The Plague (History Channel)

Without going into too much detail, this documentary is amazing. The speakers are all experts in their respective fields, and the historical accuracy is beyond reproach. I found no such "religious hatred" anywhere in the film; again, pure historical accuracy. (To put it very VERY lightly, medieval Christians weren't exactly friendly to their Jewish neighbors. Look into it before getting all defensive, please.)
An excellent base of information for anyone with an interest in this watershed event in human history.

A perfect E squared (entertainment/education). Very well done and interesting documentary on mankinds deadliest killer ever! If you enjoy medieval histroy then this is a must. The plague transformed the face of Europe and affected life in inumerable ways. I highly recommend this entertaining and educational DVD.

The Plague is a very fine documentary by The History Channel; it gives us a great deal of information about the "Black Death" or what was probably the bubonic plague that killed up to half of Europe's and Asia's population when it spread uncontrollably in the late 1340s. While this film is extremely educational, there are some not so pretty scenes (the flagellants walking from village to village, for example) that make me want to warn you that small children and sensitive people could be upset by some of the footage. On the other hand, however, it is an excellent telling of the story; and the pace moves along very well. There's lots of time spent to make sure that we really understand what happened and how; things never felt rushed. In addition, the quality of the print is excellent.

Some may say that the reenactments of events that occurred during The Plague are overdone or poorly acted but I thought it was all done rather professionally and with great care. I particularly like the way the filmmakers wove together reenactment scenes with interviews with today's scholars who know so much about the illness; and the narration was also done very well. It is through all these things put together that we get the complete story of this outbreak of bubonic plague and how it rushed through so much of the world so fast; and we see how physicians of the day were powerless to cure people of it or prevent it for that matter. We see the flagellant movement gaining strength and then waning in Germany; we learn how the Church was challenged by the devastation and we also learn about wealthy people who tried to escape the plague by fleeing cities for country estates where they were more isolated. In addition, the film covers the blaming of Jews for the plague simply because Jews were not exactly well liked.

Of course, there's much more information here than I'm going to give to you, including the prevailing theories of what caused the disease, how the illness spread and the other things desperate people did to try to ward off the plague. I don't want to spoil it for you!

Overall, this excellent documentary does a top-notch job; we learn the story of the "Black Death" and what happened during its outbreak and after it faded, too. I highly recommend this film for anyone studying this period in history; and people studying how infectious diseases spread in the past as well as how they spread in our times would do well to add this to their collections.

This DVD arrived in record time. I was very impressed at the response and handling of this order. Even though I have retired from teaching, I teach part-time at the Community College and this DVD will fit right in with the era of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Thanks for the outstanding service. B.L.

Good depiction of the plagues, not as good as "the dark ages" but kids liked it

History is not always pretty. When great and sustained misery is visited upon people, they too often show the worst side of their nature. In this case the misery was the black plague that killed millions in Europe over a period of about five years.

It was blamed, by some, on the convenient Jews, and they were villified and slain for a disease that killed them in the same proportion as non-Jews. The plague brought about the flagellants, who, in their religious fervor, went around publicly flogging themselves to expiate the sins of mankind and for the entertainment of others. Much of the misery of the plague was actually increased by the falsely pious Christians who thought the plague was a punishment from an angry God. This dvd presentation shows this but treads lightly, too lightly, perhaps.

This dvd is, all in all, a remarkable presentation. Settling to the soul, it is not. And the question it provokes is: could it happen again? It did, with the flu pandemic of 1918, and it may recur, worse next time, because of the fact that airplanes carry travelers thousands of miles in just hours.

As a high-school teacher for history and English foundations, I must utilize movies as a visual aide supplement to help them connect with the characters, setting, dialogue... I strongly recommend using this dvd to support your curriculum to teach on all levels of student learning (auditory, kinesthetic, visual).

Poorly acted, laughable sets and non-stop diatribe against Christians generally and the Catholic Church specifically.

Apparently, all it takes to call oneself a historian today is a contempt for organized religion. It also helps to loath western culture as well. As for the history of the plague itself the reasoning would be unworthy of a C as part of a grade school book report.