Alistair Cooke's America
Encyclopedia
America: A Personal History of the United States is a 13-part television series about the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and its history, commissioned by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and made in partnership with Time-Life Films. It was written and presented by Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke
Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...

, and first broadcast in both the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and the United States in 1972. The producer was Michael Gill
Michael Gill
George Michael Gill was a television producer and television director responsible for creating 'ground-breaking' documentaries for the BBC....

, who had the idea for the series and chose the presenter. It was followed by a book, Alistair Cooke's America
Alistair Cooke's America
America: A Personal History of the United States is a 13-part television series about the United States and its history, commissioned by the BBC and made in partnership with Time-Life Films. It was written and presented by Alistair Cooke, and first broadcast in both the United Kingdom and the...

, which sold almost two million copies.

The series was a great success in both countries and won a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

 and a BAFTA
British Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

. It also resulted in Cooke's invitation to address the joint Houses of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 as part of the Bicentennial
United States Bicentennial
The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...

 celebrations. Cooke said that, of all his work, America was what he was most proud of; it is the result and expression of his long love for the country. (Once, asked how long it took him to make the series, Cooke replied "I do not want to be coy, but it took 40 years.")

Episodes

  1. The First Impact is a personal memoir of Cooke's infatuation with the United States—through early contacts as a child and as a visiting fellow
    Fellow
    A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

     after university—and its effect on his life.
  2. The New Found Land follows the lives, settlements, and influence of the Spanish
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

     in the west and the French
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     in the east.
  3. A Home Away from Home relates the settlement of America by English dissenters and adventurers in the 16th and 17th centuries, from Jamestown
    Jamestown, Virginia
    Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...

     to the Pilgrim Fathers.
  4. Making a Revolution looks at the War of Independence
    American Revolutionary War
    The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

    , the struggle to break free of British control.
  5. Inventing a Nation chronicles the forging of the nation through the Constitution
    United States Constitution
    The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

     and the Bill of Rights
    United States Bill of Rights
    The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...

    , and the great debate between the national and individual state governments.
  6. Gone West is about the pioneers, from Daniel Boone
    Daniel Boone
    Daniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits mad']'e him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of...

     to the "Forty-Niners
    California Gold Rush
    The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

    "; expansion through the Louisiana Purchase
    Louisiana Purchase
    The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...

    ; and the dispossession of Native Americans
    Native Americans in the United States
    Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

    .
  7. A Firebell in the Night tells of slavery
    Slavery
    Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

     and life in the Southern states and of the events, causes, and effects of the Civil War
    American Civil War
    The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

    .
  8. Domesticating a Wilderness deals with the great push westward by the settlers, including the Mormons
    Mormons
    The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....

    ; the crossing of the continent by railroad; the myth of the cowboy; the domestication of the land by settlers local and foreign; and the final conquest of the Native Americans
    Native Americans in the United States
    Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

     after much warfare.
  9. Money on the Land addresses the rise and effects of business and technology, touching Chicago
    Chicago
    Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

    , the reaper
    Reaper
    A reaper is a person or machine that reaps crops at harvest, when they are ripe.-Hand reaping:Hand reaping is done by various means, including plucking the ears of grains directly by hand, cutting the grain stalks with a sickle, cutting them with a scythe, or with a later type of scythe called a...

    , Edison
    Thomas Edison
    Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...

    , oil, Rockefeller and Carnegie
    Andrew Carnegie
    Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

    , and the moneyed classes.
  10. The Huddled Masses covers the rise and influence of mass immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the current "melting pot
    Melting pot
    The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...

    ".
  11. The Promise Fulfilled and the Promise Broken surveys life, prosperity, and politics in the 1920s, leading to the Great Depression
    Great Depression
    The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

     and the rise of the New Deal
    New Deal
    The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

    .
  12. Arsenal examines the rise of the reluctant United States to world military power, the growth of the United Nations, and the United States as a nuclear power.
  13. The More Abundant Life concludes the series by looking at contemporary America in the 1960s and early 1970s, and how it had diverged from the original aims of the settlers, and its hope for the future.

External links

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