Connections

tv show

poster for Connections

40 total episodes

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3 seasons

First Aired October 17, 1978

Overview

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually ancient or medieval) and traces a path from that event through a series of connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world.

tv poster

Faith in Numbers

Season 1 - Episode 4 - 0h 0m

Air Date

November 07, 1978

Overview

Each development in the organization of systems (political, economic, mechanical, electronic)influences the next, by logic, by genius, by chance, or by utterly unforeseen events. The transition from the Middle ages to the Renaissance was influenced by the rise of commercialism, a sudden change in climate, famine and the Black Death, which set the stage for the invention of the printing press.