The Untold History of the United States | |
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Genre | Television documentary |
Created by | Oliver Stone |
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Directed by | Oliver Stone |
Narrated by | Oliver Stone |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 12 |
Production | |
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Production company | Ixtlan Productions |
Original release | |
Network | Showtime |
Release | November 12, 2012 – October 15, 2013 |
The Untold History of the United States [1] [2] (also known as Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States) is a 2012 documentary television series created, directed, produced, and narrated by Oliver Stone about the reasons behind the Cold War, the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism. [3]
Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick [4] (director of American University's Nuclear Studies Institute) began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham co-wrote the script. [5] The documentary miniseries for Showtime had a working title Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. Kuznick objected to the working title "Secret History", claiming that "the truth is that many of our 'secrets' have been hidden on the front page of The New York Times . If people think the secrets will be deep, dark conspiracies, they'll be disappointed. We'll be drawing on the best recent scholarship". [6] It was subsequently retitled The Untold History of the United States. [7]
The series covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." [8] Stone is the director and narrator of ten regular episodes and two prologue episodes. The series is a reexamination of some of the underreported and darkest parts of American modern history, using little-known documents and newly uncovered archival material. The series looks beyond official versions of events to the deeper causes and implications and explores how events from the past still have resonant themes for the present day. Stone said, "From the outset I've looked at this project as a legacy to my children and a way to understand the times I've lived through. I hope it can contribute to a more global insight into our American history." [9]
The first three episodes of the series premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 6, 2012, with Indiewire describing them as "extremely compelling" and "daring." [10] The series was personally presented by Stone at the Subversive Festival on May 4, 2013, in Zagreb, Croatia, which next to film screenings also included debates and public lectures by prominent intellectuals such as Slavoj Žižek and Tariq Ali. [11]
Stone described the project as "the most ambitious thing I've ever done. Certainly in documentary form, and perhaps in fiction, feature form." [12] Production took four years to complete. Stone confessed, "It was supposed to take two years, but it's way over schedule". [13] The premiere was finally set for November 12, 2012. [14] Stone spent $1 million of his own money on the film as the budget inflated from $3 million to $5 million. [15]
Regarding the program's accuracy, Stone told TV host Tavis Smiley: "This has been fact checked by corporate fact checkers, by our own fact checkers, and fact checkers [hired] by Showtime. It's been thoroughly vetted... these are facts, our interpretation may be different than orthodox, but it definitely holds up." [16]
The series premiered on Showtime in November 2012. The executive producers were Oliver Stone, Tara Tremaine and Rob Wilson.
The Untold History of the United States was released on Blu-ray on October 15, 2013. All ten episodes of the show are featured on four discs, and the Blu-ray release also includes various bonus content, as well as two prologue episodes. The first prologue episode deals with World War I, the Russian Revolution and Woodrow Wilson. The second prologue episode highlights the pre-World War II era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. [17] [18] The series was released on DVD on March 4, 2014. [19]
The ten-part series is supplemented by a 750-page companion book, The Untold History of the United States, also written by Stone and Kuznick, released on Oct 30, 2012 by Simon & Schuster. [20]
The audiobook was released by Brilliance Publishing on June 4, 2013. [21] The Untold History of the United States audiobook was also written by Stone and Kuznick, narrated by Peter Berkrot. It runs 36 hours and 25 minutes.
The series has been said to be reminiscent of the famed British Thames Television series The World at War (1973–74). [22] With the exception of an on-camera introduction and conclusion by Oliver Stone, the series contains no interview subjects. Instead, each episode consists of archival material: stock film, photographs, video and audio recordings, computer generated maps and diagrams, clips from fictional movies, and Stone's voiceover narration. Historical quotations and writings from various figures are read by voice actors.
Oliver Stone used clips from about 60 fictional movies and TV shows over the course of The Untold History of the United States. He used them as a vehicle for telling stories of specific topics during given episodes.
In 2012, The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald highly recommended the series and book, [23] describing it as "riveting", "provocative" and "worthwhile". [24]
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote approvingly of the book:
Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick provide a critical overview of US foreign policy during the past few decades. ... Such a 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. At stake is whether the United States will choose to be the policeman of a "Pax Americana", which is a recipe for disaster, or partner with other nations on the way to a safer, more just and sustainable future. [25]
David Wiegand wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle : "The films are at their best when they provide a panoramic view of our history in the middle part of the 20th century. Ably abetted by the superb editing work by Alex Marquez". [26] Verne Gay for Newsday similarly praised the craft: "By far the most interesting part of 'Untold' is the visual presentation. Stone has cobbled together a mother lode of chestnuts, including grainy newsreel footage and Soviet propaganda films. It's all weirdly engrossing" but found the content less than provocative: "You keep waiting for a fresh insight, a new twist, a bizarre fact and after a while would even be profoundly grateful for some wacky Stone revisionism. It never comes. What's 'untold' here?" [27]
In November 2012, historian Ronald Radosh of the conservative Hudson Institute lambasted it as "mendacious" Cold War revisionism and "mindless recycling of Stalin's propaganda," claiming similarities to Communist author and NKVD agent Carl Marzani's Soviet-published treatise We Can Be Friends. [28] Radosh wrote:
Over and over, Stone uses the same quotations, the same arrangements of material, and the same arguments as Marzani. This is not to accuse Stone of plagiarism, only to point out that the case he now offers as new was argued in exactly the same terms by an American Communist and Soviet agent in 1952.
