Customer Reviews

Empires Collection - The Dynasties (Egypt's Golden Empire / The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance / Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire / The Roman Empire in the First Century / The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was very impressed with this series. I learned very much, escpecailly about the Medici's. If you enjoy history/documentaries you'll love this collection. I was so impressed I've ordered other Empire series. Props to PBS on this one!

I've been reviewing areas of history that I don't usually cover to balance out my general knowledge. No video can compress into a couple of hours the libraries that have been written on these subjects, but I watched them with a pad nearby and started searching names and topics for further study. Then I added books on those areas to my wish list here on Amazon.

All in all, each disc is a great review if you're rusty or a place to start if you're moving into new areas of history.

For those of you who love Ancient History and would like to know more about it this is the collection you must have.
When i first watched those programs i was astonished. The detail explanations of events and people really can make a person wonder.

In general this collection will proof a worthy buy, i recommend this for teachers, students and anyone interested in world history, you really CAN learn much by watching this, and as for me it will be of great help for my academic purposes.

If you get it you will NOT regret it!!

I had hoped for better from this collection. The "documentaries" are little more than highly costumed re-enactments that shed little light on their purported subjects. These are typical drivel, in that they show the same re-enacted scene repeatedly with non-informative voice-over unrelated to the ridiculous scene. There is no analysis, no real information beyond the most basic, lots of fighting and blood, lots of slo-mo and overacting, lots of camera "techniques", lots of costumes, lots of tense scoring. There's also lots of ridiculous dramatic set-up. For example, the Medici story tries to build up tension regarding the radical design of the Florence cathedral dome. Will it be built? Will it work? Is the architect mad? Is Cosimo Medici going to survive politically? It's ludicrous--we all know that the dome was built and that Cosimo survived (hence the Medici dynasty). It would have been way more interesting and informative to look at the challenges of the dome's construction with some illustrative models or animations, to hear some real analysis of the political situation in Florence. The "talking head" segments offer slightly more insight, but there's really not much to this collection. If you like actual documentaries, this will not satisfy.

This PBS series was way ahead of it's time for documentaries and taking it to the next level. I'm a big history buff and have enjoyed countless documentaries on these subjects, but the lavish productions, thorough scripts and thoughtful viewpoints are brought together in this great set. If you or someone you know is a history buff, get this series!

The PBS Empires series of Documentaries is among my favorite of all time. Each of the 2-3 hours long titles brings individual episodes of human history to life in an as much as entertaining as educational fashion through original images of locations and objects, re-enactments as well as great original music. I have not seen a PBS Empires title that wasn't great and only regret that they made too few of them over the years. This DVD collections provides access to this great series at a bargain price. Almost 1,000 minutes of great content for less than $70. You almost cannot beat that.

Next to the titles in this collection; I can also recommend the following ones: Empires - Martin Luther, Empires - The Kingdom of David - The Saga of the Israelites, Empires - Napoleon, Empires: Queen Victoria's Empire, Empires - Holy Warriors: Richard the Lionheart & Saladin, Empires - Islam: Empire of Faith; and Empires - Peter & Paul and the Christian Revolution.

I bought the entire collection and have just started working with "The Roman Empire in the First Century" in my classroom. The information is good and my kids seem interested in the material, but the DVDs are hard to work with. There is no information or scene list provided with the DVDs. You have to work with the menu on the disc itself which gives you nothing but a series of cryptic titles. For example,I want to review the Christianity section just before Christmas, but I have to watch through the DVD to find the specific parts I need. The title of one section is "Blessed are the Meek" which helps, but that's all there is. Even the online lessons PBS offers have no time or scene-based correlation to the DVD. They offer specific portions of the episode to download, but don't tell you where they are if you already have the disc. These pieces would be much more useful in the classroom with just a little more help from PBS.