Dec

20

Sets that I have and like:

"The World at War," >15 volumes, Laurence Olivier narrating, fantastic
"History of England," 5 volumes, Simon Schama, interesting and fun
"The First World War," 4 volumes, Ian Kershaw

I have a preference for history or science.

I find that DVDs with the History Channel label are usually not as good as those from BBC. History Channel seems so disappointing these days — always shows like "Modern Marvels" and shows about infantry weapons in war. Would be a lot more interesting to see something about history!


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3 Comments so far

  1. Chad Patel on December 20, 2007 4:15 pm

    I’d suggest “The Universe” and “Planet Earth”. Magnificent series both.

  2. John Plamondon on December 20, 2007 4:47 pm

    I have always enjoyed the “Connections” series from James Burke. It traces the history of particular ideas and developments. James Burke is British and the show has a BBC feel to it, but I think it was produced by TLC. They used to air it all the time in the US, I don’t know if it is still on or not. Here is where you can get the DVD’s:
    http://www.palmersguide.com/jamesburke/burke_items.html

  3. Adam Sterling on December 21, 2007 2:44 pm

    There are several DVD sets I could suggest, but I’ll focus on one set my wife and I relished with particular pleasure.

    During our planning of a Thanksgiving-week holiday in Paris that would include a private tour of the Louvre with an art-historian guide, we bought Simon Schama’s 3-DVD set, The Power of Art. Schama takes you on dramatized excursions into the lives of eight artists: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko. His often-ironic and sometimes-humorous (at one moment hysterical) narration brings the artistic journey of each of his subjects vividly to life. He’s such a brilliant teller-of-tales that one easily forgives his occasionally being arch.

    For someone such as myself, with limited advance knowledge, Mr Schama’s insights turned our subsequent tour of the Louvre into something truly profound as, toward the end of our tour, our guide took us to see works we’d specifically requested, that had been discussed in the DVDs. These were no longer isolated objects hanging lifeless on a wall, but waypoints in a larger, sweeping story opened up for us by Mr Schama.

    Sitting in front of David’s The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons I could feel the grim determination that had driven Brutus to the horrid necessity of having them killed, and heard the wail of grief torn from their mother. “My God,” I said, turning to my wife, “I see it!” A month later, I’m still haunted by it, an experience made possible for me only by Mr Schama’s storytelling art.

    Strongly recommended.

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