Summary: After the chaos of the French Revolution, the concept of liberty became associated with nature rather than political events. This program analyzes the Romantic fascination and identification with the power of the natural world. Shedding light on William Blake's early childhood experiences in the countryside, the film also explores the work of John Clare-conveying how both poets revered the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Examining the birth of Romanticism through the lenses of art and uprising, this program illustrates the political and cultural roots of the movement. The film begins by describing the significance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his influence on the French Revolution, and his belief that civilization and governmental systems suppress the individual human spirit. Linking Rousseau's philosophy to the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Viewing life in strictly corporeal terms was abhorrent to Romantic sensibility. This program examines attempts by Romantic poets to transcend the physical world and expand the limits of human imagination-presaging 20th-century notions of the unconscious. Illustrating how the idea of transcendence effectively became the religion of Romanticism, the film reflects on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the space of 60 years, England transformed itself from a rural economy into an industrial powerhouse. This program tells the story of the innovations and innovators from the Industrial Revolution who changed the world of work, including John Smeaton's ground-breaking experiments with waterwheels, Richard Arkwright's revolutionary thread factories, and James Watt's fateful partnership with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The impact of Marx on the 20th century was all-pervasive and worldwide, costing tens of millions of lives where Communism was imposed, resulting in brutal wars to contain or expand it, and vastly improving the lives of workers where fear of Communism resulted in social reform. This program looks at the man, at the roots of his philosophy, at the causes and explanations of his philosophical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program chronicles the transportation revolution of England's industrial age, which not only transformed the way people and things are moved from place to place, but forever altered people's relationship to distance and time-the world began to shrink, and horizons to expand. Examined in this program are John McAdam's system for improving road surfaces; Thomas Telford's hugely ambitious...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, a treatise that would forever change our understanding of how work, value, and money are interrelated. This program details Smith's life and traces the impact of his work as Europe began the arduous transition from mercantilism to the laissez-faire philosophy of the Physiocrats. After Smith, labor was seen as the source of a country's wealth,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: With the rise of industry came the rise of the cities. In this program, host Dan Cruickshank scours London to examine how the mechanisms of industrialization generated urban life as people know it today. Mass production enabled a growing swathe of society to enjoy high-quality products and created a new and instantly recognizable world: the modern home. Chemistry also stoked the fires of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the fullness of time, his failings have become obvious. Yet, even after the collapse of global Communism, Karl Marx stands undiminished as one of history’s most influential thinkers. This program chronicles Marx’s life and intellectual development, including the publication and impact of his major writings. Beginning with his birth and religiously confused childhood in Prussia, the video...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This program investigates how England's insatiable appetite for tea, cotton, and china fueled that country's industrial revolution. Driven by ingenious inventions such as the Newcomen steam engine, the spinning jenny, and the flying shuttle, mass production took England by storm. At the same time, the globe-trotting expeditions of Captain James Cook did more than chart exotic lands-they also...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Industrialization not only changed the face of Western society-it also made people sick. Overcrowded cities, harsh working conditions, and newfound mobility all conspired to imperil public health. In this program, host Dan Cruickshank traces the developments in medicine that took place during-and were often inspired by-the Industrial Revolution. Pioneering Englishmen such as William Withering,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Industrialization in the 19th century, and the widespread human exploitation and personal alienation that characterized it, produced a crisis of faith and shook people's confidence in the very concept of civilization. In this program, Matthew Collings follows in the footsteps of John Ruskin, a social critic who interpreted the ills of his era and believed that art could salve, and perhaps even...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: One of the most effective engines of change is war. This program examines what happened when some of the brightest minds of the Industrial Revolution applied their skills to the field of battle. Host Dan Cruickshank takes viewers on a tour of military innovation, from camouflage and rifled gun barrels to David Bushnell's ingenious submarine and William Congreve's terrifying war rockets, which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006