Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46871 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-11-18
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 960 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result.

Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.

On the DVD: The Complete History of Britain extras are generously packaged on a separate disc and include the original score and a Simon Schama biography. There's an interesting "promotional message" to camera in which Schama explains the role of a cab driver, Wally, in inspiring the series, along with an interview with Mark Lawson in which Schama stresses the deliberate subjectivity of these programmes and an inaugural BBC History lecture in which he defends TV's ability to transpose history to camera. --David Stubbs

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Eminent historian Simon Schama guides the viewer through over 5000 years worth of history in this epic BBC series. Starting in 3000 B.C. and ending at the turn of the 21th century, the series takes in all the key points in British history. From the invasions of the Romans and the Normans, through the Civil War and the conflicts between England and its neighbours, the programme is lovingly presented from the actual locations of the historic events. The box set contains the whole series over six discs.

Customer Reviews

History as it should be
Bored with the normal tedium of endless dates and names that follow on endlessly? Want to know how and why Britain was formed? If so, get this set of DVD's or indeed the books which pre-empted the TV series. It's fantastic. Schama is able to conjour up the most vivid images as he goes from one far corner of the British main land to another. The starting point of the series at Scara Brae are something which had never really been told of in any great detail. He put's meat on to the bare bones of the story of Britain. At one point he mentions a name from everybodies school memory, the venerable Bede. But he goes on to tell how that one persons accounts have led us to what we know about the so-called dark ages. This is a must, but as i said at the begining, try reading the 3 volumes first, they are fantastic.

Wonderful, but you need to concentrate
Just as with the book of the same name, Schama's marvelously poetic, yet ultra-compact use of the English language means a lot of information is crammed into the narrative. Watching these DVDs is a delight, but you really need to concentrate to get the most out of them. If you are prepared to do this, then the programmes undoubtedly offer one of the quickest ways to master English history.

Absolutely Riveting
This is an astonishingly good series. The history and development of Britain through the lives of the power players, gentry, ordinary citizens, and peasants presented with great enthusiasm, intelligence, sensitivity and pathos by Simon Schama. His narrative and style of delivery always keeps your attention and is underpinned by one of the most effective and haunting music scores I have ever heard on TV.
This series should form the backbone of GCSE and A-level history in our schools. It certainly presents a more cogent and informative historical perspective of Britain in 15 hours than the years of 3rd rate history we get in schools.
I cannot recomment this DVD series highly enough.