USM historian appears in Netflix’s ‘The American Experiment’

Andrew Wiest, a military historian at the University of Southern Mississippi, appears in Netflix’s five-part documentary “The American Experiment,” which chronicles the American Revolution and coincides with the nation’s 250th birthday, the university said.

The university said Wiest can be heard reading lines throughout the series, including parts of the Declaration of Independence, and portrays founding father Patrick Henry. “The narrator says right before you hear us read it that these are some of the most important lines ever written in the English language, and I was like, ‘Wow, and I got to read one of those,'” Wiest said.

The university said Christine Cavalieri of Reel2Reel Casting contacted Wiest seeking prominent figures and experts. Wiest agreed when he learned the series was produced by Playtone, the production company co-founded by Tom Hanks, the university said.

Wiest recorded his lines at the university’s Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage and was directed over Zoom by Sarah Huisenga of Luminant Media, the university said. Wiest told the university he has seen two episodes that he voiced and plans to show parts of the series to his classes.

Wiest called the role a career milestone. “Most folks don’t read deeply in-depth history,” he wrote in an email to the university. “But a doc(umentary) like this, with the very best historians taking part, condenses the most modern in-depth research into a very watchable whole.” The university said Wiest is a Hattiesburg native, a member of the Hattiesburg Public Schools Hall of Fame and the Southern Miss Alumni Hall of Fame, a founding director of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, co-founder of the Center for the Study of the National Guard and the recipient of the Society for Military History’s Samuel Eliot Morison Prize in March. The university said he was lead historian on the Emmy-winning National Geographic documentary “Brothers in War,” based on his book “The Boys of ’67,” and served as chief historical consultant on “Vietnam in HD.”

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