The American Future A History S01E01

The American Future: A History, by Simon Schama



Friday 10 October

9:00pm - 10:00pm

BBC2



1/4 American Plenty



Simon Schama brings his ripe turn of phrase and love of America to this latest sweeping history lesson. It's designed as a scene-setter for the upcoming presidential elections, starting with a problem that haunts the contest - the ecology, stupid. It feels like a downbeat episode with which to open, but the account here of how industrial farming turned the breadbasket of the prairies into a dustbowl is vividly imagined, heartfelt and it makes you stop and think. That's the idea - to make us realise why we're at such a stark moment of truth. And it works. Schama may be a bit too fond of showing himself framed against a sunset or gazing at the horizon from astride a rocky outcrop, but his vision of how current droughts mean "the American garden is withering on the vine" is hard to resist. Let's hope McCain and Obama are watching, too.



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