Educational Media Reviews Online

Developed under the guidance of a "Scholar Team" of historians, led by Donald L. Miller, Professor of History at Lafayette College, this series provides an interesting and enlightened approach to presenting material typically found in the introductory survey of American history courses directed at senior high school or undergraduate college students. The review material for A Biography of America consisted of a VHS tape containing a ten minute preview of the series and two of the individual one half hour programs, Westward Expansion and World War II, along with a "Preview Guide" containing the "Study Guide" and "Faculty Guide" chapters for the two programs. The two programs reviewed take quite different approaches to the presentation of the material. In Westward Expansion, Miller sets the historical stage and then moderates, as well as participates in, a discussion between two well-known historians, Pauline Maier and Stephen Ambrose, about the consequences of the expansion made possible by the Louisiana Purchase. The information presented succeeds in being both accessible to a high school student and illuminating to an undergraduate. In fact, even students on the graduate level would benefit from this program, not only from the actual content of the discussion and the carefully selected visuals, but, perhaps most interestingly, from seeing two heavyweights in the field present their own interpretations of the same events; Ambrose in particular emerges as an engagingly candid, if somewhat forceful, speaker.

This humanizing of history (and historians) through the utilization of first-person narratives, audio-visual materials, and a variety of different perspectives presented by different speakers, is another aim of the series and is accomplished in a different way in World War II. Miller is the sole speaker in this segment which is highly personalized. He recounts the effects that World War II had on his family and community both during the conflict itself and for generations after, interspersing these stories with the wider historical forces and factors. Again, while the viewer is presented with a working overview of the topic under discussion, the presentation serves to generate thoughtful reflection and discussion by humanizing both the task of the historian and the historian himself.

The "Study Guide" and "Faculty Guide" chapters that accompany these two programs were excellent, providing additional material and discussion points as well as establishing links between the textbook and the programs. The companion web site, www.learner.org, contains supplementary material on each program (including a transcript, maps, a timeline, a collection of relevant links to other web sites, and an interactive page appropriate to the program content - e.g., the World War II program had a series of links to follow after answering the question "Was the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans appropriate?") and was highlighted as a recommended link in the Scout Report of January 19, 2001. (The textbook, A People and a Nation, was not reviewed.)

A Biography of America, whether used in toto as the basis of a survey of American history (in either a classroom or distance learning course) or as individual programs in support of parts of a survey or higher-level elective courses, fulfills its claim of presenting history "as a living narrative." The quality of the series, both editorial and technical, is excellent as would be expected from an Annenberg/CPB production. The programs in the series would be worthwhile viewing for students from secondary school to beginning graduate study level, as well as by adults with an interest in American history. Highly recommended!

*Individual Programs:
1. New World Encounters
2. English Settlement
3. Growth and Empire
4. The Coming of Independence
5. A New System of Government
6. Westward Expansion
7. The Rise of Capitalism
8. The Reform Impulse
9. Slavery
10. The Coming of the Civil War
11. The Civil War
12. Reconstruction
13. America at its Centennial
14. Industrial Supremacy
15. The New City
16. The West
17. Capital and Labor
18. TR and Wilson
19. A Vital Progressivism
20. The Twenties
21. FDR and the Depression
22. World War II
23. The Fifties
24. The Sixties
25. Contemporary History
26. The Redemptive Imagination