Product Description

After Columbus came conquest--from all corners of the world, explorers reached the shores of the New World to reap untold riches, seek new routes to the Far East, and gain the most elusive glory of all--a place in history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15834 in DVD
• Brand: A&E
• Released on: 2005-08-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 180 minutes

Customer Reviews

Relatively engaging history of European conquest!
I know plenty of individuals will be enraged upon viewing "Conquest of America", as it depicts Europeans tromping through the New World, slaughtering innocent indigenous persons and their cultures. I agree that much of what occurred in the process of European colonization of the Americas was lamentable.

Still, all socio-political naysaying aside, this documentary did indeed inform me of many aspects of the history of America's being settled. For instance, I'd not been aware that hapless Henry Hudson was a victim of mutiny who perished on a tiny forzen boat somewhere in the massive Canadian bay that is nmed in his honor. Or that the present state of Florida had been such a bone of contention between the French and Spanish Empires.

The re-enactments are very well-done and believable. One gets a real feel for the historical settings, intrigues, and characters, rather than the sense that one sits there thinking "Okay, now I'm watching a historical recreation".

Overall, well done and relatively engaging and informational. It would be a very good reasource particularly for junior and senior high school history teachers, I should think, who are instructing on the history of the United States and exploration.

Conquest of America
Good, but not comprehensive. There was nothing about Columbus, Cortez, Pizarro, etc. It only covered Coronado, Hudson, St Augustine/Fort Caroline, and the Russians in the NW.

The conquerors of America will conquer your heart.
Ok maybe not. I really enjoyed 3 of the 4 episodes of this series. The only one I really did not care for was the conquest of the South-West. Not that it wasn't well done, because it was. It was just a piece of the history of the South-West that does not seem to have had all that much impact. The South-East (Spanish vs French) was a pretty entertaining and informative episode. I also very much enjoyed the North-West episode and the Russians encroachment on what the Spanish believed was rightfully theirs. Hudson and the North-East was also enjoyable. I learned more about Hudson in that 45 minutes than all the history classes I have ever taken combined. Altogether I found them all well made, and all but one of them was well worth watching and owning. I learned a lot from all of them, combine that with top notch production and great dramatizations and we have a winner. Nice solid piece to add to your history channel collection.