James Burke's Epic: Connections - 1978

Finally, after 33 years the series is available to US consumers on DVD.  Just in time, too.  My VHS tapes, recorded off the original PBS broadcasts, are beginning to show their age, lose color, contrast and image quality.  Still, I am amazed they've held up this well for so long.

Of course, back in those days blank VHS tapes were expensive (about $10.00 each!) and of superior quality.  There are quite a few in my library from the same period that look crisp and clear.  After all, they haven't been viewed as many times over these 3 decades as Connections has. From the Documentary Website:

All New and improved DIGITALLY REMASTERED Connections 1 from the distribution rights holder! The new version is Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired.

This ten volume series was made in 1978 by turning science into a detective story, James Burke creates a series that will fascinate students and adults alike. This interdisciplinary approach has never before been applied to history or science and it succeeds tremendously. Winner of the Red Ribbon in the American Film Festival, the scope of the series covers 19 countries and 150 locations, requiring over 14 months of filming.

As the Sherlock Holmes of science, Burke tracks through 12,000 years of history for the clues that lead us to eight great life changing inventions-the atom bomb, telecommunications, the computer, the production line, jet aircraft, plastics, rocketry and television. Burke postulates that such changes occur in response to factors he calls "triggers," some of them seemingly unrelated. These have their own triggering effects, causing change in totally unrelated fields as well. And so the connections begin...

Product Details:
-10 Volumes on 5 DVDs
-Series Running Time: 8 Hours and 20 minutes
-Now available for delivery to Canada & United States.
-Region 1 (U.S. and Canada)
-Closed Captioned
-Rating: General audiences
-Color

This series is as relevant (if not more so) today than it was in 1978 from the "technology traps" we find ourselves in daily, to the "triggers of change" that remain right on the mark all these years later.

BTW, Connections 2, and 3 are also available and may be on my list for Santa this year.


Happy dance all round.

And so it goes.
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