Fitting the history of the world into eight hour-long programmes was always going to be a challenge, so did Andrew Marr and the BBC manage to pull it off? Well, not really.
Image: BBC/Coco Van Oppens
I had been looking forward to the show; the BBC are well known for their documentaries like Planet Earth and Coast. Sadly, The History of the World lets it down. For a start, it isn’t really a history of the world, as it skips most of time, and focusses on the history of 70,000 years of mankind. I accept that there is a lot of history that can’t possibly be squeezed into eight hours.
Episode one focusses on our ancestors’ migration out of Africa, spreading throughout the world, up until the start of civilisations like the Egyptians and the Minoans of Crete.
It started well, with Andrew in his well-pressed shirt and trousers showing us hand prints in caves in the south of France, but sadly it was downhill from there. We were treated to some ‘dramatic’ re-enactments, including a man trying to save his wife from drowning in the Yellow River in China, and an Egyptian scene like Jeremy Kyle with a man on trial for tomb raiding, assault, and sleeping with his colleague’s wife and daughter. My personal favourite was our African ancestors crossing a narrow stone bridge out of Africa in a CGI scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Lord of the Rings.
The whole show feels a bit dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience, and with so little time to fit in so much, they have too much reliance of these long re-enactments and CGI, rather than focussing on the history.
I won’t be in much of a rush to watch next week’s episode (The age of empires and Alexander the Great) unless they cut down on the acting, but from the look of the clip, I don’t hold much hope.
Andrew Marr’s History of the World is on BBC1, Sundays at 9:00pm
Watch Episode 1 on BBC iPlayer here
It is a good programme overall and I really enjoyed it. However, the re-enactment of Deng Xiaoping was incredibly bad – you couldn’t have found someone less like him! Deng was in his 60s in the 60s, short, agile with intelligent looking eyes, but the actor was probably in his 20s, tall and well-built (to put it positively)!The switching between the re-enactment and the archive of Deng in real life made the contrast even starker! Then there was a group of Red Guards who spoke with very strong Cantonese accent! BBC should have done a better job than this.
Good one
Sean Higgins
We don’t need “God invoking nonsense” because clearly we ARE God!
Frank Hutton you are irrationally involved. There is no justification or excusing japanese bahaviour, rather the show looks at what man is prepared to resort to because they can. You can bet Japan or Germany would have used the H bomb first. Thank god America did instead. America and Britain were on the side of right….no God invoking nonsense here. Human right. And the consequences are horrific to us because we are righteous people. Although the Japanese and Germans, chinese and Russians inflicted horrible actions on their own people and others we also inflicted great suffering. But because we are righteous it pains us. If it doesnt pain you then your humanity is gone and i suspect you christian ideals are also gone.
Richard Crane. I think the bomb was dropped because if they didnt take the opportunity to use it the world wouldnt know of its power. You are right it was dropped to end the war but there is evidence that negotiations would have ended it without this massive loss of civilian life. But it is like when someone assaults you for no reason and you dont want to retaliate until you are so angry you hit back, defeat your assailant and with righteous indignation hammer again because you cant believe their temerity.
In a way the Japanese nation deserved it becasue of the way they were prepared to behave inhumanely against others.
Started badly and so i didnt follow the programme but the latest about hitlet, Mao, Gandhi and womens rights was pitch perfectly crafted. An excellent piece of work. I will revisit the other shows now.
I was disappointed and indeed shocked to find that in his discussion of the dropping of the atom bombs Andrew Marr didn’t explain why.
The Japanese were treating their western prisoners appalingly as we all know from the Burma railway and so on, but even more seriously, under their ‘God’ Emporer they had decided to use suicide bombing to stop invasion of their country once they had lost their battle to expand into other countries by force. This we also know from the Kamakase pilots and the fact that both soldiers and civilians blew themselves up, taking Americans with them (100,00 Japanese, 65,000 Americans died at Okinawa)
Why was this not explained? The programme as it went out reinforced the myth that the Japanese were innocent victims when that was very far from the case.
Andrew Marr’s ” History of the World” for all its accumen does not go by without a subliminal act of trying to distort the intellectual course of history through the visual medium of historical ‘facts’.
