Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

WW1 was just an inevitable effect of the fall of Rome. Please discuss.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

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I can see what you're saying. I just think the stark crazed horror of the WW1 trenches, and its utter pointlessness, is hard to top as a sort of peak human experience -- of a negative kind. Heck, the french shelled their own troops when they didn't want to go soak up machine gun bullets just to wear out the enemy's ammunition stores. How insane is that?

Plus, there was the coming of the tank, which must have been mind-boggling and fearful, and those daring young men in their flying machines. And zeppelins! And this at a time when even the leading nations of the world had only a fraction of their roads paved, and some soldiers and many citizens still used horses, and most people lived on farms. What an odd dissonance, what a crazy coming of age the early part of this century was.

By contrast, so much of WW2 seemed to make sense.

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I can see the fascination with WWI. However much of what you describe happened in the Civil War as well. Sans Flying Machines and Machine guns (which was invented a little late for this war) and different participants obviously. Heck some of the so called "charges" were freakin retarded. I have gone to some of the battle fields (Fredricksberg for instance) and thought "WTF?" . Not being a war strategist even I can see the futility of that one.

I have a fascination with the kind of person that says, "Yes sir" as much as the General that orders such a futile charge and the general dynamics of it.

I hope the WWII documentary is half as good as the Civil War . To this day, I still love watching Shelby Foote describe the battlefields and the participants as if he were there.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

Versailles seems a lot more than incidental, unless you want to marginalize the importance of Germany in WW2, which doesn't seem possible.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

Thoughts on episode one?

I was mildly disappointed at times, and riveted at other times. I thought it could have been edited down by at least 30 minutes... lots of repetition. Though I agree with the disparaging view of MacArthur, the episode failed to mention that Japan had begun its expansion in 1937 - giving MacArthur nearly four years to ready his army.

Sid Phillips is one tough SOB, and I wouldn't want to make Glenn Frazier at all upset. I think the episode succeeded in conveying the brutality of total war, and it was both necessary and accurate that the American vets owned up to their own cruelty.

I was surprised at the similarities between the public's reaction to Pearl and 9/11 - two infamous dates. The stories of people rushing into bars and malt shops and simply saying "turn the radio on," and when asked what station, the reply was "any" clearly brought back that Tuesday six years ago. I was on vacation, days before my wedding, and my mother-in-law called and said, simply, "put the TV on."

Episode 2 airs tonight at 8:00 ET.

Tonight's episode, "When Things Get Tough" appears to focus on the European theater.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

My company made all the promos/trailers for the movie. I agree that part one was slow at times, but based on the footage I saw while we were working on it, future episodes will be quite riveting.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

Control of my TV was taken from me and I didn't get to watch it. Hopefully they rerun often so I can record!

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

I believe it reairs next tuesday, SL.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

I thought the first episode was very interesting...I had no idea it was going to be this thorough..I'm learning a lot I didn't know about and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the show.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

If you're interested in WW2, I cannot recommend strongly enough the following books by Len Deighton:

-Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II
-Fighter
-Bomber

Some excellent historical writing by an excellent novelist/amateur historian.

Re: The War - Ken Burns Series on PBS
 

Highly recommend Paul Fussell.