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The World at War (30th Anniversary Edition)

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Albrecht Brauning, John Kenneth Galbraith, Lord Harding, Tsuyako Kii
ASIN : B0002F6AH0
Sales Rank : 261
Studio : A&E Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780767065757
ISBN : 0767065751
UPC : 733961713749
Release Date : December 24, 2004
Publisher : A&E Home Video
Manufacturer : A&E Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : A&E Home Video
Running Time : 1357

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Sir Jeremy Isaacs highly deserves the numerous awards for documentaries he has earned: the Royal Television Society's Desmond Davis Award, l'Ordre National du Mérit, an Emmy, and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. His epic The World at War remains unsurpassed as the definitive visual history of World War II.

The Second World War was different from other wars in thousands of ways, one of which was the unparalleled scope of visual documents kept by the Axis and Allies of all their activities. As a result, this war is understood as much through written histories as it is through its powerful images. The Nazis were particularly thorough in documenting even the most abhorrent of the atrocities they were committing--in a surprising amount of color footage. The World at War was one of the first television documentaries that exploited these resources so completely, giving viewers an unbelievable visual guide to the greatest event in the 20th century. This is to say nothing of the excellent, comprehensible narrative. Some highlights:

A New Germany 1933-39: early German and Nazi documentation of Hitler's rise to power through the impending attack on Poland
Whirlwind: the early British losses in the blitz in the skies over Britain and in North Africa
Stalingrad: the turning point of the war and Germany's first defeat
Inside the Reich--Germany 1940-44: one of the most fascinating documentaries that exists on life inside Nazi Germany, from Lebensborn to the Hitler Youth
Morning: prior to Saving Private Ryan, one of the only unromanticized views of the Normandy invasion
Genocide: this film is one of the most widely shown introductions to the Holocaust
Japan 1941-45: although The World at War is decidedly focused more on the European theater, this is an important look into wartime Japan and its expansion--early 20th-century history that lead to Japan's role in World War II is superficial
The bomb: another widely shown documentary of the Manhattan Project, the Enola Gay, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki

The World at War will remain the definitive visual history of World War II, analogous to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. No serious historian should be missing The World at War in a collection, and no student should leave school without having seen at least some of its salient episodes. Rarely is film so essential. --Erik J. Macki

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Biography - Barack Obama

Actor: Barack Obama
ASIN : B000T28PH4
Sales Rank : 935
Studio : A&E HOME VIDEO
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0733961776195
UPC : 733961776195
Release Date : December 30, 2007
Publisher : A&E HOME VIDEO
Manufacturer : A&E HOME VIDEO
Availability : Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
Label : A&E HOME VIDEO
Running Time : 50

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When he called himself "a skinny kid with a funny name" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his political star was already on the rise. By the time he decimated the competition in 2004 race for the Illinois Senate, he was the bona fide golden child of a Democratic party desperately in need of a winner. In many ways, the story of Barack Obama is a uniquely American tale of the 21st century, where racial lines are blurry and the most interesting chapter is just beginning.

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This cable-television biography about the life of Illinois senator Barack Obama was made before he began campaigning to be the Democratic party's candidate for the 2008 presidential race. Still, the program suggests Obama has one or another kind of profound, Anerican destiny as a mixed-race activist who never comfortably fit into one or another group, and had to look deep into his own roots to understand his identity. The son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father, Obama was abandoned by the latter when he returned to his native country to work for its improvement. Raised by his mother--whom Obama credits with teaching him many of his values--and his grandmother, Obama lived in Hawaii as a child but moved to Indonesia for a few years when his mom remarried. There, Obama saw cyclical poverty and the underlying factors that perpetuate it before returning to Hawaii. Interviews with childhood friends and his sister describe Obama's restlessness before attending Harvard law school and propelling himself into a life of public service and community activism. Often accused of lacking enough political experience to qualify him for the White House, Obama comes across in this show as a visionary and experienced consensus-builder who can reach across opposing points of view. --Tom Keogh (Rereleased in a 2008 Election Update edition)

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Biography - Barack Obama (Election Update Edition)

Actor: Barack Obama
ASIN : B0015VQAZW
Sales Rank : 1480
Brand : A&E
Studio : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0733961114829
UPC : 733961114829
Release Date : December 05, 2008
Publisher : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Manufacturer : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
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Label : A&E Home Video (New REleaset)
Running Time : 50

Product Description

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This cable-television biography about the life of Illinois senator Barack Obama was made before he began campaigning to be the Democratic party's candidate for the 2008 presidential race. Still, the program suggests Obama has one or another kind of profound, Anerican destiny as a mixed-race activist who never comfortably fit into one or another group, and had to look deep into his own roots to understand his identity. The son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father, Obama was abandoned by the latter when he returned to his native country to work for its improvement. Raised by his mother--whom Obama credits with teaching him many of his values--and his grandmother, Obama lived in Hawaii as a child but moved to Indonesia for a few years when his mom remarried. There, Obama saw cyclical poverty and the underlying factors that perpetuate it before returning to Hawaii. Interviews with childhood friends and his sister describe Obama's restlessness before attending Harvard law school and propelling himself into a life of public service and community activism. Often accused of lacking enough political experience to qualify him for the White House, Obama comes across in this show as a visionary and experienced consensus-builder who can reach across opposing points of view. The program ends with details about Obama's entry into the U.S. Senate and his rise in the Democratic party, but a post-program coda catches us up with the history of his recent campaign. --Tom Keogh

