Wish He'd Gone Back Further

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The blu-ray will have 2 additional prologue episodes that start in the late 19th century. In the companion book, there are two chapters before WWII. WWII is where the series started off on Showtime.

My guess is anything pre-WWII wouldn't have been able to hook a sizable audience.

I think the idea is that you think you know enough about post WWII but in reality you don't and Stone is there to tell you about it.

There's a special episode on the DVD that covers earlier periods of US history. I think that should have been included to begin with though. On the main 10 episodes, Stone seemed to think (and in fact he basically said) that World War II was a big "turning point" that turned the US into a darker force in the world. In fact the US was already an imperialist state since long before that, invading most of Latin America at one point or another to defend US business interests at the expense of the workers and peasants of these countries. The US was even more explicit about its imperialist designs back then than it is today, without so much empty propaganda about "supporting democracy" and other bullsh!t like that. The only thing changed by World War II was that the US became even more powerful than it had already been, with the collapse of the old colonial empires clearing the way for US global hegemony rather than a US hegemony limited only to Latin America, and that with the development of nuclear weapons and other military technology the US could become even more murderous than it had already been in trying to achieve those aims. But the US was already an exploitative, hegemonic imperialist power before that.

"The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history."
Mao

I was about to start this exact same post. I agree, I would really love to see him do the history of the US in its entirety. I'd be interested to see his take on the relations between the pilgrims and the natives, the more complex and less black and white background behind the war of independence, the slave trade, the civil war etc.