Journalist Michael C. Moynihan criticized the book for "moral equivalence between the policies of the psychotically brutal Soviet Union and the frequently flawed policy of the United States" and called the title "misleading" in that nothing within the book was "untold" previously. Moynihan also claimed factual errors and questionable sources. [29]
In 2013, Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz also remarked that the book and films "have a misleading title" and that "Most if not all of the interpretations that they present... have appeared in revisionist histories of American foreign policy written over the last fifty years". [30] Wilentz went on to say:
Although the book by Stone and Kuznick is heavily footnoted, the sourcing...recalls nothing so much as Dick Cheney’s cherry-picking of intelligence, particularly about the origins and early years of the cold war. ... This book is less a work of history than a skewed political document. [30]
In October 2013, Stone and Kuznick launched the Untold History Education Project to expand upon the narratives and events discussed in the Untold History documentary series and book. The project is devoted to fostering critical thinking and debate amongst students and teachers in high schools and universities. With the input of educators and historians, Stone and Kuznick also designed a curriculum guide for the series and primary source-based lesson plans for each episode.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.
JFK is a 1991 American epic political thriller film written and directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, who came to believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy and that Lee Harvey Oswald was a scapegoat.
Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between the Western allies and the Eastern Bloc. Both relied on a wide variety of military and civilian agencies in this pursuit.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to be executed during peacetime. Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working at Los Alamos Laboratory, was convicted in the United Kingdom.
James Carothers Garrison was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from 1962 to 1973 and later a state appellate court judge. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the prosecution of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw to that effect in 1969, which ended in Shaw's acquittal. He wrote three published books, one of which became a prime source for Oliver Stone's film JFK in 1991, in which Garrison was portrayed by Kevin Costner, while Garrison himself made a cameo appearance as Earl Warren.
Ronald Radosh is an American social conservative writer, professor, historian, and former Marxist.
Clay LaVergne Shaw was an American businessman, military officer, and part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service (DCS) of the CIA. Shaw is best known for being the only person brought to trial for involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted in 1969 after less than one hour of jury deliberation, but some conspiracy theorists continue to speculate on his possible involvement.
Duck Hook was the White House code-name of an operation President Richard Nixon had threatened to unleash against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, if North Vietnam did not yield to Washington's terms at the Paris peace negotiations. Duck Hook called for the possible-nuclear bombing of military and economic targets in and around Hanoi, the mining of Haiphong harbor and other ports, saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, the bombing of dikes to destroy the food supply of much of the population of North Vietnam, air strikes against North Vietnam's northeast line of communications as well as passes and bridges at the Chinese border, and air and ground attacks on other targets throughout Vietnam.
The Cold War was reflected in culture through music, movies, books, television, and other media, as well as sports, social beliefs, and behavior. Major elements of the Cold War included the threat of communist expansion, a nuclear war, and – connected to both – espionage. Many works use the Cold War as a backdrop or directly take part in a fictional conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The period 1953–62 saw Cold War themes becoming mainstream as a public preoccupation.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
The Fourth Moscow Conference, also known as the Tolstoy Conference for its code name Tolstoy, was a meeting in Moscow between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin from 9 October to 19 October 1944.
Operation Giant Lance was a secret U.S. nuclear alert operation by the United States that the Strategic Air Command carried out in late October 1969. Giant Lance was one component of a multi-pronged military exercise, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test that the Joint Chiefs developed and carried out during October 1969 in response to White House orders. On October 10, 1969, on the advice of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, U.S. President Richard Nixon issued the order for the readiness test that led to Giant Lance.
At various times, under its own initiative or in accordance with directives from the President of the United States or the National Security Council staff, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has attempted to influence public opinion both in the United States and abroad.
William Oliver Stone is an American filmmaker. Stone is known as a controversial but acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War, and American politics to musical biopics and crime dramas. He has received numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
John M. Newman is an American author and retired major in the United States Army. Newman was on the faculty at the University of Maryland from 1995 to 2012, and has been a Political Science professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia since January 2013.
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Fredrik Logevall is a Swedish-American historian and educator at Harvard University, where he is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is a specialist in U.S. politics and foreign policy. Logevall was previously the Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University, where he also served as vice provost and as director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. His most recent book, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (2020), won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
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I've seen the first four installments and cannot recommend it highly enough.