It doesn't get much better than this. James Burke is smart and inventive as he whisks us from one invention to another by means of the most obscure dendritic paths you can imagine. I'll bet you never realized that the black plague wiped out so many Europeans that the ones who were left became rich because they had access to the resources left behind by the dear departed.
You say you knew that? I hope you don't mind if I remain a little skeptical but, okay. I still don't think that many historians of science could lay out the connections between that fact and the improved methods of counting immigrants to Ellis Island in 1890.
This was Burke's first series, 1978, and he went on to "Connections 2" and "The Day the Universe Changed." The last series was a little more philosophical than "Connections" but no matter. The format remained the same.
I prefer this series, the earliest, because Burke is notably younger and because he's so obviously a product of the 70s here. He has his signature dark-rimmed glasses and he's already balding, but his hair is dark, he sports polyester leisure suits with bell bottoms, and he occasionally throws in some contemporary slang. Also, I enjoy his younger self because he's something of an age mate. That gives us something in common. No, I didn't earn a Master's at Oxford like Burke and I'm not as smart, but I look as youthful as ever.
It's quite a series, with high production values. The BBC was great at this sort of thing. Burke makes his point with a nod of his head, and we're whisked from Bruges in Belgium to Champagne in France. The musical score, which appears only intermittently, uses a full orchestra. Hundreds of extras enact Medieval celebrations or read religious texts in obscure languages. (One of Burke's academic specialties was Middle English, I think, and he's written a dictionary of Italian.) But it's that instantaneous change from continent to continent that stands out.
I hope no one will expect a dry analysis of the evolution of technology. Burke speaks rather quickly at times and zips through some complicated mechanisms that left me in the dust. It was especially frustrating not to be able to follow his detailed explanation of the invention of the automatic loom for silk, because one of the questions on my comprehensive exams in graduate school was, "Describe the evolution of the loom." I have, incidentally, used two or three episodes from this series in classes on subjects like Social Change and Introduction to Anthropology. I'm not sure the students were able to follow all of it, but I was reasonably sure that they got the general idea, which is that one thing depends on things that came before. (That's why nobody invented the automobile in Ancient Greece.) The ancillary idea was maybe less obvious but was easy enough to grasp; institutions like politics, religion, environment, technology, science, philosophy all influence one another.
The entire series of episodes is available free on the internet and every once in a while I'll run through a 44-minute presentation. Since I've already seen them all, I always expect to be bored but it hasn't happened yet.
You say you knew that? I hope you don't mind if I remain a little skeptical but, okay. I still don't think that many historians of science could lay out the connections between that fact and the improved methods of counting immigrants to Ellis Island in 1890.
This was Burke's first series, 1978, and he went on to "Connections 2" and "The Day the Universe Changed." The last series was a little more philosophical than "Connections" but no matter. The format remained the same.
I prefer this series, the earliest, because Burke is notably younger and because he's so obviously a product of the 70s here. He has his signature dark-rimmed glasses and he's already balding, but his hair is dark, he sports polyester leisure suits with bell bottoms, and he occasionally throws in some contemporary slang. Also, I enjoy his younger self because he's something of an age mate. That gives us something in common. No, I didn't earn a Master's at Oxford like Burke and I'm not as smart, but I look as youthful as ever.
It's quite a series, with high production values. The BBC was great at this sort of thing. Burke makes his point with a nod of his head, and we're whisked from Bruges in Belgium to Champagne in France. The musical score, which appears only intermittently, uses a full orchestra. Hundreds of extras enact Medieval celebrations or read religious texts in obscure languages. (One of Burke's academic specialties was Middle English, I think, and he's written a dictionary of Italian.) But it's that instantaneous change from continent to continent that stands out.
I hope no one will expect a dry analysis of the evolution of technology. Burke speaks rather quickly at times and zips through some complicated mechanisms that left me in the dust. It was especially frustrating not to be able to follow his detailed explanation of the invention of the automatic loom for silk, because one of the questions on my comprehensive exams in graduate school was, "Describe the evolution of the loom." I have, incidentally, used two or three episodes from this series in classes on subjects like Social Change and Introduction to Anthropology. I'm not sure the students were able to follow all of it, but I was reasonably sure that they got the general idea, which is that one thing depends on things that came before. (That's why nobody invented the automobile in Ancient Greece.) The ancillary idea was maybe less obvious but was easy enough to grasp; institutions like politics, religion, environment, technology, science, philosophy all influence one another.
The entire series of episodes is available free on the internet and every once in a while I'll run through a 44-minute presentation. Since I've already seen them all, I always expect to be bored but it hasn't happened yet.