That Stalinism and Fascism are ‘ seen off ‘ by ‘Democracy ‘ is to create and reinforce the impression that Democracy in the form of Capitalism has acceded to some absolutist state of being . This is justified by the intellectual gymnastics of reducing the process of social history to a mere psychologism.
Recent history explodes this act of intellectual fraud in the form of the debt crisis ,which reveals social and economic processes that cannot be reduced to mere ‘statements of primordial human disposition’.
Although the latter are not irrelevant, they do not explain the course of history and the dialectical moments of catastrophe that crater world history.
Marr’s attempt to generalise the course of history as the ‘growth of Democracy’ is to confuse it with Capitalism. A system of relations that whether he likes it or not is in terminal crisis by much of which he leaves to a description of events , but fails to explain.
As a Scotsman (he) , and as someone who (me) lived in Ayrshire for many a year I am used to the old trick of Peacocks making an overwhelming impression , in which ‘the power move of deception ‘ is made by slight of hand.
As a corporation and a medium of sensibilities and ideas , it can hardly be immune to the forces either way, that act upon it . It is a crude assertion to say it is soley a mouth piece of the State.
However as much as such an act reflects a miscalculation of judgement and professional process in relation to such an immotive subject, it also reflects the emotive nature which cannot be detached when indeed they also do defend the State.
Call it history – totally ignoring the total picture and ignoring the date of broadcast. How obscene. Ignoring the destruction wreaked by the Japanese on most of Asia and the torture inflicted on people like my father in law. Come and have a chat with me and see how simple it all is. Criticise Hitler yet ignore Japan. What’s the matter with you? This Ladybird guide to the world is a political tool on prime time TV. Makes me sick. Cheap and easy and for your own glory, Marr. God help you. and have mercy on your soul.
I’m told that making documentaries is one of the cheaper forms of entertainment. The BBC are always whining about shortage of cash, although they pay their chief executive multiple times that of the Prime Minister. Next time they consider such a vast subject, why not make it a multi series saga, thoroughly researched and compiled by genuine historians who know their subject. Dramatizations I can manage without, the World stage of sites and museums should provide sufficient evidence for illustrations. Many brilliant historians are terrible lecturers so if the BBC want Andrew Marr to host it, fair enough but please provide him with an informed script. As for the current series, I gave up when I realized that it was a jumble of half truths and religious clap trap.
Let there be no mistake: I watched all episodes of the History of the World up till now and have thoroughly enjoyed them. Having said that, I must agree with what is written here. Although there should be nothing but praise for Mr. Marrs attempt to summarise such a vast volume of occurrences, you are bound to forget something somewhere. What worries me more though is a tendency to “popularise” the story told, and injecting it with some good old British nationalism. Which then again turns into an incorrect display of events. For example good old James Cook was credited with discovering Australia. But wasn’t that already done roughly 150 years earlier by the Dutch (1606 vs. 1770 to be exact)? Just like they traded with Japan and China before the Brits did (as did Portugal and Spain). For a while the cheeky Dutch were the only ones permitted to trade with these Eastern empires, leaving the Brits with just envy. And on the point of the Dutch, were they not the inventors of the stock market, the government lead trading companies (which the Brits then copied faithfully), and didn’t they already have a republic in the 16th century which ran successfully until invaded by Napoleon? The same republic that was the blue print for the USA some say, a peaceful colony the Dutch sold to the British (silly them). Due to the Dutch influence and importance, the Brits and the Dutch were fighting all the time, with the Dutch even sailing up the Thames (Medwey). The British fleet was defeated and the crown humiliated. So much so that Charles decided to strike a deal with France’s Louie XIV, marking the alliance between France and Britain in this era. And yet, like it says here, the Dutch are represented in the series as “frenzied buyers of tulips”, which is remarkable. Now, like said before, summarising the History of the World is a formidable task, and deserves respect. And as it always says on the credits, any omissions may occur. But popularising it with British nationalism is not necessary and I dare say somewhat distasteful. Just think of the sentiments in the UK after the Americans decided to make a film U571 about the capture of the Enigma during WW2. Those silly, patriotic Americans kind of forgot the fact that that feat was not accomplished by an American, but a British one. Dear me…
Well said. This blog appears to have been hijacked by reactionaries who cant see the wood for the trees and the enormity of putting a show like this together. Like EH Gobmrich’s Little history it is churlish to quibble about some of the finer details.
