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The War That Made America: The Story of the French and Indian War | 
 enlarge | Directors: Ben Loeterman, Eric Stange
Actors: Larry Nehring, Michael L. Colosimo, Sam Edens, Karen Baum, Gabriel Field
Studio: PBS (Direct)
Category: DVD
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $17.86
You Save: $17.13 (49%)
New (16) Used (4) from $17.86
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 8526
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 240 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: PBSDWARA600D
UPC: 841887006293
EAN: 0841887006293
ASIN: B000E1MXZ0
Theatrical Release Date: January 18, 2006
Release Date: February 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Studio: Pbs Release Date: 04/16/2009
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 A History Prof's review January 28, 2010
Olde American (Richmond, Virginia)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
All is good and well for the first disc (sort of) but in the second half things start getting a bit fishy. I gritted my teeth through their overtly biased pro-French Disc 1, in which Colonel George Washington is portrayed as effeminate and timid, and okay, fair enough it's decidedly Anglophobic and Franco-centric with a dash of Native-sympathizing thrown in for good measure however they decidedly omit things and phrase things in ways that give an impression of events that is inaccurate.
Washington's battle at Jumonville Glen, the narrator says was "not heroic", WHAT!? Who are you to say what was or wasn't heroic? Whatever, moving past that, every French military victory is told in great military detail, then when the Brits win in Nova Scotia they skip any aspects of the battle whatsoever and skip right to British atrocities committed afterwards. So what's the point? The audience is meant to identify French victories with military prowess, and British victories with evil. This is done deliberately by the filmmakers and is unfair, biased and irresponsible history.
The Second Disc:
In order to make it look like the French didn't lose that badly, they COMPLETELY OMIT SEVERAL IMPORTANT BRITISH VICTORIES!! That's right, they talk about the battle of Fort Frontenac and the battle of Louisburg, both British victories, with NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of the Battles of Fort Niagara or La Belle Famille, both of which saw the French get absolutely creamed by the Brits and their American colonists.
But no, none of that.
Then in their pathetic "telling" of Pontiac's rebellion, they leave out the Battle of Bushy Run, which was the decisive colonial victory over the Indians that effectively ended the war, and they try to tell the tale of the French-Indian War and Pontiac's rebellion as if the Brits and the Americans got totally whooped. Well guess what amigoes, if the French and the Indians had won, this continent would mostly speak French with a small English-speaking minority on the eastern seaboard and a Native-American majority west of Appalachia; however none of those things are the case, because the French got defeated, but you wouldn't know that by watching this DVD.
Bottom line = SHODDY HISTORY!
 Superb November 22, 2009
James H. Fox (Allentown, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have seen about all of the DVDs on the French & Indian war by now (not a huge number), plus those on Pontiac's Rebellion and various ones about the Old Northwest, and this is the best collection of them all. It is worthy of Ken Burns in how carefully it lays out the chronology and geography, and gives good maps to tie it all together. They use realistic depictions of the period and authentic locations where possible, such as the Carlyle House in Alexandria, VA for example, in the actual room where Braddock did ask the colonists to contribute money for the war effort. But the one thing they got really right is that they show that George Washington was in at the beginning to become the father of our country, in ways that could not have been foreseen at the time. How many of you have been to Jumonville Glen? I thought so. You will have a hard time finding it on a map, but it is probably the most important location in American history. I know, you don't believe it, but you will get an idea after seeing this show.
The acting is credible and the quality of the video is very good; it looks almost like Hi-Def on my plasma TV and upconverting DVD player. The sounds are realistic too, and good period music is used. It could be used as a valuable travel guide for places to visit in the various regions too.
Fills the knowledge gaps March 11, 2009
Mr. R. E. J. Hyson (Portsmouth, Hants United Kingdom)
This dramatisation fills in a lot of the details about a little known war.
I knew that Washington had fought for the British, I'd seen the film " The last of the Mohicans", I'd read of Wolfe's attack on Montreal, but that was it! I didn't know the details in between, or why things happened as they did. This dramatisation explained a lot. I've given 4 stars and not 5 because this is case of "seen one Indian battle, seen them all". It's history, but still rather repetative.
 Uneven documentary based on a far better book September 6, 2008
Cromulus (Rome)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Anderson's book of the same name attempted to introduce the reader to the often ignored Indian role in many of the French and Indian War literature and at that it succeeded beautifully. Anderson's book is a mature and sober study of complicated politics, complicated men and complicated times.
Alas, this PBS documentary chooses to gloss over the complicated politics that led to the war in North America (nary a mention of the war's European theater) at the expense of explaining away the Indians' notorious cruelty as merely cultural differences and elevating the Indians to the status of equal players. That sort of sugar coating is, I suppose, de riguer nowadays but let's face it, it is bull and it really has no place in any serious and scholarly historical works. To make matters worse, the omnipresent Indians are almost ALWAYS mentioned as major players (even when their numbers are ridiculously low such as when 250 Canadian Mohawks fought alongside thousands of French soldiers!).
While Anderson's book presented the Indians as a party of interest in the war, and at times as both prime movers to events as well as pawns, he never makes the politically correct excuses the makers of this documentary do. Also, unlike the makers of the documentary, he never loses focus that his book is about "The War That Made America", where much of the emphasis is on events that shaped colonial political response to both the French and the Indians and, ultimately towards Britain, the mother country, not to the shafting of the Indians (which isn't to say that that didn't happen or that it wasn't important, but it had almost no bearing on the coming Revolutionary War).
Ken Burns' documentary work remains the standard and this PBS docudrama doesn't come close to reaching it.
juvenile August 30, 2008
Carl W. Taitano (Piti, Guam USA)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I wanted to like this program. I have read some serious accounts of the war and this program is really designed for those are completely ignorant of the war. 2 big issues. 1. The 7 Years war in Europe was due to the Prussian desire for Silesia and not caused by some blunder in North America. 2. The politically correct attempt to describe the terror attacks on the settlers as cultural and should be just accepted. This is like saying the Mongol massacres were just cultural. Terror attacks on civilians by any group should be condemned as such. The way the Indians conducted their raids, no matter how "cultural" they are explained, could not but bring about the consequences that befell them.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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