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Civilisation

The concept of civilisation from the beginning of recorded history

World Service,15 episodes

Episodes

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Mesopotomia
The invention of writing. Sumerian's revolutionary representation of the sounds of words
15 Feb 1996,28 mins
Ancient Egypt
How Ancient Egypt adopted ideas and made them more stylish, human, and sophisticated
22 Feb 1996,28 mins
Ancient India
Was the concept of dharma - religious duty - essential to ancient India's stability?
29 Feb 1996,28 mins
Ancient China
Remarkable for its organisation, written language, and great thinkers such as Confucius
21 Mar 1996,28 mins
The Greeks and Persians
How the clash between Greeks and Persians in 5BC was recorded in stories and poems
11 Apr 1996,29 mins
Ancient Athens
Athens' extraordinary creative outburst in politics drama philosophy and the visual arts
25 Apr 1996,28 mins
Ancient Rome
How Rome grew from a shanty town to the centre of the world's largest empire
09 May 1996,28 mins
The Renaissance
The Italian artistic achievement and intellectual innovation that started the Renaissance
27 Jun 1996,28 mins
The Golden Age of Islam
The poetry, learning, and science of the 7th Century civilisation that grew out of Islam
04 Jul 1996,28 mins
The Colonial Experience
Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortez, and the arrogance of conquest
11 Jul 1996,29 mins
The Enlightenment
The rise of reason, science, tolerance, and liberty in 18th Century France
25 Jul 1996,28 mins
Judaism and Christianity
Christianity's intellectual and spiritual debt to Judaism
08 Aug 1996,28 mins
The Victorian Age
How cotton, coal, iron, steam, and sweat, gave birth of the industrial revolution
10 Sep 1996,28 mins
The 20th Century
The descent of European civilisation into dictatorship, war, and unprecedented genocide
15 Oct 1996,28 mins
The 20th Century
Will the disparity between rich and poor prevent the emergence of a global civilisation?
17 Oct 1996,28 mins