Others say...

"Oustanding DVD Documentary"
I'm a big WW2 fan, but you do not be another one to consider this DVD's as great.

PROS: To write all the pros this series has i think you won't finish reading. So, i'll try to set what i consider the mainly. (1) This series shows an objective angle of WW2 (including the German, British, Russian, Japanese and US). (2) It has a balance between interviews and not interviews scenes. (3) Gives importance to the most relevance matters that days. (4) The coverage is amazing. (5) It keeps far away a Hollywood's movie making.

CONS: The World at War would be perfect if it had subtitles. ¿why it does not? I wonder the same.

"If you like history, you are going to love this item"
If you are a history fanatic, like my boyfriend is, you will get crazy about these CD's. Award winning, great series about the pre-war events, and the war seen from different perspectives. A must-have for all history fans.

"The definative WWII documentary"
I live in the USA now but spent the first 35 years of my life in the UK. I recall as a youngster this series airing on ITV on a Sunday morning. It is one of those memories engrained in my memory about what Sundays were all about.

Mom doing the laundry on a cold winters morning with the doors open and a freezing kitchen (for that is where most peoples washing machines are in Britain), the shouting and appealing of several pub soccer games being played out on the football fields behind our home, the smell of the Sunday joint slowly cooking on in the over, Jimmy Savile on BBC Radio 1 broadcasting his weekly Savile's Travels show , and the documentary series The World at War airing on the living room TV. As you can imagine, a series needed to pack a strong punch to be a part of someone's childhood memories and that is just what this series did.

From the script to the archive footage to the first class narration of Laurence Olivier, there is simply nothing to fault this show. Though some of the titling looks a little amateurish by modern standards, this only increases the feeling that you are taking part in a little piece of broadcasting history as you watch it.

The Second World War was the most important part of our history and helped define the world as it is now. There is no better way to study the events of 1939-1945 than to sit back and watch this documentary series. And if you want your children to have an unbiased and detailed education of the `last great war', I recommend you purchase this video set immediately.

I was something special to me to be able to sit and watch this series all over again and appreciate the horror sacrifice our forebears lived through and made in order for us to enjoy the freedoms we all take for granted today.


"Grim. Absolutely grim. The real story."
When I was a kid I was taken by the tales of courage and bravery that the movies and books feed people. I read about the fighter pilots and the Commandos. War was all excitement and friends looking out for friends.

Then one day the theme music of The World at War came on, the program launched straight in to archive footage of real battles, all the horror of mangled and mutilated bodies. I was mesmerized and that was the end of my warm and fluffy view of warfare. You only need to see a little bit of the real horror of war to know that it's not something good.

As I watched the series I saw the terrifying assault on the world, the invasions and destruction, the displaced people and the dead. Germany and Japan sweeping over the face of the earth spreading fear and disaster. Then they were held and pushed back. But there was no great joy in the victories, they came at too high a cost. And yet in the end it had to be done and was worthwhile. But at what a terrible cost. This is one of the very few places you will see that cost.

This production pulls no punches and Olivier, as a former member of the Fleet Air Arm, probably brings the true emotion of personal loss to this production, as well as his amazing voice. A modern voice might have trouble appreciating what it was really like to be involved in the desperate struggle of a World War.

Now, so many years later, people forget. So I am buying this to casually watch while my 15 year old does her homework. So she'll get a less sterile view of history and maybe learn why my teachers were so utterly grim. I was taught by men who had fought through North Africa and Italy, who landed in France on D-Day and who slogged through the jungles of Burma. People need to know what it was really like and this is as good a way as still exists now that most of the veterans are old or dead.

"never forget"
this should be required in every school everywhere. everyone should know these things so as to not repeat it. very thorough. got it for my favorite war history buff. he loves it. and i have learned much.