Ken Burns: Prohibition [Blu-ray]

Captivating!!!!!
I am not an historian nor am I usually interested in documentaries. I accidentally turned the channel on the t.v. and was immediately captivated by the history of the prohibition era. I read the last review. I can't dispute the author's factual accounts, but from what I saw and learned the minute details that were missed or left out were irrelevant. I say that because even though the last reviewer tells of inaccuracies I think that the amount of information that was given left me with a passion to want to research more for myself. It's like having bad teachers and wanting to drop out of school then the next semester you have a dedicated teacher. That teacher can't teach you all you'll ever need to learn but gives you the thirst to want to learn more. So much to want to leave a review and purchase the Blu-ray. That's what I got from it.

Prohibition in America comes alive through film clips and focused narration. Bravo for Ken Burns!
Ken Burns, the undisputed master of the TV documentary, has done it again. This 3-part 5-1/2 hour PBS series kept my eyes glued to the screen while my own impressions of the world of prohibition, which were mostly gleaned from stories my parents told me, became real through the old film clips and the excellent narration and historical perspective.

Looking back, it seems as if the nation was crazy to actually pass a law that prohibited alcoholic beverages in all its forms. But times were different then. In the small town Americana of 1919 men were getting dead drunk and abusing their families. For the first time in history, women asserted themselves and organized the Women's Christian Temperance Union, marching in the streets and eventually influencing legislation. It was different in the cities however, where an immigrant population did not see liquor as a menace. Thus began the age of Prohibition and the biggest crime wave and social change that America has ever...

War On Drugs, the Prequel
Anyone who wants to understand just why the present-day War On Drugs has been such a good-intentioned but simultaneously cataclysmic failure should take a good, long look at this film. It becomes so abundantly clear that sadly so many in this country have not learned valuable lessons from the events from the past. The (correct) point that any attempt to try and legislate human morality is doomed to fail has rarely been made so clear than in Ken Burns' latest triumph. Bravo yet once again to the USA's most important film-maker.

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