A Personal History of the United States in 13 parts written and narrated by Alistair Cooke

In two centuries America has gone from a small nation trusting in a rifle by the fireside to a vast nuclear arsenal.

In this film Alistair Cooke looks at the way America's view of herself has changed as she has become a military mammoth. 'Will the technology of the unthinkable war,' he asks, 'grow so strong and subtle as to acquire a momentum all its own which mere men will be powerless to resist?'