If you haven't seen "The Story of Europe" yet, I recommend it. All fluster aside, it is one of the better docuseries on European history I have seen. In the absence of travel to Europe, we continue to plan for (and dream of) travel whenever that becomes feasible for us once again.
Have you seen any good documentary series or movies that you would recommend?
Thanks for sharing!
What service did you watch it on? Interested
I found it on Amazon Prime via Curiosity Stream
My local PBS station is broadcasting one of the offerings from the video-lecture-series company, The Great Courses, on one of its sub-channels. The course we're seeing is "Great Tours--England, Scotland, and Wales". It's very good. The lecturer is a college professor in a studio, but there are lots of inter-cut photos and videos. I suspect this is a one-and-done as far as free TV access is concerned, a way for the company to get its products out there in the public eye. But online access to some or all of their series is available by subscription through The Great Courses Plus. They are currently offering a free 14-day trial. I think the monthly fee after that is about $15. You can watch the lectures on various platforms.
I've tended to gravitate more towards history podcasts then full on docuseries, if you are willing to give podcasts a try, I can recommend these three on deep dives into specific topics on European history:
Tides of History (https://wondery.com/shows/tides-of-history/) - a sweeping narrative on the transition of 1000 years of European history from Late Antiquity 5th century, to the Middle Ages, until the Early Modern Period of the 16th century.
History of the Crusades (https://crusadespod.com/) - early episodes focus on Middle Eastern Crusades, newer ones follow the Albigensian Crusade (southern France), Baltic Crusades ( Baltics/Poland), and Reconquista (Al-Andalus).
The History of Rome (https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/) - award winning podcast from a few years back, telling the history of Rome in it's entirety.
hope these help + they are all free to listen :)
A Cambridge Classics Professor, Mary Beard, has made a number of tv documentaries for the BBC available on You Tube. Great fun and very entertaining. Most deal with Rome, but has done one on Pompeii and also the Roman Empire.
I join with the others in recommending "The Story of Europe." In depth but they manage to keep it interesting.
We signed up for Curiosity Stream thanks to this thread so we could watch The Story Of Europe. We finished the six episodes and enjoyed it. Now, we have moved on to Art Of The Heist. We love it!💜 Thanks for the recommendation!
The Story of Europe is good! I watched it recently on HBO Max (that I get free with my AT&T cell service). So if you have HBO Max you can find it there.
The Civilizations art history documentary is also very good. I know it was on Netflix for awhile, as well as available through PBS.
I’m trying to hunt down a comprehensive streaming option for Great Continental Railway Journeys if anyone knows of one!
Just got around to watching the Story of Europe, overall it had great production value, with many fascinating locations featured. Maybe this is not so noticeable for non-Europeans, but at times the series felt like a slick advertisement for the European Union ( I wouldn't be surprised if they had a hand in financing). Don't get me wrong I'm not a Eurosceptic, but the pro-EU messaging was quite "on the nose" at times lol!
I don't have cable or other entertainment services other than Netflix or YouTube. YouTube runs a number of historical documentaries via Timeline. It ran on BBC. Ancient Rome, Black History, both World Wars. The Playlist tab may narrow down the extensive options.
MariaF, thanks for the Timeline tip. Looks like the kind of program we enjoy. I’m just learning about YouTube as a source of good programming. We’ve been enjoying Perspective which deals with the history of art.
Glenn, Thanks for the recommendation. I finished Story of Europe last night and really enjoyed it. The scenes from Europe were fun to see, and it was thought-provoking as well.
I’m looking for The Story of Europe on YouTube but see only three episodes. How many episodes are there? I’m reluctant to start a series unless we can finish it. Im not very adept at YouTube searches or much else on the web for that matter, and we have no premium cable services as noted. Thanks.
Hey Denny - there's 6 episodes. CuriosityStream could be worth looking in to, as it has the full series and only costs a few dollars/month!
1885BD, Thank you :)
