S1E8:The Cult of Progress

19 Apr 201854 minTV-14

David Olusoga explores the artistic reaction to imperialism in the 19th century. Advances in knowledge and technology during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution imbued Europeans with a sense of their civilization's superiority. It justified their imperial ideology. But it created among artists deep fascinations with other civilizations which in turn produced a skepticism about their own.