The Unknown Country
The theme of this series is the creation of America as a nation, in six episodes. The series would follow a group of world historical figures over a period from 1772 to 1787, a fifteen-year period that created America and changed the course of world history.
There is no more important event in American history than its founding, from the beginnings of our quarrel with Great Britain to the creation of the American Republic on the adoption of our Constitution. The cast of characters includes some of the most prominent American figures, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and is replete with powerful and stirring events. Americans have very little to compare with the way in which filmmakers elsewhere have celebrated the early history of their countries
For viewers, America is the Unknown Country.
And yet the period in question is the most important epoch in American history, one that has served as an inspiration for people across the world. We can also see, in the people of the time and their debates, all of the issues that dominate our present concerns. How is it that the Framers were so blind as to condone slavery? What was the place of women? Did they create the constitutional monster of an all-powerful president? How did a country created in response to a fear of British corruption become so corrupt itself? Could the Founders create a country that would not in time split apart?
