Not in the period of history you're looking for but I recently saw an interesting documentary called 'Americas Stone Age Explorers' which is mostly about new discoveries shedding light on the settlement of America from Asia but also touches on a theory of early European settlement.

Anything by Ken Burns

I think the documentary version of Guns, Germs, and Steel was pretty neat. You can agree or disagree with Jared Diamond, but it's an interesting idea.

Yeh the answer to everything is in Guns, Germs and Steel.
Bwahahahaahaa! :)))) But seriously, type 'Adam Curtis' into youtube and prepare your mind to be blown. 'It Felt Like A Kiss' is particularly trippy.

I always think "American Movie" when I think great documentaries. Of course, it's got absolutely nothing to do with your interest, I'm afraid.

My interest is pretty broad actually. I'll be most likely searching usenet or torrents - so what I end up watching will depend on what I can find. So I appreciate suggestions on any topic.

Krellin, I have watched quite a few Ken Burns documentaries. They're awesome. The last one I watched was the one he made on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have also seen The Civil War and New York. I have his series on Baseball but I haven't watched it yet.

SD - yes i have seen Guns Germs and Steel, and I have read the book. I don't think Jard Diamond is necessarily 100% correct about every detail, but I think his general thesis is on the money, especially the East-West axis of Eurasia versus the North-South axis of the America's, with the former making it easier for technology to spread. This idea is very plausible.

SunZi - how did people to get the Americas? Yes, that is a fascinating subject. Was it around 13 to 14 thoudand years ago - or could it have been earlier. Did they follow a coastal route or was it via an ice corridor? Interesting questions.
Another topic about North America I would find interesting is how the Native Amricans really lived. I think would make an excellent maxi-series.

I second spyman I'd love if someone knew any films at all on the subject of European colonization of America.

Michael Moore




/jks Anything by Louis Theroux and Shadow Company

There is a "500 nations" documentary series, don't know how good it really is. The Alwin M. Josephy book 500 nations is a neat easy overview IMHO.

@Thucydides: Films or documentaries? There's tons of both. :-) What aspect? North America/South America; topic? "The Columbian Exchange" e.g. is another "general" approach, that can be watched complementary to Jared Diamond's documentary - though I have to confess that I find Diaond too simplistic anyway. He rakes up a mix of bits that everyone working on the subject knows anyway and makes it a theory of everything. But the general idea is good enough and I guess such "in-jared ports" between science and public are necessary...

The BBC did a series of documentaries on pre-colonial African civalisations a little while back that was rather good. I think it was called "Lost Kingdoms of Africa", but even if the name's slightly different it should be easu enough to find. A bit far removed from America, but well worth a look :)

Octavios, I actually downloaded the episodes on the Asante and Zulu Kingdoms a few night ago. I started watching the Asante episode late at night, but I fell asleep. Not because it was boring but because I was really tired. It was good I'll watch he rest of it soon.

The King of King

krellin's correct, Ken Burns has a lot of good ones (if you like baseball--I think I recall you're a fellow Mets sufferer, er, fan?--his 10-part "Baseball" documentary is GREAT)...

There are a lot of documentaries on famous authors I like on YouTube...

One on Oscar Wilde...
One on George Eliot...
One on the Bronte Sisters...
One on Charles Dickens' real-world locations (2-parts, with Sir Derek Jacobi...)

Probably my favorite one is one with T.S. Eliot, partially because...well, it's T.S. Eliot, and he's my favorite all-around poet (Shakespeare has sonnets and Milton epic poetry, Eliot's sort of a poet's poet, he could do shorter poems, longer ones, have them rhyme with meter, be free verse, he could plug anything in there from classical literature and symbolism and languages to modern references, he just could do it all) and partially just because of how much and how many different aspects of his life and times they look at, even the stuff that isn't too complimentary too him, like Litvinoff's accusation he was an Anti-Semite and the story behind his infamous poem "To T.S. Eliot" where he blasts him, and he read it in a big public poetry meeting with Eliot present (and the story goes Eliot just leaned over to a friend and said "It's a good poem," and that's it...personally I don't think he was an Anti-Semite, he had Jewish friends, he was just a product of his times and was so used to using symbols in his poetry in classical senses...well, "classically," Jews weren't positive symbols in a lot of Western literature, it's there with Marlowe and Shakespeare and Dickens and plenty other English writers, and then of course he was friends with Ezra Pound...so yeah, I don't see him as an Anti-Semite and just a malicious Jew-hater the way Wagner, say, was, he just was a bit blinded or uncaring perhaps to how those negative symbols really stung with people in a post-WWI and then post-Holocaust world...but then, they WERE classic archetypes, and that's what a lot of his poetry is, twisting around old archetypes and showing them to be "a heap of broken images," so...yeah, I've gone on way too long, watch the documentary!)

