Here, in three episodes, is the tale of the decline of the greatest Empire the world ever knew before Microsoft - the British Empire.

This empire, which spanned the globe, reached its height in the dying years of the 19th century. The first episode in this doco traces the mercantile roots of the empire, examining its explosive growth and looking at the first cracks in its facade.

In the 20th century the Empire was dying, even before the Second World War drained Britain of much of its wealth, and Britain had simply lost the will to govern. The second part shows how the Second World War really just hammered the final nails into the Empire's coffin.

Part three shows how, in a way, the loss of the Empire was one of Britain's finest moments. Unlike other colonial powers, such as the French, who fought bitterly to hang onto their possessions, Britain did attempt to grant self-rule to its colonies in a supportive way that might yield stable government. It didn't always work, but it tried.

It's an interesting documentary, with some arresting images, and I would imagine that this would be a worthwhile companion for students at, say, Year 9 or 10 level, studying 20th century history.

For general viewers though, it's a bit too much an extension of the classroom. It lacks the touch of flair and genius which makes history come alive - as we saw most recently in the wonderful BBC series The History of Britain, written and presented by Simon Schama. In fact, after watching this doco, I watched a couple of episodes of Simon's opus just to remember how exciting history can be.

Images in this series are predominantly black and white, with some colour footage.

All the film is drawn from the British Movietone archives. For newsreel footage, this is generally of a reasonably high quality, although showing the occasional flecks, scratches and other detritus of time. The colour footage, though nicely nostalgic in appearance, has suffered more than the black and white stock through fading of colour values.

The sound is acceptable. There's no authentic period-sound used here, just fairly anodyne background music and modern narration, and the dialogue is delivered quite crisply and legibly.

There are no extras of any kind.