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History of English in 10 Minutes Video Clip Collection 12 min.

Voiced by comedian Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through the history of English squeezes 1,600 years of history into 10 one-minute clips. Bursting with fascinating facts, the clip collection looks at how English grew from a regional tongue into a major global language before reflecting on the future of English in the 21st century. Video clips include… • Anglo-Saxon: The Angles and t...

Formats: Streaming Copyright Date: 2012

Pain: A History of Anesthesia-Pain, Pus, and Poison 53 min.

The isolation of morphine alkaloids from opium was a turning point in the history of medicine. It meant that essential compounds in herbal remedies could be measured out in reliable doses, creating a surge of research into chemical palliatives and giving birth to the modern pharmaceutical industry. By the mid-19th century mass production of manmade painkillers was in full swing. This program descr...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Pain, Pus, and Poison 156 min.

The search to cure ourselves of maladies ranging from the common headache to cancer has led to huge breakthroughs in the medical field. Through the efforts of pioneering researchers over the past two hundred years, chemicals that numb pain, halt the spread of disease, and make advanced life-saving procedures possible have come into existence. In this three-part series, host Michael Mosley tells th...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Poison: A History of Toxic Cures-Pain, Pus, and Poison 53 min.

Belladonna, curare, snake venom—all are lethal, yet all may be used therapeutically. This program explores the fine line between harming and healing with an overview of poisons that are part of medical treatment. Beginning with Victorian-era experiments in painless surgery and the Arsenic Act of 1851, which made it harder for Londoners to murder each other but also paved the way for licensing of p...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Pus: A History of Antibiotics-Pain, Pus, and Poison 52 min.

Centuries ago, draining a wound of pus was the surest way to fight dangerous infection, but millions of deaths from pestilent disease proved that this practice was not always successful. Even after medieval medicine gave way to Louis Pasteur’s germ theory physicians had a tough time knocking out bacteria, until the advent of penicillin. This program traces the development of antibiotics and profil...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Hayek and the Free Market: Masters of Money—Three Economists Who Changed the World 53 min.

According to conventional wisdom, the 2008 financial crisis happened because markets were not regulated enough. But what if the opposite is true? What if excessive government meddling in business caused the crash? To better understand that avenue of thought, it’s necessary to study the work of a classical liberal thinker whose reputation continues to grow, even in a postcrisis world that seems to...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

John Maynard Keynes and Keynesianism: Masters of Money—Three Economists Who Changed the World 52 min.

If anyone comes close to rivaling Winston Churchill as the central figure in modern British history, it is John Maynard Keynes. He is often credited with, among other things, helping to save capitalism from the Great Depression, ensuring that the war against the Nazis was properly funded, and building postwar decades of growth and prosperity. Today his ideas remain crucial to the critical debate o...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Masters of Money: Three Economists Who Changed the World 148 min.

Can the great thinkers who shaped the economic landscape of the 20th century (and in the process its social and political contours) offer a clear path forward for the 21st? BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders wants to find out. In this three-part series, she introduces some of the pioneers of “the dismal science,” describing the events and milieus that shaped their ideas, the controversies sur...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Doing Good: Empire—A British Chronicle 60 min.

As idealistic as it sounds, many argue that a desire for conquest can become a mission to improve the welfare of humankind. This program explores that notion, especially how it has played out in Africa, despite the myopia of an unquestioned belief that Britain could and should rule the world. In Central Africa, viewers travel in the footsteps of David Livingstone, who, though a failure as a missio...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012

Empire: A British Chronicle 290 min.

Shakespeare wrote of England as a “precious stone set in the silver sea,” suggesting a nation content with its place in the world, but for others the “stone” held the luster of global power—and today its shadow looms like a mountain over the landscape of history. This five-part series looks at the British Empire from new and unusual angles, exploring not only the rise and fall of the realm but als...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2012