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Overview
The 13-part series was shot on 16mm film. Executive Producer was Adrian Malone, film directors Dick Gilling, Mick Jackson, David Kennard, David Paterson (Malone and Kennard later emigrated to Hollywood, where they produced Cosmos with the help of a few home-grown Americans. Jackson followed them, and now directs feature films).
The title alludes to The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin. Over the course of thirteen episodes, Bronowski travelled around the world in order to trace the development of human society through its understanding of science rather than art. Although it was not written specifically as a refutation of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (1969), in which Clark argued that art was a major driving force in cultural evolution, the two series can be seen as a dialogue between two fundamentally opposed philosophies. Both series had been commissioned by David Attenborough, then controller of BBC 2, although he had moved on by the time The Ascent of Man aired.
The book of the series, The Ascent of Man: A Personal View by J. Bronowski, is an almost word-for-word transcript from the original television episodes, diverging from Bronowski's original narration only where the lack of images might make its meaning unclear.
Just over a year after the series appeared, Bronowski died. Some claimed that the stress of working on the series had proved too much for him. - Actors:Dr. Jacob Bronowski
- Format: PAL
- Language English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe)
- Number of discs: 4
- Classification: Exempt
- Studio: 2 Entertain Video
- DVD Release Date: 18 April 2005
- Run Time: 650 minutes
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