Summary: Using sophisticated animation and expertise from modern scholars and archivists, this program reconstructs European voyages of discovery that took place in the 15th through 18th centuries and profiles the visionaries who led them. Viewers are introduced to Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian merchant who gave his name to the New World; Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese admiral who found the passage...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 21st-century landscape of shopping malls and skyscrapers, capitalism appears irreligious-but beneath its secular veneer lie theological principles born in the 1500s. This program examines the rise of the Protestant work ethic and the religious foundations of Western industry; it also reveals a Protestant consciousness at the heart of social activism and the opposition to extreme...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The idea of using art to explore the human condition rather than the divine was a significant departure from the predominantly religious artwork that preceded this secular revelation. In this program, Matthew Collings seeks the first glimmerings of humanist art in the Italian Renaissance-particularly in the works of Giotto and Leonardo da Vinci. He also contrasts two 18th-century artists who,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Galileo's recantation in 1633 opened a gap between Christianity and science, a separation that widened as the first great age of European exploration came to a close. This program studies the second great age ushered in during the latter half of the 18th century amidst a thickening web of French and British colonialism-an age in which maps and charts facilitated political and economic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: From “promises to pay” on ancient Babylonian tablets to the insolvency of present-day consumerist America, this program explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are central to civilization. Historian Niall Ferguson examines financial transactions recorded in cuneiform; the transition from Roman numerals to Arabic symbols for greater speed and efficiency among medieval...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Beginning in the strange and chaotic world of war financing, this program explores the origins and development of bond trading. Historian Niall Ferguson profiles military backers and bankrollers through the centuries, linking their activities to the rise and fall of governments, the volatile fortunes of their constituents, and the fluctuations of global markets. Viewers will learn about Sir...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do stock markets produce bubbles, and what makes them burst? In this program, financial scholar Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the joint stock company and the modern share trading system, highlighting some of history’s most notorious market meltdowns. Analyzing the herd instinct and its role in economic upswings and downturns, Ferguson draws parallels between the 2001 Enron...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Bubonic plague, starvation, maybe even cannibalism-such were the miseries of life in England's Jamestown settlement, circa 1609. Four centuries later, this program explores the colony's story with the help of dramatic reenactments and information on recent historical discoveries. Sophisticated forensics and archaeological methods reveal the contents of Jamestown graves, producing shocking...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010