The First Impact

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Episode 1 of 13

Duration: 50 minutes

First transmitted in 1972, Alistair Cooke offers a personal history of his experiences within the United States. He recounts some of the most memorable places he visited and reminisces over many of the surprising discoveries that he made.

Cooke details his first visit to America as a 23-year-old. Retracing his journey, Cooke recalls many of the significant attachments that he made in the States, among them the city of New Orleans and his friendship with journalist HL Mencken.

  • All American Collection

    All American Collection

    This programme is part of BBC Four’s All American - a collection of BBC programmes from the archives about US culture. Available online to watch in full.

    Go to the BBC Four All American Collection

  • About BBC Four Collection programmes

    Programmes are selected, in part, for their historical context and reflect the broadcast standards and attitudes of their time, which may not accord to some current BBC editorial guidelines. We aim to select programmes which can be shown in their entirety but in some cases edits are required. In these cases, edits are kept to a minimum and are made only for technical reasons.

Credits

Narrator
Alistair Cooke
Expert
Sir Denis Brogan
Director
Ann Turner
Producer
Michael Gill

Broadcasts

See all broadcasts of The First Impact (6)

Featured in...

  • All American

    A collection of classic BBC programmes about US culture. Available to watch online.

Buy online

Available on: DVD

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Where to buy

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