Simon Schama: History of Britain Special Edition

The definitive documentary of British history that launched Simon Schama's award-winning television career. This epic 15-part series explores the vast history of the British Empire from 3000 BC to 1965. Simon Schama's compelling storytelling skills breathe new life into the dramatic stories of lives and moments in Britain's rich and colorful past.

Award-winning historian, Simon Schama presents A History of Britain, a 16-part series that brings the stuff of history to life through the dramatic stories of key lives and moments in Britain's rich and colorful past. Familiar names and places - warriors and kings, priests and politicians, battlegrounds, castles and cathedrals - punctuate the stories which make up the themes of the series spanning 3000BC to 1965.

Schama crosses continents and visits hundreds of locations as he uses his compelling storytelling skills to describe the struggles for national identities, the triumphs and trials of the monarchy and the effects of warring religions, the expansion of empire and the decline of Britain as a world power.

The series satisfies a very basic, but powerful curiosity about other people's lives: Who where they, how did they live, and what happened to them? Letters, diaries and memoirs fill in the details of everyday life which the reference books omit.

Beginnings- Covering the period 3100 BC-1000 AD. Simon Schama starts his story in the Stone Age village of Skara Brae, Orkney. Over the next four thousand years Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Danes, and Christian missionaries arrive, fight, settle and leave their mark on what will become the nations of Britain.

Conquest - Broadcast 7 October 2000 and covering 1000-1087. 1066 is not the best remembered date in British history for nothing. In the space of nine hours whilst the Battle of Hastings raged, everything changed. Anglo-Saxon England became Norman and, for the next 300 years, its fate was decided by dynasties of Norman rulers.

Dynasty - Broadcast 14 October 2000 and covering 1087-1216. There is no saga more powerful than that of the warring dynasty - domineering father, beautiful, scheming mother and squabbling, murderous sons and daughters, (particularly the nieces). In the years that followed the Norman Conquest, this was the drama played out on the stage of British history.

Nations - Broadcast 21 October 2000 and covering 1216-1348, this is the epic account of how the nations of Britain emerged from under the hammer of England's "Longshanks" King Edward I, with a sense of who and what they were, which endures to this day.

King Death - Broadcast 28 October 2000 and covering 1348-1500. It took only six years for the plague to ravage the British Isles. Its impact was to last for generations. But from the ashes of this trauma an unexpected and unique class of Englishmen emerged.

Burning Convictions - Broadcast 4 November 2000 and covering 1500-1558. Here Simon Schama charts the upheaval caused as a country renowned for its piety, whose king styled himself Defender of the Faith, turns into one of the most aggressive proponents of the new Protestant faith.

The Body of the Queen - Broadcast 8 November 2000 and covering 1558-1603. This is the story of two queens: Elizabeth I, the consummate politician, and Mary, Queen of Scots, the Catholic mother. It is also the story of the birth of a nation.

The British Wars - Broadcast 8 May 2001 and covering 1603-1649. The turbulent civil wars of the early seventeenth century would culminate in two events unique to British history; the public execution of a king and the creation of a republic. Schama tells of the brutal war that tore the country in half and created a new Britain - divided by politics and religion and dominated by the first truly modern army, fighting for ideology, not individual leaders.

Revolutions - Broadcast 15 May 2001 and covering 1649-1689. Political and religious revolutions racked Britain after Charles I's execution, when Britain was a joyless, kingless republic led by Oliver Cromwell. His rule became so unpopular that for many it was a relief when the monarchy was restored after his death, but Cromwell was also a man of vision who brought about significant reforms.

Britannia Incorporated - Broadcast 22 May 2001 and covering 1690-1750. As the new century dawned, relations between Scotland and England had never been worse. Yet half a century later the two countries would be making a future together based on profit and interest. The new Britain was based on money, not God.

The Wrong Empire - Broadcast 29 May 2001 and covering 1750-1800. The series is the exhilarating and terrible story of how the British Empire came into being through its early settlements--the Caribbean through the sugar plantations (and helped by slavery), the land that later became the United States and India through the British East India Company--and how it eventually came to dominate the world. A story of exploration and daring, but also one of exploitation, conflict, and loss.

Forces of Nature - Broadcast 28 May 2002 and covering 1780-1832. Britain never had the kind of revolution experienced by France in 1789, but it did come close. In the mid-1770s the country was intoxicated by a great surge of political energy. Re-discovering England's wildernesses, the intellectuals of the "romantic generation" also discovered the plight of the common man, turning nature into a revolutionary force.

Victory and Her Sisters - Broadcast 4 June 2002 and covering 1830-1910. As the Victorian era began, the massive advance of technology and industrialisation was rapidly reshaping both the landscape and the social structure of the whole country. To a much greater extent than ever before women would take a centre-stage role in shaping society.

The Empire of Good Intentions - Broadcast 11 June 2002 and covering 1830-1925. This episode charts the chequered life of the liberal empire from Ireland to India - the promise of civilisation and material betterment and the delivery of coercion and famine.

The Two Winstons - Broadcast 18 June 2002 and covering 1910-1965. In the final episode, Schama examines the overwhelming presence of the past in the British twentieth century and the struggle of leaders to find a way to make a different national future. As towering figures of the twentieth century, Churchill and Orwell (through his 1984 character Winston Smith) in their different ways exemplify lives spent brooding and acting on that imperial past, and most movingly for us, writing and shaping its history.

Presented by Simon Schama
Written by Simon Schama
Series Directed by Clare Beavan , Martina Hall , Ian Bremner , Liz Hartford , Jamie Muir
Series Produced by Martina Hall, Ian Bremner, Jamie Muir, Clare Beavan
Executive Produced by Martin Davidson
Original Music by John Harle
Film Editing by Michael Duly, Philippa Daniel

‘A landmark series in more ways than one' Guardian

‘Schama is a giant, a great thinking-,machine and a golden lyricist as well. He is tremendously stimulating company, setting the reader on journeys he never would have imagined for himself.' Mail on Sunday

‘There was a point, about halfway through the first episode of Simon Schama's epic, when I got into a complete rage . . . What suddenly worked me up into a lather was how much I had missed under the ditchwater-dull tutelage of countless history masters at school - and how, had any of them been blessed with half as much enthusiasm, wit and sheer storytelling talent as Mr Schama, I would undoubtedly have taken up history as my main subject . . .
Some glorious photography by Luke Cardiff, an intriguing and blessedly unobtrusive score by John Harle, and constantly imaginative direction by Martin Davidson all added to what for many will be a firm television fixture for the next six weeks with nine more next year.
If this doesn't make it into the pantheon of BBC All-time Greats, I'll eat my toga.'
Daily Mail

‘Great television commentators come along all too rarely. But judging by the first episode of A History of Britain, Simon Schama has shot straight to the front of the field.
First episodes of any factual series are notoriously difficult. First episodes in which you have to hurtle through 5,000 years of history in an hour are plainly ludicrous. Yet Schama did an astonishingly good job . . .
. . . this will be one of those landmark series that people will point to in 20 years' time with shaking fingers and watery eyes and say, ah, they don't make them like that anymore.'
Sunday Telegraph

‘There is a growing taste for popular history and Simon Schama has just the right balance of gravitas and accessibility in his TV persona. His approach is deeply traditional and the narrative follows a conventional chronology, but Schama's storytelling ability ensures that it is never dull. It's too early to say whether A History of Britain is set to become that Holy Grail of the television - the new Civilisation. But this is an excellent start.'
Observer