With optional Hebrew subtitles. Simon Schama's history of the Jewish experience plunges into the lost world of the shtetl, the Jewish towns and villages sewn across the hinterlands of Eastern Europe which became the seedbed of a uniquely Jewish culture. Shtetl culture would make its mark on the modern world, from the revolutionary politics of the Soviet Union to the mass culture of Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood. It was also the birthplaces of Hasidism, the most visible, iconic and, arguably, most misunderstood expression of Jewish faith and fervour. This chapter of the story travels from the forests of Lithuania, where Simon's own family logged wood and fought wolves, to the streets of the Lower East Side where the sons of shtetl immigrants wrote the American songbook. With grim inevitability, the story returns to Eastern Europe in 1940 - where the genocidal mechanisms of the 'final solution' were beginning to grind the shtetl world into dust and ash.

The turmoil of 1968 helps Nixon win the presidency. Troop strength in Vietnam peaks and the draft accelerates. Karl Marlantes endures bitter jungle fighting on Hill 484, and draftee Arthur Wiknik gets a grim introduction to combat on 'Hamburger Hill'. But shortly after winning both hills, US troops abandon them.

George W. Bush's doctrine of endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the continued cannibalization of the U.S. economy. Squandered chances given by the end of the Cold War. A new USA, the National Security Fortress.

Stone opens the episode on Vietnam with a review of American intervention in Latin America. Lyndon Johnson, according to Stone, disregarded JFK’s “memo” about withdrawing troops and instead escalated. The Cataclysm in Vietnam as the war reaches a turning point - there's no going back. The betrayal by Richard Nixon.

‘Retrograde’ offers a deeply intimate account of the end of Americas's longest war and humanizes the individuals most impacted through both US and Afghan perspectives. With a character-driven, cinema-verite approach, the film functions as an up-close record of a turning point in American and Afghan history while also providing an emotional reminder of the human costs of war.
‘Retrograde’ focuses in the relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained.

In 1927, Prohibition agent Eliot Ness narrowly escapes a hit ordered by Al Capone. Determined to prove to Capone that he's not intimidated, Ness and his team of Untouchables execute a series of high-profile raids on Capone's breweries. Over the course of a few months, they destroy more than 200,000 gallons of beer, worth a modern-day equivalent of $134 million - and the newspapers cover it all. Capone lashes out against Ness in the press. What Capone doesn't realize is that Ness and the Prohibition agents aren't the only ones trying to take him down. For the past four years, another government agency with more manpower and resources than Ness has been going after the infamous kingpin: the Internal Revenue Service.