In 2013, I wrote about James Burke’s wonderful 10 part science series, Connections (and yes, I still believe the most important invention of all time is the plow). But Burke’s series was recorded in 1978 and is somewhat dated by the addition and influence of post 1978 modern technology. 
Fortunately, the six-part BBC TV series of Steven Johnson’s “How We Got to Now” steps in to fill that gap.
Johnson’s series is based on his best selling book, How We Got to Now: Six Innovation That Made the Modern World. The innovations Johnson speaks of are the general concepts of Clean, Time, Glass, Light, Cold and Sound. From these broad brush stokes, Johnson paints an amazingly specific story of mankind’s modern progress.
For example, in Light, we go from lighting homes with the oil of Sperm Whales to LASERS which change the way we shop and allow us to send a photo from wherever we are in the world to anywhere on the planet in seconds using a handheld device made of glass.
Or in Clean, we go from drinking beer because water is unsafe to John Snow’s data collection to determine the source of cholera in Soho, London to chlorination of drinking water and recreational pools to the creations of the ‘soap operas’ and computer microchips.
Johnson’s series is a worthy successor to Burke’s Connections and is worth viewing even if you don’t ultimately end up agreeing with his conclusions. The series is available at PBS.org and on Amazon’s Prime Video.
