War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's

founding right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased

its size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Welcome to another special episode of Key Battles of World War I on film.

I'm your host, James Early.

This is another in our mini series of episodes in which Sean McIver and I will discuss several of the best movies about World War I.

In today's episode, I'm really excited. We're going to be discussing the outstanding 2018 documentary film, They Shall Not Grow Old, directed by Peter Jackson.

My guest, Sean, as you already know know but i'm going to repeat it anyway because it's worth repeating sean is a co-host of the excellent podcast come

and take it which is about texas history culture music food and all things texas i definitely recommend

that you check this podcast out. I've

listened to every episode, and I love it. Sean, as you probably know by now, is also a major

movie buff. He knows a lot about films, and so I'm excited to have him with me. Sean, how's it

going? That's going well. Oh, that's good. All right.

Well, so this is our first and only documentary.

It's the only one that's not a dramatized film.

So it's very different.

So this episode and this discussion will be somewhat different from the others.

We obviously don't have a plot to work through like we usually do.

But we're going to focus on the overall, I guess there is kind of a story in a way,

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