The 20th Century: A Moving Visual History (2000)

This 10-episode set devotes a video to each decade of the 20th century, and the results are mixed. The approach is fairly standard, utilizing archival newsreel footage or videotape shot for news programs to document the major events of each decade as well as using interviews with scholars and commentators to occasionally provide perspective. As the century began with hand-cranked film cameras and closed with endless news coverage on cable television, there is a great variety of material to draw from, and much of it is fascinating. However, devoting an hour or even more to each decade means that there is never much depth, and there is also an unfortunate lack of varying viewpoints. Most of the people interviewed in the various videos have a leftist perspective and, in some cases, such as the presentation of the Reagan years, the imbalance of viewpoint is striking. These videos do provide good overviews of the decades, and major events and characters are rendered in general terms, but at times a lack of depth and some curious editorial choices are frustrating. Still, the documentaries in this set do cover a tremendous amount of ground, and for the most part they do it in an entertaining and informative manner. --Robert J. McNamara Amazon.com

Great for teachers

I am an American History teacher and this is an indispensable resource for me. I use it for my Global History classes as well. September 1, 2007

Lefist Howard Zinn Slant

I apreicated the visual artistry of this film. It provides stunning video reels from the 20th century. As I listened to the commentary though, I found myself saying "wow this is very onesided." I did some research and found that every professor interviewed in the film had a leftist, even marxist, point of view. The greatest example of misinformation is the videos unrelenting villification of employers during the 1920's & 30's great depression. The video makes mention of the "captialist class" and the "working class." The video portrays the Communist party as a great force for change in America and lets Lenin & Stalin off the hook for any and all atrocities which they committed. The video portrays the vietnam war as if Nixon started and escalated the entire thing. Making almost no criticism of Kennedy of Johnson. I was planning on showing this video to my 11th grade US History classes, but now I am having very serious doubts. World War I, The New Deal, and WWII seem to be portrayed with accuracy--after that there is a noticeably slant. I have thought about using this film as an exmample of author bias and have my students write about the various slants on history this video takes. I hope this review is helpful to all my fellow teachers. February 11, 2006

Good review of the century

I find this set of DVD's as a good (not great) review of the 20th century. The 80's and 90's do have a liberal bias, but the rest of the decade is very well balanced. My only dislike is calling the 1920's presidents "the best of the second-raters". Any true scholar of the 20's would see the decided lack of understanding with that era. As a student and teacher of history (MS in Social Science and MA in Education) I tend to look for extreme bias as the hallmark of a lack of scholarship - this series is one that I use in class to INTRODUCE the era. For this purpose alone it is well worth the money.

I heartily recommend it for use in the classroom and as a way to familiarize oneself with the era. November 22, 2005

This video box set came in the mail today

I got this in the mail from MPI Home Video. It was great, nevertheless. June 16, 2005

Good through the 1970s

Overall, this is a pretty good survey of most of the 20th century, although, like any attempt to capture 100 years on 10 VHS tapes, it cannot please everyone. Some interesting and important things are left out, but for the most part, it is a useful and entertaining series--at least up to 1980.
In the 1980s and 1990s videos, the film takes a decidedly leftist slant (it is there all along slightly, but not excessively so). The most glaring example comes when the first Gulf War is described as a set of war crimes by the United States, but the slant is clear throughout those two volumes (even if Clinton is linked with Nixon in the opening montage).
I still enjoy the series, and say this as a conservative and a professional historian and teacher (M.A. in history, M.Ed. in secondary education), but am sorry that the producers damaged their credibility with such obviously partisan approaches to the last two decades of the century. April 8, 2004

More reviews at Amazon.com ...