Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 2
Language
English
Description
The second episode is set during the tumultuous era known as the "Jazz Age," when the rhythms and spirit of jazz music mirror the world that emerged in the wake of World War I. The program introduces two extraordinary individuals whose lives will be interwoven throughout the rest of the series: the brilliant bandleader and composer Duke Ellington and the virtuoso New Orleans-born cornetist Louis Armstrong, who single-handedly transforms jazz from...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 2
Language
English
Description
THE WAR, a new seven-part documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history.Six years in the making, this epic 14-hour film focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 4
Language
English
Description
While visiting the parks was once predominantly the domain of Americans wealthy enough to afford the high-priced train tours, the advent of the automobile allows more people than ever before to visit the parks. Mather embraces this opportunity and works to build more roads in the parks. Some park enthusiasts, such as Margaret and Edward Gehrke of Nebraska, begin "collecting" parks, making a point to visit as many as they can. In North Carolina, Horace...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 3
Language
English
Description
Louis Armstrong arrives in New York from Chicago where, during a brief stay with the Fletcher Henderson band, he amazes his fellow musicians and teaches the city to swing. A blues craze, spearheaded by Bessie Smith, takes the nation by storm. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz artist, eventually plays for bandleader Paul Whiteman, whose blending of classical and jazz traditions comes to epitomize jazz for many Americans. This episode...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 3
Language
English
Description
Discover the true story of America's “Great Experiment” — the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing alcohol — in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's PROHIBITION.Support for Prohibition diminishes in the mid-1920s as the playfulness of sneaking around for a drink gives way to disenchantment with its glaring unintended consequences. By criminalizing one of the nation's largest industries, the law has given savvy gangsters a way to make huge...
6) The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: The History of the World (April 1969-May 1970)
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 8
Language
English
Description
With morale plummeting in Vietnam, President Nixon begins withdrawing American troops. As news breaks of an unthinkable massacre committed by American soldiers, the public debates the rectitude of the war.
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 3
Language
English
Description
Theodore Roosevelt leads a Progressive crusade that splits his own party, undertakes a deadly expedition into the South American jungle, campaigns for American entry into World War I - and pays a terrible personal price. Franklin masters wartime Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, while Eleanor finds personal salvation in war work. Her discovery of Franklin's romance with another woman transforms their marriage into a largely political...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 7
Language
English
Description
The episode begins with the presidential campaign of 1864 that set Abraham Lincoln against his old commanding general, George McClellan. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the union itself: with Grant and Sherman stalled at Petersburg and Atlanta, opinion in the north has turned strongly against Lincoln and the war. But eleventh hour union victories at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and the Shenandoah Valley, tilt the election to Lincoln, and...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 4
Language
English
Description
Franklin Roosevelt runs for vice president in 1920 and seems assured of a still brighter future until polio devastates him the following summer. He spends seven years struggling without success to walk again, while Eleanor builds a personal and political life of her own. FDR returns to politics in 1928 and, as governor of New York, acts with such vigor and imagination during the first years of the Great Depression that the Democrats turn to him as...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 9
Language
English
Description
This extraordinary final episode begins in the bittersweet aftermath of Lee's surrender and then goes on to narrate the horrendous events of five days later when, on April 14, Lincoln is assassinated. After chronicling Lincoln's poignant funeral, the series recounts the final days of the war, the capture of John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, and the fates of the series' major characters. The episode then considers the consequences and meaning...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 1
Language
English
Description
In 1851, word spreads across the country of a beautiful area of California's Yosemite Valley, attracting visitors who wish to exploit the land's scenery for commercial gain and those who wish to keep it pristine. Among the latter is a Scottish-born wanderer named John Muir, for whom protecting the land becomes a spiritual calling. In 1864, Congress passes an act that protects Yosemite from commercial development for "public use, resort and recreation"...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 9
Language
English
Description
As rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll erode jazz' audience still further, the music nonetheless enjoys a time of tremendous creativity. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins makes his mark on the scene, Duke Ellington reemerges as a star after a triumphant performance at the Newport Jazz Festival and Miles Davis makes several now-legendary albums. Young trumpeter Clifford Brown achieves great artistry, but his life is cut short in a car accident. Vocalist Sarah...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 8
Language
English
Description
Jazz becomes the official symbol of American democracy abroad. At home, the music splinters into different camps: white and black, cool and hot, East and West, traditional and modern. Television supplants radio, but offers fewer opportunities for jazz to be heard. Most big bands are forced to dismantle. The rhythm and blues phenomenon further erodes the audience for jazz. Charlie Parker dies of pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver at age 34; Dizzy...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 6
Language
English
Description
This episode begins with a biographical comparison of Grant and Lee and then chronicles the extraordinary series of battles that pitted the two generals against each other from the wilderness to Petersburg in Virginia. With Grant and Lee finally deadlocked at Petersburg, the episode moves to the ghastly hospitals in both the North and South, and follows Sherman's Atlanta campaign through the mountains of northern Georgia. As the horrendous casualty...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
This award-winning film by Ken Burns recaptures the drama, struggles, and personal tragedies behind the greatest of all achievements of America's industrial age, THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. Largest bridge of the era, its construction entailed enormous problems and ingenious solutions. Witness the human heroics behind the bridge that seized America's imagination in the 1880s. Discover the enduring charm and beauty of a granite-and-steel masterpiece.
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 6
Language
English
Description
FDR shatters the third-term tradition, struggles to prepare a reluctant country to enter World War II and, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, helps set the course toward Allied victory. Meanwhile, Eleanor struggles to keep New Deal reforms alive in wartime and travels the Pacific to comfort wounded servicemen. Diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 1943 and with the war still raging, FDR resolves to conceal his condition and run for a...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 2
Language
English
Description
Kennedy inspires idealistic Americans to serve their country and wrestles with how deeply to get involved in South Vietnam. As the autocratic Diem regime faces a communist insurgency and Buddhist protests, a political crisis unfolds.
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 2
Language
English
Description
Discover the true story of America's “Great Experiment” — the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing alcohol — in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's PROHIBITION. In 1920, Prohibition goes into effect, making it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell intoxicating liquor. This episode examines the problems of enforcement, as millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight. While a significant portion of the country is...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 2
Language
English
Description
By the end of the 19th century, widespread industrialization has left many Americans worried about whether the country - once a vast wilderness - will have any pristine land left. At the same time, poachers in the parks are rampant, and visitors think nothing of littering or carving their names near iconic sites like Old Faithful. Congress has yet to establish clear judicial authority or appropriations for the protection of the parks. This sparks...
Author
Series
Ken Burns volume 6
Language
English
Description
A stubborn iconoclast fights a lonely battle on behalf of a species nearly everyone hates; America's "Last Frontier" becomes a testing ground for the future of the park idea; and in unprecedented numbers, American families create unforgettable memories, passing on a love of the parks to the next generation.Following World War II, the parks are overwhelmed as visitation reaches 62 million people a year. A new billion-dollar campaign - Mission 66 -...