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Season 1
Written and presented by James Burke, this 10-part series traces the development of Western thought through its major transformations since the days of ancient Greece. Program one is an
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Written and presented by James Burke, this 10-part series traces the development of Western thought through its major transformations since the days of ancient Greece. Program one is an overview of the series, showing how a culture’s view of the world around it determines how it sees itself, and is reflected even in the smallest details of its customs and habits.
1x2
In the Light of the Above: Medieval Conflict: Faith and Reason
Episode overview
Relates that in the course of overrunning Moorish Spain, Christian Europe discovered libraries, universities, optics, mechanics, and natural philosophy. This rediscovery of classical
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Relates that in the course of overrunning Moorish Spain, Christian Europe discovered libraries, universities, optics, mechanics, and natural philosophy. This rediscovery of classical knowledge led to the founding of universities and the replacement of Augustinian philosophies by Aristotelian theories.
Shows that Western Europe’s rediscovery of perspective through the study of Arab optics led to revolutions in art and architecture. The West’s new-found ability to control things at a
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Shows that Western Europe’s rediscovery of perspective through the study of Arab optics led to revolutions in art and architecture. The West’s new-found ability to control things at a distance resulted in new methods of warfare and the confidence to make long voyages of exploration.
Observes that the invention of printing and the advent of cheap paper forever transformed the nature of knowledge from the local and traditional to the systematic and testable. Nationalism, public relations, and propaganda are among the results.
Observes that the invention of printing and the advent of cheap paper forever transformed the nature of knowledge from the local and traditional to the systematic and testable. Nationalism, public relations, and propaganda are among the results.
Notes that investigators such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton evolved better explanations of natural phenomena than those of Aristotle. Highlights the theories that led to a
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Notes that investigators such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton evolved better explanations of natural phenomena than those of Aristotle. Highlights the theories that led to a new conception of how the universe works and of man’s place in it.
1x6
Credit Where It's Due: The Factory and Marketplace Revolution
Episode overview
Locates the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English industrial Revolution, powered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam
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Locates the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English industrial Revolution, powered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam engine, new forms of credit, surplus wealth, and opening markets laid the foundation for industrial society.
Traces modern society’s recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identifies the
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Traces modern society’s recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identifies the origins of medicine as a science with the discovery of anesthesia, antiseptics, and bacteriology.
Tracks the expectation of change, fundamental to contemporary society, through the developing sciences of botany, geology, and biology to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory,
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Tracks the expectation of change, fundamental to contemporary society, through the developing sciences of botany, geology, and biology to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory, in turn, has been used as a justification for Nazism, communism, and cut-throat capitalism.
Points out that studies of the properties of magnetism, electricity, and light have led scientists to the realization that Newtonian physics is inadequate to explain all that they
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Points out that studies of the properties of magnetism, electricity, and light have led scientists to the realization that Newtonian physics is inadequate to explain all that they observe. The public, meanwhile, has continued to concentrate on the technological by-products of science.
1x10
Show finale
Worlds Without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality
Episode overview
Observes that over the centuries Western civilization has regularly shifted its conception of the nature of truth. The series closes with host James Burke's remarkably prescient
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Observes that over the centuries Western civilization has regularly shifted its conception of the nature of truth. The series closes with host James Burke's remarkably prescient assessment of the role in which modern computer networks are beginning to now play in shaping man's current conception of his reality as well as how they may well define the fundamental nature of all future human interaction. And while his message is ultimately a positive one, it is tempered with the warning that while the promise of the computer may indeed provide a framework for a future anarchism where human freedom is nourished and where every individual conception of reality is a valid one, it could conversely become of tool of totalitarian repression and conformity.
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