I
I am so dissapointed. Who has done the research for this programme? Your blaming of H M Stanley on the atrocities that took place in the Congo is so wrong. You have evidently not read the most recent research into Stanley. He was virtually dismissed by Leopold because he would not enact the treaties which Leopold wanted. What shoddy research. I’m sorry. Is the BBC really going down hill?
Honestly, reading some of hte blog comments, some people are never happy. Frankly I have found “Andrew Marr`s History of the World” a fantastic programme. Naturally he has had to choose which parts of this mighty subject to cover in 8 hours; but I think he has done a superb job. As a working mother with a love of history, I lack time to feed my desire for knowledge; but Andrew (and his team) have cleverly provided an overview and a timeline, knitting together historical stories from across the globe and filling in “gaps” in my knowledge. Andrew`s measured tone and intelligent, humorous manner, tell the various tales in an easily accessible way, leaving us desperate to learn more. Well done indeed!
Thank you Amanda Noyce AKA Mrs Andrew Marr :0)
I too am similarly entertained by fiction unfortunately I was hoping for a factual documentry rather than Andrew Marr’s short on research big on Andrew ‘Look at me; I want to promote myself as the big cheese of BBC documentries’ Marr.
In his “Age of Industry”, Andrew Marr did not cover the causes of the First World War, one of the turning points in World History. He spoke of it as a tribal conflict, which surely is an oversimplification. It fits into his narrative of the effects of industry because industrial growth gave the German ruling class the hubristic belief that they could conquer a vast empire in central Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, as Britain had founded a world empire in the 18th century and France had founded one in the 19th century. The German polical system under the Kaiser was too weak to control these imperial fantasies, until they were picked up by the Nazis finally destroyed in 1945.
I think its brilliant I think Andrew is brilliant!
Why did Andrew Marr not mention once the name of Thomas Paine (Norfolk born and bred) during the episode about the American war of independence and the French revolution? Reference was made to ‘the rights of man’, but not to the book or the author. Never mind Nelson!!! “Norfolk expects that every man…”
I was also very dissappointed that Andew Marr did not mention Thomas Paine , unforgivable Mr Marr.!!!
As John Adams said in 1805 “I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years”. I think the same can still be said about Thomas Paine today.
I really enjoy the show especially it shows simultaneously what happened in different parts of the world during the same time period. But it is very biased, and I’m sure history can be interpreted in many different perspectives, but I feel that it lacks objectivity to certain extent and that it is very british oriented.
Why no mention of Benjamin Jesty, farmer of Yetminster, Dorset who, in 1774, was the FIRST recorded vaccinator? Please refer article in The Times of 6 Feb 1962 and advertisement in The Times 12 Jan 1986 by The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. Jesty’s history is well documented and accepted. Being a doctor Jenner approached the problem scientifically and published his results rightly achieving great fame but he was not the first to do so.
I am happy to declare my interest as a distant descendant of Jesty!
Where does it say in the Bible that the Earth is ‘fixed’, inferring that the universe revolves around it? Answer, as far as i’m concerned…it doesn’t!
Surely if God did create it all and the bible is his word.. HE KNOWS how the universe works, far better than we do!! It does however mention how seasons, tides etc are fixed in a most amazing way as even science is finding out more and more..!
Still enough of me going on…. I enjoyed the programme otherwise…very good..
Partridge528
They imply in the Bible the sky revolves around the earth however where in the Bible does it say the world is not fixed? answer it doesn’t but we know at the time they wrote this fairy tale of the Bible they though it was fixed and that dire lack of understanding of the earth and universe is why they made up gods to expalin it all. On the subject of Bible quotes (and there are so many duffers) it does say some claptrap about the world being made in 6 days – is this true AFP? Typical religious types asking us to disprove something that has no evidence of existance, no, how about you first give us proof that this God exists please. We could all go up making magical invisible friends to explain what we don’t understand but some of us have moved on from childhood and the dark ages and like fact.
I haven’t watched this programme till last night (28,10,2012) . I was really enjoying it and thought it was good. However , when we came to the Terror of the French revolution, there was not a comment of why Britain did not follow suit – after all the working class suffered badly here as well. The fact is the evangelical preacher , John Wesley , converted 100s of thousands to Jesus Christ, which probably saved us from the same Terror.
