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The 20th Century: A Moving Visual History

The 20th Century: A Moving Visual History

List Price: $64.98
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Product Info Reviews

Features:
  • Color
  • Black & White


Description:

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
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