Mon, Jan 25, 2010
Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in countless movies and television shows but these popular fictions belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity on the American frontier. He was a caricature of the Western lawman, and after his death in 1929, distressed Americans transformed him into a folk hero: a central figure in how the west was won, a man who took control of his own destiny.
Mon, Feb 8, 2010
On September 1, 1939 the first day of World War II in Europe President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to the warring nations to under no circumstances undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations. Just six years later, British and American Allied forces had carried out a bombing campaign of unprecedented might over Germany s cities, claiming the lives of nearly half a million civilians. The Bombing of Germany examines the defining moments of the offensive that led the U.S. across a moral divide. Weaving together interviews with WWII pilots and historians, and stunning archival footage of the bombing and its aftermath, this AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film is a haunting reminder of the dilemma imposed by war's civilian casualties.
Tue, Oct 12, 2010
God in America: A New Adam (1) and A New Eden (2) : A New Adam explores the origins of Christian religion in America and examines how the New World changed the faiths that the settlers brought with them. A New Eden explores how an unlikely alliance between evangelical Baptists and enlightenment figures such as Thomas Jefferson served as the foundation of American religious liberty.
Tue, Oct 12, 2010
God in America: A Nation Reborn (3) and A New Light (4): During the 19th century, the forces of modernity challenged traditional faith and drove a wedge between liberal and conservative believers. "A Nation Reborn" explores slavery, and how it splits the nation as abolitionists and slaveholders find justification in the Bible. Frederick Douglass condemns Christianity; President Lincoln struggles to make sense of the war's carnage and the death of his young son. Lincoln, who previously had favored reason over revelation, embarks on a spiritual journey that transforms his ideas about God and the Civil War's ultimate meaning. "A New Light" explores the intellectual and cultural conflicts between traditional religious beliefs and the forces of modernity, which reached a crescendo in the 1925 trial of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher arrested for teaching evolution.
Wed, Oct 13, 2010
God in America: Soul of a Nation (5) and Of God and Caesar (6): "Soul of a Nation" explores the post-World War II era, when rising evangelist, Billy Graham, tried to inspire a religious revival that fused faith with patriotism in a Cold War battle with "Godless Communism." As Americans flocked in record numbers to houses of worship, non-believers and religious minorities appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of religious expression in public schools. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a modern-day prophet calling upon the nation to honor both biblical teachings and the founders' democratic ideals of equal justice. "Of God and Caesar" explores the religious and political aspirations of conservative evangelicals' moral crusade over divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Across America, the religious marketplace expanded as new waves of immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America made the United States the most religiously diverse nation. The 2008 presidential election brought the re-emergence of a religious voice in the Democratic Party, bringing the country to a new plateau in its struggle to reconcile faith with politics. The 6-hour series closes with reflections on the role of faith in the public life of the country.