Connections
tv show

40 total episodes
-
3 seasons
First Aired October 17, 1978
Genres:
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.
Life is No Picnic
Season 3 - Episode 5 - 0h 0m
Air Date
January 01, 1997
Overview
Instant coffee gets off the ground in World War II and Jeeps lead to nylons and stocking machines smashed by Luddites, who were defended by Lord Byron, who meets John Galt in Turkey, avoiding the same blockade that inspires the "Star-Spangled Banner", which was really an English song all about a Greek poet discovered by a publisher whose son-in-law is pals with Joseph Justus Scaliger of chronology fame, whose military boss, Maurice, inspires Gustavus of Sweden, father of the runaway Christina, whose teacher René Descartes' mechanical universe inspires the book about brains by Willis, which is illustrated by the architect of St. Paul's, Christopher Wren, who dabbles in investments like John Law's Louisiana scam that ruins France, and Pierre Beaumarchais, and later the French finance minister Jacques Necker, whose daughter is the opinionated de Stael, whose romantic pals get Thomas Henry Huxley looking into jellyfish so he can defend Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. This demonstrate