Civilisations isn't 'dumbed down' - it's too intellectual | Coffee House

Civilisations isn't 'dumbed down' - it's too intellectual | Coffee House

Charles Moore reviews the new "Civlisations" TV series:

"It is quite right to study the differences and similarities between civilisations, but it is a curious feature of the human mind that this is best done if first acquainted thoroughly with a single tradition. Then one has a secure enough sense of a whole to be able to read across. Without this, one is darting here, there and everywhere. The best comparative bit of the series was Schama's account of Turkish and Mughal art interacting with western art of the period (and vice versa). This is because the connections are visible, not contrived. I think the series was doomed by its premise that one has to scour the whole world in order to think about civilisation at all. It is really the other way round: one thinks outwards from one's own smaller space.

"The failures of this brave attempt have made me think of a different way that a television account of civilisation could be constructed. It would try to identify the main components of civilisation and give each one a programme -- language and writing; government and law; industry, trade and money; science and technology; the arts; love and family; institutions and universities; war; above all, religion, the central impulse of all civilisations until, perhaps, our own."