Likewise over the stopping of the Slave trade, we are told that it is due to someone in Haiti. No mention is made of the evangelical christian battle for many years in Britain by William Wilberforce and others. This was the successful reason for the stopping of the Slave Trade.
These are inconvenient facts for the liberal atheistic BBC , and can be left out. Nothing that happens at the BBC surprises me any more.
@Barry Boyers. I don’t know which BBC you watch but the one I watch censors any reference to islamic terror (When did they last mention the slaughter of non-muslims in Egypt or Nigeria) They refuse to allow Atheists or Secularistson Thought For The Day and their smarmy, grovelling treatment of the pope’s visit was sickening. Your problem is, probably, that you want more religion on the box and the majority of the rest of the nation want less.
The BBC is hardly atheistic otherwise we would be able to have an atheist speaking on “Thought for the Day” on BBC Radio 4
Hi Andrew, I would have love to have the History of the world all episode either in cd or dvd if it’s available please let me know.
In tonight’s programme, in the reconstruction segment about Galileo, why was the Doge of Venice wearing his hat back-to-front?
In comparison to previous programs on the subject of world history, this is fairly balanced when it deals with the civilisations of the West vs the East, however some specific details are poorly researched.
I give an example, in episode 4 references were made to the 8th century polymath Al-Khwarizmi (who’s name gave us Algorithm) Andrew Marr asserted that he was an Uzbek, but Al-Khwarizmi was a Persian, the fact that where he was born happens (Khwarezm) to be in modern Uzbekistan does alter the fact that he was a Persian, and yes, his works were written in Arabic & he spoke it too as Arabic was the Lingua Franca of the day, but he was a Persian (pls look this up) The Uzbek’s, as a people, did not move to that part of the greater Iran until 16th century, i.e. roughly 800 years after Al-Khwarizmi.
Using the same flawed logic Andrew could have asserted that Herodotus (the so called father of history) was a Turk. He came from a part of the Persian empire which is now in modern Turkey, somehow we accept that he was a Greek despite the fact his situation was no different to Al-Khwarizmi’s whose contributions to modern science are immense.
Can anyone tell me the music thats been used in this weeks trailer please? Thanks.
In his latest episode, about plundering, it was said that the first stock exchange was founded in Amsterdam. This is true. However, the first “Beurs” for goods and other stuff other than stocks was held in Bruges, Flanders. You can read more about this on this page: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectenbeurs. It’s written in Dutch, maar dan moeten jullie dat maar eens leren, niet waar. The Dutch only got so successfull because in the 16th Century under the reign of Spain, all of the rich and intellectual Flemish upperclass flee to Holland, thus creating their Golden Age, before that Antwerp was the centre of the world. See here: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beleg_van_Antwerpen_(1584-1585)
Just so you know.
I think there is no need for patronising, especially since your data is incorrect. The first (modern term) stock exchange was not started by the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC) in Amsterdam, but Rotterdam in the Netherlands to raise cash for future exploits. Because the courts decided that the VOC had to reside legally in one city, it was moved to Amsterdam. Your own reference states for example that trading already happened in the 11th century in France. The English Wiki states perhaps something more obvious: that trading is as old as mankind. Perhaps it is good to remember that, as Wikipedia states themselves:
“Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay [...] Users should be aware that not all articles are of encyclopedic quality from the start: they may contain false or debatable information.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
Okay. I was not particularly being overtly patronising, & you did not read my comment in an appropriate manner. My data surely is correct in the way that I only stated that the term “Bourse” (par example en Français; or “Beurs” in Dutch/Flemish) derives from a family named “De Beurs”, living in Bruges, and they held the first, yes, beurs or trademarket in their home (read: not stock exchange). A beurs for goods mind you, not those virtual stocks, which I already said earlier on. The term “stock” also derives from the Dutch/Flemish word foor wooden stick or “stok” in which the traders engraved little stitches to keep up visually with what they were doing, namely buying and selling livelihood….in that same house in Bruges! Just so you know.
I think, but this is just in my humble opinion, that you should think twice before you take someone for a fool. Teaching me the ABC of an encyclopedia, what an insult! Oh dear, oh dear…
IITrying to get free booklet but can’t find address.
