Can /r/AskHistorians recommend a good video (TV or Movie) documentary covering the Vietnam War? [Apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn't easily see it.] I realise that historically the Vietnam War had causes going back decades (if not centuries) and that there is a lot of material out there. Ideally I would like something that:

• Gives an overview covering lead-up and significant events
• Is not overly politically biased
• Does not focus only on 'the war as seen by' just a single person or group

I don't mind a feature-length or one hour movie or even a multi-part TV series if it is good but I shan't be able to manage a series of feature-length films. I do tend to struggle with very old-fashioned TV series where the picture quality is sub-VHS and the presentation is terribly stilted.

This is a very specific US-related mystery I've come across in researching some Japanese history, and I wondered if anyone on Ask Historians can shed some light on it. Please excuse the wall of text that is this question, but I think laying out all the context may help in finding an answer.

In 1863-1864, there was a military confrontation between the Western powers and the Japanese domain of Choshu, known as the Shimonoseki Campaign. Choshu domain in 1863 began firing on Western ships using the Shimonoseki strait. In 1864, a coalition of British, French, Dutch, and American ships bombarded Shimonoseki, landed marines to dismantle the Choshu batteries, and soon Choshu sued for peace. The American presence in the fleet was very small and symbolic, given that the American navy was mostly engaged in the Civil War.

As part of the peace terms, Japan was charged a huge fine to pay to the four Western powers: three million dollars. This was patently unjust, because the shogunate - who were supposed to pay it - were also at odds with Choshu. At the time of the bombardment, the shogunate and Choshu were actually at war. And the whole expedition had been launched from the port of Nagasaki, so Japan had already provided the base and supplying abilities for the expedition, something that a number of Japanese patriots held against the shogunate. But due to some legalities – I’m trying to keep this shorter – the coalition held that Japan as a country owed them the debt.

These circumstances, and how they smacked of Imperial ambition, were problematic for some American politicians from the start. The money: $785,000, was a long time in actually being paid, and then there was dissension in congress over whether it should be spent or returned to Japan. No consensus was reached for many years, until in 1883, the Indemnity was returned to Japan.

While I was researching the return of the Indemnity, I came across a passage in an 1892 guidebook to Japan that identified Charles Sumner as "foremost" in the fight to return the Indemnity to Japan. I have not been able to find any particulars about Sumner’s connection to the Indemnity issue anywhere else, but I don’t feel secure in searching in this area. The reason I’m giving one random guidebook some credence is that Sumner certainly was a friend to Japan’s first ambassador to the U.S., Mori Arinori. 1871-1873. Mori absolutely idolized Sumner, who made a huge impression on Mori’s whole worldview. Mori converted to Christianity soon after coming to the U..S. Through Sumner, Mori met Joseph Henry, the first Smithsonian secretary, and they hatched a plan for the US to return the Indemnity to fund Westernized Japanese education: Mori’s dearest cause.

So, all details point to Sumner having some involvement in this cause, but I can’t find anything precisely linking him to it. This is where I’m hoping that someone on Ask Historians might have some insight.

I'm currently listening to a (great) audiobook "The Meaning of Life - Perspectives from the World's Great Intellectual Traditions" which covers the stoics. A portion of the professor's reading from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations caught me, which I'm copying from a translation I found on the internet:

"We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing and attractive. For instance, when bread is baked some parts are split at the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain fashion contrary to the purpose of the baker's art, are beautiful in a manner, and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating. And again, figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down..."