Battle 360 - Season 1 (History Channel) (Steelbook)

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For nearly a decade, the legendary World War II aircraft carrier USS Enterprise held a pivotal place on the turbulent seas of war, engaging in some of the fiercest multi-front battles ever witnessed in modern combat. The only carrier to be front and center in every major sea conflict in the Pacific, the Enterprise and her crew s battles were marked by intense firepower, instinct and a 360-coordination between the ship, the destroyers, the aircraft above and the submarines below. In each of ten episodes, and using incredible CGI visualizations, BATTLE 360 follows the Enterprise and its men through another conflict of WWII as they fight off the enemy from the air, the sea and underwater.

DVD Features: Additional Footage

BATTLE 360: THE COMPLETE SEASON ONE includes all 10 original episodes on 4 DVDs:
Disc 1: Call to Duty / Vengeance at Midway / Jaws of the Enemy
Disc 2: Bloody Santa Cruz / Enterprise vs. Japan / The Grey Ghost
Disc 3: Hammer of Hell / D-Day in the Pacific
Disc 4: Battle of Leyte Gulf / The Empire's Last Stand / bonus material

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It would be an understatement say that Battle 360: Season 1 has substantial appeal for World War II and naval history "enthusiasts." Considering the depth and thoroughness of the program and the sheer volume of data and information on hand--and with ten episodes, each more than 50 minutes long, there's very little that’s not covered--it’s likely that experts, fanatics, and obsessives will be well satisfied too. Using a combination of extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI), charts, graphics, statistics, file footage, photos, interviews with military men both past and present, and more, the program focuses on the Pacific Theater, where the United States and its allies battled Japan for the three and half years between Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the end of the war in August 1945. At the center of virtually every battle during that span was the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. Launched in 1936, this Yorktown class vessel, also known as "a fighting city of steel" and "the Lucky E" (for its ability to avoid major catastrophe, at least for the most part), carried 96 planes, a huge amount of weaponry, and a crew whose average was an astonishing 19 years old. Proceeding chronologically, the series details such major conflicts as Midway (when the U.S. disabled no less than four Japanese carriers), Guadalcanal (when the Enterprise suffered serious damage while helping to thwart the enemy’s plans to invade Australia), and Leyte Gulf ("the largest naval battle in the history of mankind"), finishing with the Japanese’s last-gasp use of kamikaze pilots to attack the U.S. fleet. Much of this is genuinely gripping, as the episodes provide literally minute-by-minute accounts of every encounter and the size, speed, function, and firepower of every vessel and aircraft on both sides. But there are notable drawbacks as well, starting with the fact that for all of its detail, we see almost nothing of the Enterprise’s interior or descriptions of daily life on board the enormous vessel. There’s also the issue of how much CGI you can take; although there is some film footage (which may or may not be from the specific skirmish being described), the computer work, while generally pretty convincing, is pervasive and rather like a video game without a controller. What’s more, each episode is kinetic almost to distraction, with a ceaseless flow of pounding music and sound effects, flashing graphics, and macho voice-over detailing the action. On the other hand, the reminiscences of those who were actually there are often very moving, not to mention a welcome surcease from the high-tech assault of the rest of the show. Bonus material is limited--a few additional scenes--but the steel box it all comes in is pretty cool. --Sam Graham

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In the Shadow of the Moon

Actors: Harrison Schmitt, Alan Bean, Edgar D. Mitchell, Michael Collins (II), Neil Armstrong
ASIN : B000XJ5TPE
Sales Rank : 1536
Director : David Sington
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : VELOCITY / THINKFILM
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, Dolby, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0821575555951
UPC : 821575555951
Release Date : December 22, 2008
Publisher : VELOCITY / THINKFILM
Manufacturer : VELOCITY / THINKFILM
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : VELOCITY / THINKFILM
Running Time : 110

Product Description

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON is an intimate epic, which vividly communicates the daring and the danger, the pride and the passion, of this extraordinary era in American history. Between 1968 and 1972, the world watched in awe each time an American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon. Only 12 American men walked upon its surface and they remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. Now for the first, and very possibly the last, time, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON combines archival material from the original NASA film footage, much of it never before seen, with interviews with the surviving astronauts, including Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (Apollo 10 and 16), Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17), Mike Collins (Apollo 11), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). The astronauts emerge as eloquent, witty, emotional and very human.

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The First World War - The Complete Series

Actors: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Erich Ludendorff, Manfred von Richthofen, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
ASIN : B0009S2K9C
Sales Rank : 2013
Director : Simon Rockell, Marcus Kiggell, Corina Sturmer
Studio : Image Entertainment
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0014381055122
UPC : 014381055122
Release Date : December 30, 2005
Publisher : Image Entertainment
Manufacturer : Image Entertainment
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Image Entertainment
Running Time : 523

Description

This definitive ten-part series offers insight and analysis to provide a coherent and strategic military narrative of the worldwide conflict that changed history.

