I just finished Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, an excellent, comprehensive (five discs) documentary. Fantastic.
Does anyone know of something similar (or at least approaching similarity) for American History? I’ve searched IMDB and Netflix, but nothing jumped out. I found lots of documentaries about different American history subjects (i.e. WWII, the presidency, etc.) but no overall surveys. Does something like that exist? Or should I rent all 500,000 Ken Burns DVDs?
One of the models the BBC had in mind when they made A History of Britain was the series they had done quarter of a century earlier, Alistair Cooke’s America. Another case of a noted prose stylist being given to a big budget to do an ambitious overview of a nation’s history. It’s a long time since I last saw any of it, but I suspect it won’t have dated quite as badly as it might. What I don’t know is whether the DVDs are available in the North American format.