Cult of Progress

Description

Companion to the major new BBC documentary series CIVILISATIONS, presented by Mary Beard, David Olusoga and Simon Schama. In Part One, First Contact, we discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction, it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas. In Part Two, The Cult of Progress, we see how the Industrial Revolution transformed the world, impacting every corner, and every civilisation, from the cotton mills of the Midlands through Napoleon's conquest of Egypt to the decimation of both Native American and Maori populations and the advent of photography in Paris in 1839. Incredible art - both looted and created - relays the key events and their outcomes throughout the world.

David Olusoga is an Anglo-Nigerian historian and producer. Working across radio and television, his programmes have explored the themes of colonialism, slavery and scientific racism. He has written three books: The Kaiser's Holocaust, The World's War and Black and British: A Forgotten History, was a Waterstones History Book of the Year 2016, which was longlisted for the 2017 Orwell Prize and won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman and Longman History Today Trustees awards. Find him on Twitter @David Olusoga

Olusoga is a smart and inventive narrator, with a keen historical curiosity and effortless style -- Faramerz Dabhoiwala * Guardian * Told with great fluency and clarity of style ... a highly readable and engaging account -- Kwasi Kwarteng * Sunday Times * An insightful take from a great writer * History Revealed * Praise for Black and British: A Forgotten History You could not ask for a more judicious, comprehensive and highly readable survey of a part of British history that has been so long overlooked or denied. David Olusoga is a superb guide -- Adam Hochschild Groundbreaking * Observer * [A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain ... Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion -- Kwasi Kwarteng * Sunday Times * A radical reappraisal of the parameters of history, exposing lacunae in the nation's version of its past -- Arifa Akbar * Guardian * Praise for The Kaiser's Holocaust [A] haunting book ... an unforgettable and unflinching account of a neglected atrocity * Sunday Telegraph * [A] provocative and uncomfortably absorbing book ... Impressively researched ... Olusoga and Erichsen, with their novelist's flair for narrative, provide a grimly readable history ... Deserves to be read widely -- Ian Thomson * Daily Telegraph *