Customer Reviews

Empires: Queen Victoria's Empire

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

 

 

As a professor of Victorian literature, I think this film is quite good. It astutely captures the complexity of Queen Victoria, 19th-century Britain, and empire building. The level of detail is impressive, and it's incredibly informative.

This is the best DVD about the Victorian Age that I have ever seen! Part of the show presents the life of Victoria and Albert. Other parts focus on the economic, social, and military aspects of the British Empire.

I particularly enjoyed the following anecdote about civil rights in India.

The British allowed the Indians to keep their religion and most aspects of their native culture. However, they did forbid certain uncivilized practices. For example, they exterminated the cult of Kali which involved murdering people as sacrifices to the goddess of destruction.

But, best of all is the part of the video where an Indian "nativist" stands-up for civil rights. "It's wrong for all you British to come here and tell us what we can do in our religious practices. This is a Hindu funeral. We should run it our way.... Power to the people!" And the British officer replied, "Well, we have some customs of our own in England. We HANG men who burn living women!" You see, the native habit was to burn the widow on the husband's funeral pyre. Isn't it delicious? 21st century morality demands that we view all cultures and religions as equally valid. Imperialism was terrible, etc., etc., etc. But this DVD is honest enough to tell both sides of the story.

In my opinion, QUEEN VICTORIA'S EMPIRE gives the average educated person everything he needs to know about the British Empire in the 1800s.

We enjoyed learning the history of England during the long reign of Queen Victoria. I must have been exposed to some of this information in a college world history course but feel after viewing approximately 220 minutes of well narrated and presented material that it all makes sense now. The information is presented with photographs, drawings and re-enactments of major events in British history and included even the brutal events of India and Sudan with a straight forward approach. Donald Sutherland is a GREAT narrator - he was easily understood with just the right timbre and inflection to his voice. We plan to watch this again in about six months to gain even more understanding. A good sequel is "Edward the King" - miniseries by BBC. These two together will really help the viewer gain understanding of the events leading up to World War I. Five Stars for certain.

The Empires series is all over the place:

SUPERB:

Napoleon

GOOD:

Martin Luther

Islam

The Greeks

ALRIGHT:

The Medici

Peter&Paul

Japan

The Kingdom of David

SNORE-FEST:

Egypt

Rome

So I didn't know WHAT to expect from Queen Victoria. But I really enjoyed it. It's one of the best of the Empires series: The Crystal Palace, The Crimean War, Dr. Livingston, India, The Boer war, The Diamond mines etc. Very informative and entertaining.

One other thing: why is Donald Sutherland narrating this thing? Of all people, can they not get someone British?

Watching the excellent film The Young Victoria convinced me that I needed to know more about Victoria, Prince Albert and the British Empire during her reign. Although I generally prefer BBC documentaries, which cover a subject in great depth, I found this PBS DVD to be very informative. I learned a lot about Victoria and the three men in her life (Prince Albert and her two prime ministers Gladstone and Disraeli) in this excellently narrated 219 minute documentary. Highly recommended.

The BBC film Victoria and Albert is billed as an epic love story. If you're looking for a love story, you might try this one, but if you're looking for a factual overview of The Victorian Age, get Queen Victoria's Empire.

A great addition to anyone's video library with a great overall view of the world and the time in which this interesting monarch ruled as Queen and Empress to an Empire where the sun never set.

Here you get the renowned Queen Victoria of England [1819-1901] in the space of 219 minutes... and it's nicely conceived.

Queen Victoria was literally the Grandmother of European Royal families. As a young woman, she married a minor German prince [Prince Consort Albert] who gave her some darn great advice. Unfortunately, he died long before she did which led to Great Britain's heyday of Imperialism tenoned with some fairly goofy military conflicts.

The documentary is presented in a flowing style and is artfully narrated by Donald Sutherland (Eye of the Needle.) There's a great deal of very old film footage which is of course rendered in black-and-white. The remainder is presented in color. It's in widescreen, a 2001 production by The History Channel [UK] for PBS.

Much of the focus of the film is on India, all of which is notably compelling. A good number of personal interviews round out the production. This is not a set-you-on-fire DVD but I enjoyed it and was never bored.

Recommended.

I have a host of videos I have never reviewed, will try to chatch up on that as many are very good and should not be misses as this one. I liked this book very much. I enjoyed this book very much because it was just what I was looking for. I try to spread out my reading to keep a wide variety following. This book kept my interest. I liked the balance, the development of the characters and the over all pictures created. I share my reviews with two book clubs, one in New York and the other here in Aspen. I love to share reviews of book as it is so positive and I get great tips. This book will be an added showcase. I try my best to give either a positive review or nothing at all, negative review are worthless to me and those in our book clubs, we look for the positive. This book was just what I was looking for, not too much of anything, fun where it should have been and no so where it needed to be serious. Great job. Other book I recommend are: Obsession Into Darkness (Gay Thriller) this was a real read, I loved it, I've Always Known (Child Abuse) I cried when reading this true story, From Boys to Men (Gay Classic), this was a hot one, Reflections In The Looking Glass - A Murder Mystery That Will Surprise you (Gay Murder Mystery),Ride 'Em Cowboy (Gay Cowboy), The Lady In White (Gay Romance)and if your looking for hot stuff, you may want to try out Sinbad - The Balloon Kingdom (Gay Sailor).