This is an excellent historical series about America. Main host Donald L. Miller tells it in an engaging, anecdotal, conversational style, and the guests are knowledgeable and insightful. This series really connects the dots. For example (**spoiler alert**), in the episode titled "Westward Expansion: The Empire of Liberty," they explain how the Louisiana Purchase alters American history by changing the relationship between North and South. They also explain why Napoleon decided to sell all the land from Montana to Louisiana, thus doubling the size of the United States with the stroke of a pen.
They detail how the invention of the cotton gin, and England's fierce demand for cotton, entrenched the slave system in the South. And why, even after the Virginia soil had worn out, Virginia slaves were still worth so much: because they could be sold to the South, that had a serious slave shortage, for premium prices. Historian Stephen Ambrose then points out that this is where the phrase "Sold down the river" originated, because the Virginia slaves were sold and transported down the Mississippi River.
Other interesting tidbits in just this one episode include the fact that both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in Kentucky: Lincoln to a family of anti-slavery folks who migrated north to Indiana; Davis to a slave-holding family that migrated south to Mississippi. The series is loaded with interesting anecdotes and facts that give a depth to American history and really bring it alive.
They detail how the invention of the cotton gin, and England's fierce demand for cotton, entrenched the slave system in the South. And why, even after the Virginia soil had worn out, Virginia slaves were still worth so much: because they could be sold to the South, that had a serious slave shortage, for premium prices. Historian Stephen Ambrose then points out that this is where the phrase "Sold down the river" originated, because the Virginia slaves were sold and transported down the Mississippi River.
Other interesting tidbits in just this one episode include the fact that both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in Kentucky: Lincoln to a family of anti-slavery folks who migrated north to Indiana; Davis to a slave-holding family that migrated south to Mississippi. The series is loaded with interesting anecdotes and facts that give a depth to American history and really bring it alive.
