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.
The peaks and the valleys. Find the essential episodes — and the ones to skip.
Examines the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance from the perspective of how commercialism, climate change and the Black Death influenced cultural development.
Food preservation began with the storage of edibles in bottles and led to such 19th-century inventions as air conditioning, refrigeration and the thermos bottle. Also discusses the first hand-held guns and traces the development of rocketry in this century.
One thing leads to another and our dependence on technology. A New York City Blackout serves as example.
Each point is an episode, plotted in order. Colored bands mark season boundaries. Look for the rise, the plateau, or the decline.
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Connection lost
