Customer Reviews

Birth of Civilization

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This item contains an interestingly presented history of the evolution of mindset of humanity from the first men to the first civilizations. Didatic, simple, informative and pleasurous watching. A whow DVD, despite its short duration. It can be used in schools for informative and easy language.

This was a very entertaining and thought provoking show I don't see the reason for other harsh reviews. I think some people are looking a little to much into this. The fact of matter is it told three stories about mans earliest breakthroughs that linked together in an interesting way.

I am flummoxed as to why the other reviews on this movie are so poor.

I can tell you why I think it was a great movie:

My two children age 7 and 9, giving up a bit of summer vacation, watched the whole thing, were engaged and even a bit frightened. This movie encouraged them to think outside the "Pokémon/Wii" box and for days afterwards they asked me questions about the movie. Big questions.

I work in clinical research that is specific to stroke and stroke recovery. For years I have been trying to imagine what it would be like prehistoric individuals to have had a stroke. I have written about it in articles and in my book Stronger After Stroke, and I talk about it in seminars and lectures I do around the country. In this movie, there is the fictional story of a prehistoric man who was brain damaged but managed to make the connection between seed, soil, water and crop growing. This portrayal of a hemiparetic brain-damaged person is by far the best I've seen in movies. This is no easy feat. Sir Anthony Hopkins struggled with it in Legends of the Fall.

I am no expert, but this movie seems to be based on hunter gatherer culture, practices and philosophies that are still evident today. It is not very difficult to determine how little importance prehistoric man placed in ownership. It is also not difficult to understand how prehistoric man saw himself as no more important than anything else in nature. It's the same with the Yanomamö, some aboriginal tribes, Eskimo tribes, etc. etc.

All in all this was a thought provoking bit of historical fiction.

I use this in my special ed 6th grade California social studies class to provide visual instruction on the change from hunter gather society to civilization start in Mesopotamia. It is a little hokey in places, but provides good visuals.

I think this is a great teaching tool. I teach World History in Florida and my students really loved this DVD I highly reccomend it.

I'd expect something like this from the History Channel, but National Geographic?

It's an interesting little speculation on how civilization might have started. It has a good overview of some of the archaeology at very early sites and the talking heads seem knowledgeable and are used well. But the narrative they tell is irresponsible beyond belief. Based on nothing, they make up people, families, and incidents, and tell us that this person discovered how to irrigate plants, and this guy figured out you could tame horses. Sometimes, the idea how it happened seems slightly plausible and sometimes it's so ridiculous you want to laugh out loud. Seriously, there was this guy who was brain damaged from an injury and he was being shunned by his village because they blamed him for a drought, but he hauled off and urinated in the field and discovered the idea of irrigation. So then he became the chieftain of his village. Really, are you serious?

This video is irresponsible on so many levels that I'm not sure where to start. First, it pretends NGC has a body of factual, personal information about not only broad themes of human development but also about the names and genealogies of individuals who lived more than 5000 years ago -- and the specific innovations they are responsible for. History teachers have a hard enough time convincing their students that history is a matter of weighing and evaluating fragmentary, conflicting, and ambiguous evidence, and that the further back you get, the less evidence there is. So then NGC comes along and says "nah, it's easy. Pericles, King Darius, Sargon, and Uti, all important historical figures."

Second, their telling of the story this way gives you the idea that Edison got it exactly wrong and invention is really "1% perspiration and 99% inspiration." Instead of portraying the process of invention and discovery as longterm, sometimes quite accidental, and involving many innovations by many people, they pretty much make these things a single "aha" moment that came to a single person on a single day -- and NGC knows his name and where he lived. Seriously, one guy discovered (invented) irrigation one single day. Another guy figured out how to domesticate horses. Same with metal-working, writing, the works. This video is so ahistorical that eventually you expect to see a neolithic CNN crew coming up to interview Oog about how he figured out you could domesticate horses.

I'm sure some will argue that these objections are ridiculous because it's so obvious to any viewer that the specific stories are just speculations that make the story more personal and interesting, and instead it's the broad outlines that matter. Sorry, but that doesn't wash. NGC gives no caveat before they show this, and in my experience kids are inclined to take what they see on TV literally even if you give appropriate caveats. Besides, the broad outlines of the story (inventions happened in a single day) are wrong too.

Some parts are ok. Like I said, they have interesting information about excavation of some very early sites and the talking heads seem like serious people. They don't indulge in the "Ooti and Oog" show. The discussions of how man settled down into towns and how hierarchies developed seems accurate -- though, again, the particular story they tell about the abuses of this leader and his rivalry with this other guy seem a little speculative.

I'm sorry, but if you're a history teacher it's really irresponsible to show something like this to your students. "But my kids enjoyed it" isn't a justification. Sure it's entertaining. "The 13th Warrior" is entertaining too, but nobody pretends it's world history.

Takes a fictional path through early human history; showing nomads as they learn about sedentary life, the first cases of religion, love and power struggles, the development of agriculture, trade, and language, and the first corrupt government.
This is a great lesson in early microeconomics, and political theory on a similar micro-level.
This is a great show for someone looking to understand government and religion in civilization, and see them both for what they really are.

I'm sure that much of the information was good, and the style of presenting the various steps to civilization through fictionalized stories was probably a good one. However, it just made me want to laugh. The story of Ookey (I have no idea what the spelling is supposed to be, but this is the one I'm going with), the unlucky-in-love-but-lucky-in-irrigation, is one of many romance-melodramas. Or Sarkey, the apparently cold scribe who turns out to have a heart of gold. Or Tobar, the country hick with dreams of city life. I just couldn't take it seriously.

This so-called documentary presents an overly speculative view that shows humans progressing toward civilization, starting with an absurd scenario of a peaceful nomadic group encountering a selfish group of settled hunter-gatherers. This show belongs more to the category of pseudo-docu-drama than it does to anything educational. I do not recommend that anyone waste their money buying this.

The "Quest for Fire" redux of the main documentary wasn't that appealing to me. However, in the special features section, they include a 50-minute work on skeletons that they refer to as "hobbits." They peel the onion showing that these skeletons were not humans facing dwarfism or pygmies. There was a relative of humans that lived for at least 80,000 years, but then disappeared approximately 18,000 years ago. They include silly footage of modern people saying the hobbits still live in a nearby mountain. Also, the skeleton looks like it's mouth was punched in, but the narrator later says, "We have no evidence of trauma to the skeleton." Still, I enjoyed it more than the main work, so I encourage others not to overlook it.