:)

Also--

Richard Dawkins has some good ones (obviously)...

And "Planet Earth" is AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL, I mean, that just brings out the full beauty of the planet, spectacular, I don't know if it won any awards, I'm sure it won something, and rightfully so, it's breathtaking, check it out!

America: The Story of Us

Planet Earth was gogeous. There is one on the oceans too, Blue Planet Seas of life I think.
There is a good history channel program on the Pilgrims called Desperate Crossing.

I'm not much of a documentary fan, but I liked Hoop Dreams (1994), Kids (1995), and Murderball (2005).

Murderball trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W1JxmHxR2w

I really enjoyed Jimmy Carter's autobiography. I forget what it was called, but I think it had Christmas in the title. Thin book covering his youth mostly. Sort of an early years autobiography. Chuck Norris' autobiography was also excellent althoughbthe writing isn't up to President Carter's quality. I guess President's get better ghostwriters. :-)

Robert Hughs or Hughes documentary on American art representing / recording
American History

oh thats North American history

Chuck Norris?? you have to be taking the piss with that suggestion, Draugnar

Highly recommend Anvil: The Story of Anvil. Great story of one of the original heavy metal bands that never quite made it big.

I second Adam Curtis documentaries. Excellent stuff. "The Trap", "Century of the Self", "Power of Nightmares" all recommended.

Best Documentary ever: Spinal Tap....<giggles....>

@Major - Not at all. Have you read it? Don't pass judgement until you do.

King of Kong is pretty good as well. It's about record-setting Donkey Kong players. Crazy.

@ Draugnar
I've seen Mr Chuck Norris close up when he visited Sydney
I am also aware of the results of his visit to Kings Cross (nightclub / "red light"
district of Syney ) when he decided to be the tough guy & the manner of his air
transportation back to the US.

Does he mention that little sojourn in his book ?

I also take exception to the misrepresentation of the results of indiscriminate
& "targeted" gunfire in his banal "Texas Rangers" tv product

Anyone who thinks that you can use firearms in the ways depicted and get the results
also depicted has a strictly Pollyanna like, or Romantic Fiction (strong on fantasy,
hyperbole and innaccuracy ) Novelists conception of the real world

@ Draugnar
one example
Chuck is on the steps of the plane, about to leave Beirut
( after singlehandedly defeating the local PLO crew )
confronted by a crowd.
from an elevated position he discharges a approx .45 calibre handgun
to make a warning shot to a crowd of hostile persons waving & shouting at him.
He aims the handgun at the ground & the special effects indicate a bullet impact
on the ground "at the feet" of the crowd.

No one gets hit by the ricochet bullet, including Chuck

Now I reckon if someone like Mythbusters set up the shot & repeated it
more than 80 % of ricochets would hit at least one person and with a . 45 slug at that close range even clip a couple in the crowd.

Ricochet bullets can take the most surprising paths, including back at the shooter

I suggest that if you got say an M16 & fired "two full clips" at a slight mound of hard
packed ground about 40 metres from you, let alone 4 metres, there will be ricochet
bullets that come whizzing back past you, & there is a chance that, unprotected you
can be hit by your own bullet.

But as I say, you don't have to worry, when you got out a - shootin' with Dick Cheney
about the ones that whizz just past & miss you.

They've missed you & are gone.
Concentrate on the source(s) of fire & figure out how to take them out without getting
clipped yourself.

Rule one
Don't get clipped or let a mate get clipped.

It's not our task to die for our nation etc etc
our task is to make plenty of the other crowds chaps die for their cause without
acheiving any success against us.

mission at any ( human ) cost is for psychopaths
mission at no cost / absolute minimum cost in personnel on our side and "civilians"
is the "philosophy" of perhaps some elite units I would suggest, but hey Draugnar,
you've chosen Chuck as an authority on American History / Culture and presumably
on military matters, what can I say, bon ami, i think you will need it.

I suppose we can dismiss Gore Vidal, Hemingway, Jackson Pollock, the famous
architect whose name escapes me, & Dale Carnegie as irrelevant nonentities
( and Orson Welles and Walt Whitman and Mark Twain )
when compared to Mr Chuck Norris

Ancient Aliens.

@President Eden
You've got to be taking the piss! Tsoukalos's hair alone renders the series unwatchable let alone the tedious dialogue and lack of any real investigation.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/158/329/9189283.jpg

@MajorM - It's a TV show. Geez. He is an actor now. The book is about how the service and Martial Arts saved his life by getting off a path of self destruction. Until you have read it, don't judge it. Nuff said.