I think my interest in history, especially the pre-1900s got a major boost in the past 2-3 years because of watching all those lovely Terry Jones documentaries, both the seasons of The Lost World with a special mention to Rome, the TV series.

I started watching the 6 part BBC series called The Story of India [aired in 2007]. The first two episodes were pretty damn good - they start off with the migration from africa to the south, then the indus valley civilisation, sanskrit, rig veda, mahabharata, and then go on to the broze age history covering buddha, alexander, chandragupta maurya, ashoka. Of course, I don't like all this covered in only two episodes but for what it is, it's very well researched, shot and narrated, and is a recommended watch. I wish someone would get even deeper into each of this. I'm especially interested in the pre-muslim-invasion-era kingdoms, their science, technology, war, construction, religion and lifestyle. Are you listening Terry?

Use this thread to recommend and get recommended, obviously.

Yeah, history rules. Particularly ancient Indian, Roman and Greek history. And oh yeah - the whole human migration and evolutionary history too.

Yeah fine, got that. Let's talk about documentaries.

Ha! I've had Medieval Lives with me for over a year, but still haven't gotten around to it. I seem to to always stall when it comes to watching documentaries that don't revolve around music or gaming (not that I've seen loads of those, either). Yeah, I know it's making me smarter while entertaining me at the same time, win-win situation and all that, but I still procrastinate. I'm missing a couple of episodes anyway, I think.

To keep it rolling, the classic BBC series Civilisation has to be mentioned. Presentation techniques, research and visuals have evolved so much since then, and Kenneth Clark can get a bit too verbose and get too indulgent in philosophies for my liking, but this was the cornerstone in docu making and rightfully so.

I finished reading the book based on "Story of India" by Michael Wood and found it very informative and entertaining. It had an excellent reading list at the end of it, a lot of the books I ended up finding very interesting and buying at the bookshops while travelling. He does go a bit too twee and romantic at times though but I guess it's a habit inevitable with a lot of these post colonial Brit people when talking about India.

I would recommend this other series he did called "In the Footsteps of Alexander" which I finished watching before leaving Bombay. Again, a bit too short for the kind of territory it covers but a well researched and fascinating account nevertheless.

I also love the hell out of Peter Watkins' historical films especially Edvard Munch, Culloden and La Commune. They're not strictly documentaries but biopics and historical reconstructions shot like one.

Michael Wood comes across as a full blown Indophile, but that's not really a bad thing in this case. Pretty cool you found internet and sneaked in a post, I'm getting the Alexander one next, and then the movies.

The World at War series is one of the best compiled film accounts about World War II, I saw it all when I had plenty of spare time.

20'th century battlefields is also quite interesting, there's a father son combo going where the son discusses the infantry tactics while the father looks at the battlefield from a strategy gaming C&C perspective. It's pretty recent, so the graphics are kickass and explain how battles were won and lost.

Good call on those two. War nerd essentials basically.

I've got loads of documentaries. Maybe not historial. If you can count Secrets of Machu Picchu and Khujaraho under historical. Others are Einstein and the World's most famous equation, Hitler's search for the Holy Grail, Norway's Nazi Secret, Roswell Secrets Unveiled, Secrets of the Titanic, Lost Book of Nostradamus and a whole lotta martial arts and extreme engineering documentaries.

Bump.

Just watched this:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-509610...GJDEwgO6--SQBQ&q

A one hour episode about some of the classic southern temples. Has some breathtaking shots of Tanjore, Madurai, Srirangam and Hampi (worth watching for these alone) with stories about Raja Raja Chola mainly and bits about the Vijayanagara kingdom. It also tries to explain why the west equates India (or the east) to taj mahal and the muslim architecture.

Goldmine: popperslist.blogspot.com/

Found that while looking for more Michael Wood docus. I saw a couple of episodes of In Search of Myths and Heroes - one about King Arthur, and the other about Queen Sheba.

Then I watched the whole of Terry Gilliam's Great Map Mystery (this was his latest, aired in 2008) where he takes some of the routes from the first map published. Interesting and Terry style is funny as always, but I'm totally clueless about UK's topography, so it was a bit unsatisfactory when compared to his other series which I love.

Then I saw Graham Hancock's three part series Quest for the Lost Civilisation. The way he connects everything to star/constellation positions is interesting, and rather convincing.

Now I just started with the series History's Turning Points, about important battles. It was the Octavian Vs Anthony story in the first episode. Extra props to the TV series Rome for being so historically accurate while weaving gripping fictional story arcs around real events.

Finished History's Turning Points. Quite neat overall. The Battle of Salamis and The Siege of Constantinople were the best. And The Black Death was some serious horror.

Saw a bit of Sex, Love and War. It's about conservative brit society suddenly realising during war about the uncertain future and deciding to give sex a big go. It has stories narrated by ugly grannies about how they did it during WW2. Avoid.

The Hidden History of Rome with Terry Jones. Everyone knows how the rich lived, so Terry gets right into how a regular poor sod would've lived in Rome. Fucking awesome.

In Search of History - The Aztec Empire: A lot of time gets spent on their human sacrifice ceremonies and just not enough of their buildings, lifestyle etc., Not bad overall.

Then I proceeded to watch this guy looking for The Ark of the Covenant. Damn cool, and this is the kind of investigative story telling that I love. It really doesn't matter how this didn't resolved even though they get very close to it. It's all about how they get to that final point.

It's all on popperslist, the link of which I'd posted above.

Will wrap up the last two episodes of Story of India by tonight. It's been awesome so far.