This movie has gathered a new nameNeeded to make this fact known since I took the time to find its original title. A bit of a Gaffe seeing it was created in 1978 but not released as Road To Pearl Harbor until 1996. Very telling, informative series.

Expensive, but here it is. Go to: http://teacher.shop.pbs.org/home/index.jspAND search for "Between the wars"This is a great series. I work at a school and I have requested that the library order it. I am still seriously considering buying it myself. I love this series. Between the Wars and The World at War set gives you a great overview of WWII and the causes.From my review on Amazon:"Between the Wars" (BtW) hosted by Eric Severeid, is an excellent series. I have watched every episode at least once. Some of the episodes I have watched 5 or 6 times. "The World at War" (WaW) is one of the best documentaries made about World War II (the best in my humble opinion). If you own that series and enjoy it, then you should watch BtW. BtW fills in the gap left by WaW: That gap being what happened from 1919 to 1941. While WaW gives the history of World War II from a British perspective, BtW gives it from the perspective of the United States. So in essence you are getting a global history AND a U.S. history of the period at the same time with the issues it covers. BtW includes interviews with many people from the period and also historians. You will get to see the late great George F Kennan, Americans who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War, historians such as Robin W. Winks (author of "Europe, 1890-1945: Crisis and Conflict"), as well as many others. One of the reasons I am so enamored with the series is because it covers subjects that are so rarely seen in a documentary. Some of the rare issues covered are Japan's expansion during the 1930's; Italy's conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia); The Spanish Civil War; America's recognition of the Soviet Union; and other areas. Just look at the episode list. This series is a gold mine that fills the vacuum of time between World War I and World War II. These videos were released in 1987 even though the series was made in 1978. The series was nominated for an Emmy in 1978. Although it is an old series, it has aged well and it deserves to be released on DVD. With all of the other... crap I see out there, this series would sell well if promoted properly (1978-2008 30th Anniversary Edition?). BtW is unique in that it fills the gap between the two World Wars. If you have any interest in that period, see this series (while expensive to buy for VHS, it is possible that your local library or school district may have these tapes. Check it out, you never know). This series has now been released on DVD. Go to Shop PBS and then select Educational Media. Search for Between the Wars and you will find it.

I've used much of this series for years in my American History high school classroom. I only wish this series would be reissued in DVD format, as the original videos are old and tired after nearly 30 years and eventually will be unusable. As most of the personalities interviewed for this series are now long dead, it provides an excellent primary source account of the series of events that caused the chaos in the 20's and 30's that lead to the rise of dictatorships around the world. It deals especially well with the ineffectual response to the likes of Mussolini, Hitler and Franco on the part of the Western Democracies, and raises the still relevant discussion over isolationism vs. interventionism.

Eric Severeid hosted this series which, as far as I know, has not been seen on television since 1978, nor has it been put on video or C.D. If one can imagine first TIME TO REMEMBER, then WORLD WAR I, then this show, followed by VICTORY AT SEA and WINSTON CHURCHILL: THE VALIANT YEARS, even accepting some overlapping you would have a pretty good set of shows dealing with the political history of the 20th Century from 1900 to 1945. The thing that made BETWEEN THE WARS slightly better than the others (no matter how excellent they were in their own way), was that it pioneered the use of what is called (desparagingly) "talking heads". This has been overused to the point of idiocy now (any subjects suddenly has experts that can be trotted out to discuss them), but in 1978 it was an innovation, and was very wisely used. As the period of the series is 1919 to 1941 (with the U.S. entrance into the Second World War as the conclusion), this was the last chance to have certain people give their opinions on events for a sense of balance. Many of these people would be dead within a few years, so this was their opportunity to try to set the record straight. An example of this was the second episode, concerning Wilson and the fight to get the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty accepted by the U.S.A. In 1978 it was normal to accept the view of Wilson as it was in the 1944 movie with Alexander Knox: that he was a good man with great ideas, brought to failure by ill health and a cabal of reactionaries led by his political enemy Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. On the show, after bringing out this version of the fight, the camera turned on former Senator (and Ambassador) Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. He gave a more critical view of Wilson, pointing out that the President was stubborn and intransigent about the Treaty and the League, and unwilling to see the older Lodge's point of view which was to protect the Monroe Doctrine and not pull us into wars in which we had no political interest. It was the first time that the elder Lodge's argument was understood, and that Wilson would not compromise (despite the arguments of leaders in his own party). Since Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. died within the next seven years, this was the only time he was televised giving his grandfather's side of the story.One hopes this is series reappears on DVD or on video or television one day. It was really worth watching.