Customer Reviews

The Sahara: The Forgotten History of the World's Harshest Desert (History Channel)

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This is a short program apparently done originally for History Channel Broadcast, though I don't recall seeing it there. The secondary disk with biographies doesn't add much if the Sahara is your prime interest, but the primary program has several short, relatively self-contained segments on relevant topics, including the climate changes that created the desert, Carthage, the camel, a bit about the Romans (mainly featuring some decent footage and interviews with local experts on the amphitheater at El Djem plus some footage of the desert fort at Tisavar), a good segment on the Ksours, a segment on the American attempt to intervene in Tripoli (Libya) in the early 1800s, and other stuff. Image quality is good, production values are good, and they have some nice reenactments of things like Tuareg caravan ambushes and the Roman destruction of Carthage. I wince slightly at the price, but the program is a good one.

A certain mystique lingers in the very name... It is a haunting and hostile arena with a past as captivating as its landscape. In this desert blanketing eleven nations in Northern Africa, nature has crafted a world of mesmerizing desolation. And across its scorching sands, from the Stone Age to the 21st century, humanity has dared to carve history.

Here, 40,000 Persian warriors were swallowed by a titanic sandstorm kings led caravans of 30,000 bearing riches beyond imagining Roman death squads exterminated the citizens of the Empire's most bitter rival a brash American led the Marines on a perilous mission "to the shores of Tripoli" and the misfits of the Foreign Legion forged a legend in last stands and lost causes.

Our cameras explore a land of mirage and myth from a mountain fortress of ancient freedom fighters to a vast stadium filled with gladiators gore to the vibrant chaos of a camel auction to the fabled metropolis of Timbuktu.

Historians chronicle how a devastating climate change turned a lush savanna into the world's harshest desert how a charismatic Saharan priestess led her people in a desperate war of resistance against Arab invaders how slaves from Africa's interior perished during nightmarish marches in the sweltering heat and how the German army's brilliant tactician Erwin Rommel bedeviled British forces in the desert during World War II.

DVD Features:

* Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
* 2 episodes of BIOGRAPHY - Erwin Rommel and Lawrence of Arabia
* Interactive Menus
* Scene Selection

Like most History Channel documentaries, this one doesn't impress one bit. I felt like watching a cheap documentary with historical lies repeated over and over.
Luckily, I didn't buy it. and I urge those who want to learn real historical facts about the sahara to avoid this DVD set.