In his latest documentary, The American Revolution, Emmy-winning filmmaker Ken Burns argues that America’s founding conflict was not a tidy, unanimous march toward independence, but a messy, agonizing civil war defined as much by its profound contradictions as its high ideals. “We’re obviously very polarized right now, but we were divided at our founding, and we’ve been divided at every celebration of the American Revolution,” says Sarah Botstein, who co-directed the sweeping six-part, 12-hour docuseries with Burns and David Schmidt. That is true in pretty much all of American history.” More than nine years in the making, American Revolution became the first PBS title to crack Nielsen’s top 10 streaming ratings. American Revolution features more than 400 voices and nearly 200 first-person accounts read by more than 50 actors, including Meryl Streep, Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hanks.