The particular part I wanted to comment on was when Andrew was discussing the role of the Phoenicians in disseminating the alphabet (episode 2: Age of Empire). I have a particular interest in early alphabet studies and so was disappointed at the superficial way in which Andrew tackled this. Yes, the Phoenicians had a key role in the spread of the alphabet around the Mediterranean in the middle of the first millennium BCE. However, the unwary viewer might have gained the impression that they had invented it, and moreover that its distribution followed very soon after its invention.
This is not the case. So far as we can tell, alphabetic writing was first invented about a thousand years before the period Andrew was discussing – a similar gulf of time that separates us today from the England of Beowulf. It is unclear whether it first appeared in the Egyptian mining areas of the Sinai, or else in Egypt herself in the area near Luxor and Qena. Either way, the debt owed to the Egyptian writing system is clear, and the Phoenicians were adopters of the tool, not originators.
Back in the twentieth century, when the invention of the alphabet was thought to be much later in time, people suggested that it was followed by a huge surge of literacy in a kind of democratising process. In 1960, Albright talked enthusiastically about “many urchins in various parts of Palestine who could read and write” in the time of the biblical Judges, typically taken as around 1200-1000BCE. In this he was almost certainly mistaken. One of the great mysteries of alphabet studies today is why, if the script is so much simpler and apparently superior, it lay nearly dormant for a millennium? During all those years, its use was largely limited to short pieces of graffiti and the occasional assertion of ownership. The main exception to this rule was up the Syrian coast in Ugarit, where religious material was recorded in their own alphabet. Even there, letters and formal documents used the older syllabic signs of cuneiform. The new alphabet coexisted side by side with older, more complex written forms for a great many years, and China has enjoyed very high literacy rates without – until very recently – feeling the need for an alphabetic script.
So, back with Andrew, yes let’s highlight the rule of the Phoenicians as merchants who introduced the alphabet to various places they visited. But let’s also recognise that, far from inventing the alphabet around 700BCE, they simply took up a tool which had been first prepared a millennium earlier in or around Egypt. The writing system that we use here in the west arrived not as a sudden conqueror to be paralleled with Alexander the Great, but in a gradual way, worked on by many hands, vaster indeed than empires but much, much more slow.
Andrew Marr’s Historic twaddle of the world. What a load of over exaggerated, dumbed down narrative that loosely follows the occasional fact, sucking up to religion (science happened due to great individuals despite of religion not because it of) and talking like the world was two nations christian & muslim. The BBC should be showing this poorly researched glamourisation of the facts …and certainly not so many close ups of Andrew Marr.
I was thoroughly enjoying the series as a factual narrative until Andrew started talking about the nonsense in the bible of all things. Quoting the Jesus myth as factual. Good grief, I know the BBC is pro-religion but are they creationists as well? Of course, I turned it off at that point with the distinct feeling that they were going to start on the Big Mo myth too and say that he was really a nice person once you got to know him. What could have been an excellent series, ruined. Thank goodness for Merlin, at least that is true.
I agree totally with the above comment . See my comments above re Paul/Saul.
Three episodes and not one mention of the greatest civilization of the ancient Americas – the Maya – whose population in the central zone had reached over 10 million by the time of Christ, with hundreds of towns and cities (one with a population of over 100,000) connected by stone causeways up to 50m wide.
By this time the Maya had eclipsed Old World knowledge of astronomy, constructed 70m high pyramid temples at El Mirador and in terms of artistic achievement their paintings, sculptures, ceramics, jewellery were breathtaking. The city’s ruling Kaan dynasty were overlords of hundreds of thousands more subjects in the Basin region and overlords of millions in the wider Maya world. Their trade links stretched across north America and the Caribbean. This period, called the pre-Classic, was the mother culture of Mesoamerica from which the Classic Maya of Tikal, Palenque, Calakmul and Chichen Itza emerged, and later the Aztecs.
Why was this programme called the ‘history of the world’ if it completely ignores the Western Hemisphere? You can only imagine the reaction if this grossly ignorant series is ever broadcast in the Latin America.
Yes it’s very tricky to condense such a stretch of history into bite-sized chunks. But just don’t call it the ‘history of the world’.
Totally agree. This is the only point for me that let a good series down. I thought the ancient American civilisations would never be mentioned and when they were it was only to say how they had been conquered by the Spanish!
