Source: BBC
Content: The concept of civilisation from the beginning of recorded history
Mesopotomia
The invention of writing in Mesopotomia, what we now call Iraq, more than 5000 years ago.
By representing the sounds of words rather than pictures of objects, the Sumerian’s script could record emotion, and complicated thoughts, and was completely revolutionary.
Ancient Egypt
How Ancient Egypt adopted ideas from other countries and made them more stylish, human, and sophisticated.
Ancient India
Spirituality and the birth of the caste system. Was the concept of dharma – religious duty – essential to ancient India’s stability?
Ancient China
Ancient China was remarkable for its organisation, written language, and great thinkers such as Confucius.
The Greeks and Persians
How the clash between the Greeks and Persians in 5BC was recorded through epic stories and poems.
Ancient Athens
Athens’ extraordinary creative outburst in politics, drama, philosophy, and the visual arts following the defeat of the Persians in 5BC.
Ancient Rome
How Rome grew from a shanty town, to the centre of the world’s largest empire, through force of arms, slavery, and the granting of citizenship.
The Renaissance
The explosion of 14th Century Italian artistic achievement and intellectual innovation that started the European Renaissance.
The Golden Age of Islam
The poetry, learning, science, and colour of the 7th Century civilisation that grew out of Islam.
The Colonial Experience
Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortez, and the arrogance of conquest.
What happens when a technologically advanced culture encounters a technologically backward one?
The Enlightenment
The rise of reason, science, tolerance, and liberty in 18th Century France.
Judaism and Christianity
Christianity’s intellectual and spiritual debt to Judaism, especially its prophecies, poetry, and narratives.
The Victorian Age
How cotton, coal, iron, steam, and sweat, gave birth of the industrial revolution.
The 20th Century
What went wrong? The descent of European civilisation into dictatorship, war, and unprecedented genocide.
The 20th Century
Will the growing disparity between rich and poor countries, prevent the emergence of a truly global civilisation?
