Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10689 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-18
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 650 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A classic from what now seems like the Golden Age of TV documentaries, Alistair Cooke’s America was first broadcast in 1972-3 and it remains, along with the contemporary The World at War, an example of how documentaries should be made: there’s none of the flashy editing, wobbly camera-work, over-intrusive music or costumed actors prancing around in the mode of Simon Schama’s fussy History of Britain for example. Here there is just scenery, the odd map or illustration and—most importantly—Cooke himself talking directly and unhurriedly to camera. Over 13 leisurely hours, he narrates a "personal history" of his adopted country, beginning with his own arrival as a fresh young Cambridge graduate in the 1930s before taking us back to the very foundations of America, its colonisation, the war of Independence (told in an admirably non-partisan way) and so on through momentous and turbulent decades right up to the early 1970s, where Civil Rights and protest movements are high on the agenda.

Throughout, Cooke interweaves anecdotes and digressions into the main narrative, charming the viewer with his storytelling precisely in the manner so beloved of listeners to his admirable Letter from America. By the end he has a warning that, although delivered in 1973, remains as telling today as it did then: America, like Ancient Rome as depicted by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall, stands poised between its remarkable vitality and its equally remarkable capacity for decadence. Whether, like Rome, the USA becomes a victim of its own internal divisions or somehow manages to pull back from the brink still remains to be seen.

On the DVD: This four-disc set is neatly presented in digipack format, and includes a Pebble Mill at One interview with Cooke in which he discusses the series. --Mark Walker

Synopsis
First transmitted in 1972, 'Alistair Cooke's America' is a series of thirteen films documenting his personal views of the history of the USA from the early settlers, to the present day.

Customer Reviews

Bold, authoritative and gripping
I've had three great American experiences this year. The first was visiting New York and Washington for the first time. The second was reading Paul Johnson's History of the American People. The third was watching Alistair Cooke's 1972 Personal History. I'm glad I read Johnson's tome first, because it's a long read, Cooke provides the breathtaking pictures: the buildings, the landscape, the people.

I sat through the episodes with a notebook because I was so in awe of Cooke's nonchalant and deft storytelling technique. He always finds a quotation or an anecdote to illustrate his point. He uses the English language beautifully and he conveys the sufferings and the triumphs of a great nation.

So much I didn't know, so many places I'd now like to visit. I love the 70s feel to it, and since many years have passed since it was broadcast, you see how wrong a commentator can be about predicting the future, while at the same time showing an acute sensitivity to how the past has shaped contemporary events. Along with the World at War and Civilisation, every educated Briton should watch this DVD.

Superb - engaging and authoritative
I've rented this and watched it with my wife. I can genuinely say that it is compelling. I echo the statements made by others concerning the brilliance of Cooke's presentation - it is the 'personal history' claimed in the title. The style is at times detached - as you'd expect of a historian - yet is never cold. Although made 35 years ago, by the nature of its content, little has obviously aged in a manner that makes it feel out of date or irrelevant. It's only as you reach the last episode when Cooke looks at the USA of that time - the 1970's - that you realise that a great deal has happened since. If only he had been commissioned to provide one additional episode later in his life, when the Cold War was behind us, replaced by the modern threats we know only too well.

The Greatest documentary of them all!
Without doubt this is the finest documentary I have ever seen. This is Alistair Cooke at his most regal best. A perfect Christmas present. If I had to live on a desert island and could take only one DVD this would be it.