Legacy - The Origins of Civilization [3 DVD Set]

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Product Description

Historian Michael Wood stands in the Iraqi desert amid crumbling ruins and dry desolation. He describes a once-thriving metropolis, where merchants brought their goods into the city over a network of lush canals. All that remains is a sea of golden sand, the once-large population drifted away, the comples society vanished. As the world approaches the 21st century, this new series reminds us that other nations and cultures prospered for hundreds or even thousands of years. Now all that remains is the legacy of their civilizations, present and influential in our own.

Shot on location on four contients, Legacy takes a different viewpoint from other series that concentrate primarily on the the Western view of history. Visiting China, India, Egypt, the Middle East, Greece and Meso-America, this series traces the rise of both Asian and western civilization.

This series results from an international effort, a co-production of Maryland Public Television and Central Independent Television, U.K. in association with NHK, Japan and the British Museum.

Hosted by historian Michael Wood ("River Journeys") and ("Travels"). Produced by Peter Spry-Leverton ("Making of Mankind") and ("Japan").

Programs in this series:

Iraq: The Cradle of Civilization
After thousands of years as a hunter/gatherer, man built the first cities 5,000 years ago on the banks of the Euphrates in Southern Iraq. Civilization began. City life transformed the human race with the glorious cultures of Mesopotamia such as Ur and Babylon.

India: The Empire of the Spirit
Ancient India is with us today in the living tradition of the Hindu religion, the basis of Indian culture. The traditions that are honored by millions of Hindus in the present were born in the Indus valley 5,000 years ago.

China: The Mandate of Heaven
Many breakthroughs on which the modern world is based were discovered in China long ago...iron-casting, gunpowder, even printing. When introduced to Europe, these things changed Western civilization. This episode presents the synthesis of East and West.

Egypt: The Habit of Civilization
Ancient Egypt was the first great nation on earth and endured for thousands of years. The god-like Pharaoh was the rock on which this civilization was built. Ancient traditions come together in the Moslem culture that is the Middle East today.

Central America: The Burden of Time
Isolated from the rest of the world, the Mayans and Aztecs created sophisticated civilizations that in many ways paralleled ancient Mediterranean empires. God-like kings and a priestly ruling class dominated splendid cities of temples and pyramids.

The Barbarian West
Civilization arose in Asia, but it was the West which would create the first world culture. This final episode traces the origins of western culture through Greece and Rome prevailing by borrowing from the legacies of the original five old world civilizations.

Features:
English subtitles for the Hearing Impaired

Legacy - The Origins of Civilization [3 DVD Set] Review

Historian Michael Wood leads viewers on a dramatically filmed excursion through different civilizations. Live footage of locations and peoples enlighten the beginnings of 6 civilizations (by the narrator's definition "life in cities"). The writer pushes a main theme of tolerance, a need for the worlds cultures to coexist, and suggests through the study of past civilizations, perhaps peaceful existence can happen. Not a lecture format, but engaging at a university level.

A dynamic depiction, based on a well documented presentation, at a level not for children but the intellectual. Woods uses a well educated vocabulary to explain the earliest 6 civilizations of the world, and how they continue to play a vital role in the people, politics, society, economy, and religions of every continent. "LEGACY" offers an intellectual approach to understanding diverse groups of peoples through an in-depth look at historical facts. Educational rather than entertaining. Scholarly, not documentary. yet the film footage is as delightful as a travelogue. It points to civilizations with similar developments though independently achieved.

DETAILS:
1 IRAQ
Bible verse suggests it the cradle of the human race with accounts of Nineveh, Babylon & perhaps even Edin or the Garden of Eden. Home of Abraham, father of 3 religions. Uruk: 1st city began as a religious center. This civilization first invented the school, world map, astronomy, wheel, literature (ark story), writing, plow, and time set in divisions of 60.
2 INDIA
Sanskrit: oldest living language is from here, with it's now 850 million population amid a caste system and a violent heritage. A civilization with a tradition of rejecting materialism, often invaded, and the episode finishes with the British colonial plundering of this civilization.
3 CHINA
The last of great civilizations to develop, 1000 years after IRAQ, was "sustained by virtue, ritual, & reverence for ancestors." A sign called "wen" (writing) on 'dragon bones' was the beginning of that word. Confucius & traditions surrounding him return today, lie TAo (path) & India's Buddha. China crated the 1st great cuisine, plus inventing gunpowder, stern rudders, magnetic compass, paper maps, and printing.
4 EGYPT
A civilization that drew its existence from the greatest river (Nile) of the world (600 mile x 6 mile wide). An optimistic group crating the world's first state. Funeral monuments: Pyramids-a Greek given name, rulers elevated to God-like status, a practice yet seen all over the earth. Ideas of eternal life and resurrection began here but without damnation. Egypt gave us paper (papyrus), sailboats, and irrigation.
5 CENTRAL AMERICA
Maya & Aztec peoples invented writing independently. Pyramids were built which rival Egypt. A civilization based on time & nature being sovereign even to bloody sacrificial human death. Zero "0" was conceptualized here.
6 EUROPE-WEST
The 1st peoples to spread their civilization across the whole planet. Although great value came from their civilization it also was at great violent costs. Greeks drew from other civilizations and created democracy-put politics into the hands of citizens--"politismo" or civilization as they saw it. Eventually a possessive, property-based individualism, late marriage, small family, and free-market culture dominated, yet today.

DVD set includes subtitles, very helpful not only for the hearing impaired but for the names and many words spoken. Also, a bonus of "When Giants Walked the Earth" gives profiles of Axial Age thinkers (Zoroaster, Isaiah, Buddha, Mahavira, Confucius, Laozi, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, & Thucydides). An included booklet is helpful with a synopsis of each episode, maps, questions to ponder, and other informational bits.

Along these same educational lines, if you like "Legacy", you will probably enjoy seeing "Edge of Existence" and "The Shape of the World", both sets put out by the same Athena DVD supplier.

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