Why is Andrew Marr edited out of the version shown in Denmark? He is not in the title, not in the credits and not shown on screen, and his informal presentation is replaced by an anonymous, rather ponderous and distant voice that detracts a lot from the effectiveness of the program. The Danish episodes are shown ahead of the BBC One ones, and I have learned that I don´t have to watch them but can wait for the real stuff.
But I should like to know why you spoil your own product in this way.
Sincerely,
Lars O. Berglund
Weil im Schonbuch
Germany
skandok@directbox.com
@Syed Haider Naqvi I think Andrew’s verbal keyboard got a little jammed too. He is not noted for his brilliant pronunciation of foreign names. He once spent a whole Sunday AM programme referring to the current president of France as “Françoise”.
Disappointed that more research did not go into Saul/Paul. Much of the Old /New Testements are myths. Josephus does not mention Saul/Paul of Tarsus. Not a very acedemic presentation by Andrew Marr .He appears to take the word of the Bible as sacrosanct. Historians did not write the Bible and there is little historical or archeological evidence as to the proof of many of the stories in the Bible.
I regret certain spelling errors in the above comment caused by jammed keyboard.
I watched it today for the first time. Where as I found most of the episode quiet gripping but I regret to note lack of research into the actualof Islam. I noticed that Azan (which is pronounced as Adha’an) was incorrectly pronounced by Andre as azen a totally unacceptable error for Muslims. In addition, Bilal was shown to be reciting incorrect Adha’an. The second verse after pronouncing “Allah-o-akbar” four times is “Ash-hud-o-anna La ilaha illal-lah” two times, and not “Ash-hud-o-anna Mohammadan-rasoolal-lah” which is the third verse and there is no “Allah-o-akbar as a continuation of “Ash-hud-o-anna Mohammadan-rasoolal-lah”. The precise wordings or adha’an are a matter of faith for Muslims all over the world and can not be altered. It is a pity that the producers of the programme did not bother check authenticity of the material that was aired.
I believe the next episode includes further aspects of Islam and I shall be watching it with interest to be assured that the above was a one off lapse of accuracy as regards Islam.
I enjoy this show greatly. However, my father and I would like to gently point Mr Marr to a point relating to his tale of Ashoka. Ashoka was not the only to remark on the sadness of the won battle. After the battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington has been attributed with the quote ‘Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won.’
How else would you suggest they visualise scenes from long ago other than re-enactments?
I understand the reason why AM focusses on some events more than others: evidence. As is emphasised (I hope, as a non-UK/Ireland resident I have still a long way to go before I can actually get my hands on one) in the booklet, “How do they know that?”, we are trying here to concentrate on that for which there is in some way or other evidence:
- the “I was here” hand stencils;
- the genome of the prehistoric woman (I consider this dubious incidentally);
- the account of Siddartha Gotama, “the Buddha”, the best documented of all the prophet stories;
- the emphasis on what we know from writing (a pity that AM didn’t devote any time to the Phaistos disk when he “did” the Minoans).
Unfortunately HDTV can’t (yet) go back in time to film, so good actors are the next best thing. And Computer Graphics to satisfy our craving for wall-to-wall pictures.
Andrew who in his indeed well-pressed costumes has obviously just been flown and helicoptered in for the take, in a way is at least honest. While profiting optimally from his great predecessors such as David Attenborough, Simon Schama, and many more, he is at least behind an effort to keep history, and historical information for a wider public, fact-based.
This is an excellent programme. It does what TV does best. It informs without patronising and it wets your appetite to find out more. Yes there could have been more about the Thracians and stuff about indigenous people in South America and Australasia but the fact is that you can only fit so much into a 1 hour programme. If you read the web site Andrew Marr explains who and why he chose the peoples and events that he shows in the episodes. You cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Enjoyed the 2 programmes I have watched …and the way they were produced has made History interesting for children ,a lot of interesting facts …and very watchable .
I liked the programme, but I felt disappointed that there was not significant discussion of the Thracians in Europe. Don’t really know why historians are not really interested in them, but many artifacts are emerging indicating that the Thracians were living in today’s Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey as long as 5000 BC and could have had a significant influence on the development or language and religion in those regions.
I agree-a very disappointing programme and below the standard I expect from Andrew Marr. Why these phony unlikely scenes? I certainly won’t watch any more