This Week

Ken Burns' Prohibition
PBS, Oct. 2, 3, and 4, 2011. 8:00 pm EDT.

[From PBS]

PROHIBITION is a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed.

Prohibition was intended to improve, even to ennoble, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse. But the enshrining of a faith-driven moral code in the Constitution paradoxically caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality.

Next Week

The War of 1812
PBS, October 12, 2011. 9:00 pm EDT.

[From PBS]

For two and a half years, Americans fought Against the British, Canadian colonists, and native nations.  In the years to come, the War of 1812 would be celebrated in some places and essentially forgotten in others.  But it is a war worth remembering—a struggle that threatened the existence of Canada, then divided the United States so deeply that the nation almost broke apart.  Some of its battles and heroes became legendary, yet its blunders and cowards were just as prominent.  The film shows how the glories of war became enshrined in history – how failures are quickly forgotten – how inconvenient truths are ignored forever. 

With stunning re-enactments, evocative animation and the incisive commentary of key experts, The War of 1812 presents the conflict that forged the destiny of a continent.