at Kunnersdorf; made prisoner in 1761, and sent to St. Petersburg, but was soon released; in 1762 app. adj.-gen. on the king's staff; was one of the young officers under the special instruction of Frederick, and after the siege of Schneidnitz, in which he took part, received from the king a valuable lay benefice. After the seven-years' war, he retired from the army, and travelled with the prince of Hohenzollern Heckingen, who in 1764 app. him grand marshal and gen. of his guard, and made him a knight of the order of " Fidelity.", Leaving these offices, and an income of $3,000 a year, at the suggestion of Count St. Germain h'e offered his services to the Americans, and arrived at Portsmouth, N.H., in Nov. 1777. Joining the army at Valley Forge, he was app. insp.gen. (rank of maj.-gen.) 29 Mar. 1778; was a vol. in the battle of Monmouth in June ; performed important services ; prepared a manual of instruction for the army, which was approved by Congress in 1779; and introduced the most thorough discipline, a change of which the army stood greatly in need, and which contributed largely to its ultimate success. In 1780 he com. in Va., and finally in the trenches at Yorktown. He frequently shared his last dollar with the suffering soldiers, as he often did his clothing and camp equipments also. At the close of the war, the State of N. J. gave him a email farm ; the legisl. of N.Y. gave him 16,000 acres of wild land in Oneida Co.; and the govt. granted him an annuity of 32,500. He erected a logl.onse lit Steubenville ; gave a tenth part of his land to his aides — North, Popham, and Walker — and his sen-ants, and parcelled out the rest to 20 or 30 tenants. A man of great kindness and generosity, always cheerful, of ready wit, and highly-polished manners. His Life by V. Kapp was pub. N.Y., 1860: and by F. Bowen, Sparks's " Amcr. Biography."

Steuben, Babon Von, b. Prussia; killed at Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864. Ho was a Prussian officer; came to the U.S., and joined the 52 N.Y. Vols.; and was a brave and efficient officer.

So in order to maintain the narrative, it was felt important to highlight the suggestion that he was gay, but gloss over what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story", which was that he may have been a pedophile. This would seem to me to be a bit of selective history. Especially if you consider that there only appears to be one reference to him being gay, and that was first published in 2000.

Personally, if I don't care if he was gay or not. In the larger scheme of things I really don't think that it's relevant to his service to our country. I do think that as a part of a detailed character study of von Steuben that this is meaningful information. The people of our history were real people, "warts" and all, and it is helpful to remember that. But if you're going to make a point of the mentioning rumors that von Steuben was gay, then full disclosure would dictate that you need to include the part about young boys. But to make von Steuben the poster-boy of gays serving in the Continental Army seems to be a little far fetched.

Just a couple of observations.

[Joeaksa]

Another good one is "How the states got their shapes" on History Channel.

[jluetjen]

Curiously, a different source; The Library of American Biography, volume IX - Lives of Baron Steuben, Sebastian Cabot, and William Eaton
By Francis Bowen, Charles Hayward, published 1838 has a very different description of how von Steuben found himself in the colonies.











So as if 1838, when many contemporary sources were still alive for comment, von Steuben was intending to resume his employment with the Prince of Baden, who seemed to have welcomed him back. Hardly the actions of a man trying to escape a sordid scandal.

On a whim, I also did a quick check on the two gentlemen that von Steuben was travelling to meet with in the UK, the Lord Spencer and Lord Warwick (most likely http://forums.pelicanparts.com/George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick). A small footnote, Spencer was an ancestor of Princess Diana. Both were family men, and Warwick even married a second time.

(to be continued...)

[jluetjen]

Looking at The Life of Frederick William von Steuben: major general in the Revolutionary Army, By Friedrich Kapp (published in 1859), one gets an even richer picture. Note that a Kapp cites a number of German language sources, which would suggest that he was pretty successful at getting to contemporary, if not original sources. For a 19th century biography, he seems to be pretty thorough.













Jumping ahead a few pages and skipping the discussions in France...







So now we have a completely different view based on German sources. Here there is no mention of scandal or any suggestion of homosexuality, but rather a restless German officer who was looking for a place to exercise his upbringing as a career Prussian Army officer. To be honest, after having done considerable reading of contemporary sources on the life of career officer in the Prussian kingdom, and the following German Empire while researching my family history, I have to say that this last portrait seems to resonate closest with what I've seen to be the mindset of an officer in that culture.

I still have to check the direct reference (and associated citations) from the American National Biography, but so far the homosexuality of von Steuben appears to be a pretty clear case of historical revisionism to suit modern viewpoints. A pretty sorry example of historical scholarship.

[JTO]

We watched it as a family. Although it was mildly entertaining I found there to be a lot of filler. Plus, me being a cynic, I questioned a lot of the "facts". I felt like saying to my wife and kids to take this program with a grain of salt. Its too bad that everything, even the "history of the US" when shown to "Americans" is spun and manipulated.
The other irritating thing was the seamless transition to the B of A advertisements as if they were part of the program. Kinda shameless.


Troy

[David]

I felt bad I didn't encourage my 15yo son to watch this. Now I don't feel bad.