The Hows but not the Whys of the People's Century

A pleasing fantasy for an amateur historian is to imagine how to spend ten million pounds and four years devising a TV history of the twentieth century. If anxious about perspective one might, for instance, purchase as much historical film as necessary and give it as a common resource to programme makers in different countries to devise their own series. If an expert print of view was wanted one might divide the century into thematic episodes and invite historians to present their film essay of each: Norman Stone on The Russian Revolution for instance or Alan Bullock on the Rise of Nazism. If a factual approach was thought uninspired, one might devise a 'IV history composed entirely of feature films, poetry, paintings and music.