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Haunted History - Haunted Histories Collection (Hauntings / Vampire Secrets / Salem Witch Trails / The Haunted History of Halloween / Poltergeist) (History Channel)

Actor: Haunted Histories Collection
ASIN : B000S0GYMK
Sales Rank : 4321
Director : n/a
Brand : A&E
Studio : A&E HOME VIDEO
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0733961773491
UPC : 733961773491
Release Date : December 25, 2007
Publisher : A&E HOME VIDEO
Manufacturer : A&E HOME VIDEO
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : A&E HOME VIDEO
Running Time : 300

Product Description

HAUNTED HISTORIES COLLECTION - THE REAL STORIES BEHIND HISTORY S SPOOKIES PHENOMENA: HAUNTINGS, WITCHES, POLTERGEISTS, VAMPIRES, AND MORE!

The HAUNTED HISTORIES COLLECTION takes viewers on a spine-tingling tour of truly frightening phenomena. Uncover the real stories behind the Salem Witch Trials, vampires, demon spirits, and haunted houses. From interviews with victims who have been attacked by evil spirits to eyewitness accounts of corpses with pulses and graves where nothing will grow, you don t have to believe in ghosts to be spooked by these chilling tales.

Featuring in-depth profiles of the world s scariest stories, including: Hauntings, Vampire Secrets, Salem Witch Trials, The Haunted History of Halloween, and Poltergeists.

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Body of War - The True Story of an Anti-War Hero

Actor: Tomas Young
ASIN : B001C4N5K0
Sales Rank : 8090
Director : Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro
Studio : DOCURAMA
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0767685136157
UPC : 767685136157
Release Date : December 28, 2008
Publisher : DOCURAMA
Manufacturer : DOCURAMA
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : DOCURAMA
Running Time : 87

Product Description

Paralyzed from the chest down after serving in Iraq for just one week, 25-year-old Tomas Young is forced to deal with the realities of war each and every day. For Tomas, learning to cope with his disability meant finding his voice to speak out against the war in Iraq.

Directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro and set to the haunting vocals of Eddie Vedder, the multi award-winning BODY OF WAR splits its time between Tomas s arduous daily reality in Kansas City, MO, and the legislative processes that led up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002.

Senatorial speeches and a running tally of pro-war votes are interspliced with intimate footage of Tomas as he navigates through the acute physical and emotional impacts of his injury. A testament to the power of parallel images, the film adeptly juxtaposes the sanitized vantage point of Washington with raw personal experience. In the end, this contrast forces viewers to question the motives, methods, and ever-rising cost of the conflict in Iraq.

A deeply moving and bracingly honest film, BODY OF WAR narrates a story that must be heard a story of courage, conviction, and resistance.

DVD Features: Eddie Vedder Music Video No More; MSNBC interview with Phil Donahue; CSPAN coverage of the House and Senate debates; Deleted Scenes; Theatrical Trailer; Filmmaker Biographies

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At the center of Body of War is Tomas Young, a smart, determined guy who enlisted in the military the day after he saw President Bush stride through the ruins of the World Trade Center. He expected to be sent to Afghanistan to get the people who attacked his country; instead, he was shipped to Iraq, where he took a bullet through the collarbone a week after arriving and was paralyzed for life from the chest down. Young's subsequent struggle to be heard, by speaking out and questioning why U.S. soldiers went to Iraq, is chronicled in this film. Directors Phil Donahue (yes, talkshow host Phil Donahue) and Ellen Spiro cast a wider net, which is where the film begins to feel a little scattered, even if their cause is a fervent one. The Senate vote on authorizing the Bush plan for Iraq is a running theme, with the names of the voters emblazoned on the screen (this would be an even more effective drumbeat if it weren't drowning in overbearing music). Meanwhile, West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, an old political hand with a checkered past, emerges as the voice of Constitutional sanity. His soaring speeches leading up to the crucial vote are excerpted at length, so it's no surprise that he and Tomas Young should eventually meet. But whatever the film's ambitions, its finest moments are in following Young and bluntly assessing (with considerable physical detail) his status. Original songs by Eddie Vedder are judiciously placed and passionately delivered. --Robert Horton

Browse Social Studies Online

The World at War (30th Anniversary Edition)

Amazon.com essential video

Biography - Barack Obama

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Biography - Barack Obama (Election Update Edition)

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Battle 360 - Season 1 (History Channel) (Steelbook)

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Warner Bros. and the Homefront Collection (Irving Berlin's This Is the Army / Thank Your Lucky Stars / Hollywood Canteen)

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In the Shadow of the Moon

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The Rape of Europa

The First World War - The Complete Series

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Haunted History - Haunted Histories Collection (Hauntings / Vampire Secrets / Salem Witch Trails / The Haunted History of Halloween / Poltergeist) (History Channel)

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Body of War - The True Story of an Anti-War Hero

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