Napolean, Video

Abstract

PBS video histories are well-known classroom commodities for historians and educators, covering everything from Lewis and Clark to the Spanish American War, and yes even Napoleon. The production quality generally remains consistently high, and they always have a distinguished array of talking heads, i.e., historians and other authorities used to interject commentary, that elevates them above such programs as A&E's Biography where the Napoleon piece, narrated breathlessly by Jack Perkins, falls squarely into the Hollywood celebrity biography, the rise and fall of a star genre that populates so much of cable television these days.