Digging For The Truth: DVD And Book Collection is composed of the first two seasons of The History Channel's hit TV series and the book by Josh Bernstein called Digging for the Truth: One Man's Epic Adventure Exploring the World's Greatest Archaeological Mysteries.

Josh Bernstein is the President and CEO of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) and has degrees in anthropology and psychology from Cornell University. The series premiered in January, 2005 and has since become the highest rated series in the history of The History Channel.

The basis of the show is that each episode typically deals with events or subjects that are not completely understood by modern historians and therefore many of the subjects have some controversy surrounding them. Even though not every theory is explored, Bernstein usually summarizes them during the course of each episode.

He visits with professionals that deal with the subject at hand and many times he places himself in situations that provide a better feel for what those whom he is describing would have felt. Many of the places he visits are not accessible to the general public, and therefore are places that most will never be able to visit. At the end of each episode he tries to pull everything together and put it in context of what most likely happened, or in some cases concludes that there just isn't enough to solve the mystery.

Digging For The Truth: Season 1

While I won't go into every episode, and, although each episode stands on it own merit, I will point out some of my favorites. First let me say that if you want to have a hit series, especially about something potentially dry as archaeology, then first you have to have someone who can be cool-looking like Josh "it's not a fedora" Bernstein and then, what they say has to be interesting. This show has both. One other thing that helps is if your first four shows can be grand slams out of the ball park. This show had that as well.

The first show was on the pyramids of Egypt; the second was on the mummy Nefertiti, followed by one about Pompeii, and then finally one on the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant. Each of them was great and sold viewers on the merits of the show. Other great episodes were "Quest for King Solomon's Gold," "Passage to the Maya Underworld," "The Giants of Easter Island," and Mystery of the Anasazi".