Andrew Marr’s History of the World

Episode
Episode 7 - Age of Industry
Broadcast Info
2012 (58 mins)
Description
Andrew Marr tells how Britain’s Industrial Revolution created the modern world with inventors such as James Watt and George Stevenson improving the steam engines and railways. Trade with China was opened up, albeit illegally with the Chinese Opium Wars at the ports of Guangzhou. Following in Britain footsteps, in Russia social change was underway when count Leo Tolstoy attempted to free his serfs at his Yasnaya Polyana Estate. However, they were holding out for a better offer, that of Tsar Alexander II’s offer of an emancipation act. In North America, at the cotton fields of Richmond, Virginia, Marr tells the story of the south, and in that of Abraham Lincoln defending the North’s developing ways at Washington. At a Samurai house in Japan, Marr tells the story of Samurai Saigo Takamori, the last Samurai, as a direct result of the new world trade. In Brussels, Marr reveals how the British explorer Henry Morton Stanley mapped out the Congo River, only for King Leopold II of Belgium, in his quest to conquer as much as he could, caused genocide in the Congo, effects of which remain today. In Germany, Marr reveals how their Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann brought America into the First World War. Marr explains in Berlin, that now with America and Russia against them, Zimmermann attempts to diffuse the Russian war support by sending back expelled Bolshevik leader Lenin who then created the world’s first communist state.
Genre
History; Philosophy and Ethics; Architecture; Science; Technology; Religion; Art and Design

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Andrew Marr’s History of the World". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/83200 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)