Ken Burns
Language
English
Description
The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, The Vietnam War, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides -- Americans who fought...
Language
English
Description
Explore the history of a uniquely American art form: country music. From its deep and tangled roots in ballads, blues and hymns performed in small settings, to its worldwide popularity, learn how country music evolved over the course of the 20th century, as it eventually emerged to become America’s music. COUNTRY MUSIC features never-before-seen footage and photographs, plus interviews with more than 80 country music artists. The eight-part series...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A treasury of American Presidents by historian Ken Burns"-- Provided by publisher.
Burns explores the legacy of each of America's presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama. Each two-page spread covers the basic facts of the era, the man, and an important aspect of his presidency.
Language
English
Formats
Description
1862 saw the birth of modern warfare and the transformation of Lincoln’s war to preserve the Union into a war to emancipate the slaves. Episode Two begins with the political infighting that threatened to swamp Lincoln’s administration and then follows Union General George McClellan’s ill-fated campaign on the Virginia Peninsula, where his huge army meets a smaller but infinitely more resourceful Confederate force. During this episode we witness...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The companion volume to the PBS documentary film about the first—and perhaps most astonishing—automobile trip across the United States.
In 1903 there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire nation and most people had never seen a “horseless buggy”—but that did not stop Horatio Nelson Jackson, a thirty-one-year-old Vermont doctor, who impulsively bet fifty dollars that he could drive his 20-horsepower automobile...
In 1903 there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire nation and most people had never seen a “horseless buggy”—but that did not stop Horatio Nelson Jackson, a thirty-one-year-old Vermont doctor, who impulsively bet fifty dollars that he could drive his 20-horsepower automobile...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
As companion to his PBS series airing in September 2007, "The War" focuses on the citizens of four towns--Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama, following more than forty people from 1941 to 1945. Maps and hundreds of photographs enrich this compelling, unflinching narrative.
11) Get Action
Language
English
Description
A frail, asthmatic young Theodore Roosevelt transforms himself into a vigorous champion of the strenuous life, loses one great love and finds another, leads men into battle and then rises like a rocket to become the youngest president in American history at 42. Meanwhile, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, brought up as the pampered only child of adoring parents, follows his older cousin's career with worshipful fascination and begins to think he might one...
12) The Rising Road
Language
English
Description
FDR brings the same optimism and energy to the White House that his cousin Theodore displayed. Aimed at ending the Depression, his sweeping New Deal restores the people's self-confidence and transforms the relationship between them and their government. Eleanor rejects the traditional role of first lady, becomes her husband's liberal conscience and a sometimes controversial political force in her own right. As the decade ends, FDR faces two grave...
13) The Common Cause
Language
English
Description
FDR shatters the third-term tradition, struggles to prepare a reluctant country to enter World War II and, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, helps set the course toward Allied victory. Meanwhile, Eleanor struggles to keep New Deal reforms alive in wartime and travels the Pacific to comfort wounded servicemen. Diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 1943 and with the war still raging, FDR resolves to conceal his condition and run for a...
14) In the Arena
Language
English
Description
Murder brings Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, but in the seven years that follow, he transforms the office and makes himself perhaps the best-loved of all the men who ever lived in the White House - battling corporate greed and building the Panama Canal, preserving American wilderness, carrying the message of American might around the world. FDR courts and weds Eleanor Roosevelt, the shy orphaned daughter of Theodore's alcoholic brother, Elliott....
15) The Storm
Language
English
Description
Franklin Roosevelt runs for vice president in 1920 and seems assured of a still brighter future until polio devastates him the following summer. He spends seven years struggling without success to walk again, while Eleanor builds a personal and political life of her own. FDR returns to politics in 1928 and, as governor of New York, acts with such vigor and imagination during the first years of the Great Depression that the Democrats turn to him as...
16) The Fire of Life
Language
English
Description
Theodore Roosevelt leads a Progressive crusade that splits his own party, undertakes a deadly expedition into the South American jungle, campaigns for American entry into World War I - and pays a terrible personal price. Franklin masters wartime Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, while Eleanor finds personal salvation in war work. Her discovery of Franklin's romance with another woman transforms their marriage into a largely political...
Language
English
Description
This first part of the film follows Jack Johnson's remarkable journey from his humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas, to his entry into the world of professional boxing, where, in turn-of-the-century Jim Crow America, the heavyweight championship was an exclusively "white title." In 1908 Johnson became the first African-American to earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World. On July 4, 1910, ex-champion Jim Jeffries, the new "Great White Hope,"...
Language
English
Description
With the onset of World War II, America needed baseball more than ever-even when some of its biggest stars saw action on the battlefield instead of the ball field. Of course, for the game to live up to everything America stood for, its most important battle had to be fought at home. This program follows the sport throughout the 1940s, from Joe DiMaggio's celebrated hitting streak to the awe-inspiring performance of Ted Williams to the debut of Jackie...
Language
English
Description
Covering the years 1900 to 1910, this program introduces some of baseball's most celebrated and colorful characters-including Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Ty Cobb. The film spotlights Cobb's reputation as perhaps the most aggressive and least likeable player in the history of the game (a standing reflected in the episode's title, drawn from one of the outfielder's belligerent remarks). Viewers also learn about the formation...
Language
English
Description
Amid the rise of suburbia, television, rock 'n' roll, and the baby boom generation, jazz lost a beloved and burned-out star: Billie Holiday. But the music still had its two guiding lights. In 1956, the first year Elvis topped the charts, Duke Ellington recaptured the nation's ear with a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. The next year, Louis Armstrong made headlines when he condemned racism in Little Rock, Arkansas-risking his career while...