Legacy - The Origins of Civilization

Aired 1991-08-13

In places like Uruk and Eridu in modern-day Iraq, humans founded the first cities nearly 6,000 years ago. They left us literature, astronomy, and mathematics, as well as lessons in overpopulation and environmental stewardship.

Aired 1991-08-20

Beginning 5,000 years ago, the "Land of the Seven Rivers" cultivated a tradition of nonviolence, renunciation of the material world, and a focus on humans' inner life. Today, these ideas survive in tension with the vestiges of Western colonialism.

Aired 1991-08-27

With great thinkers such as Confucius and Lao-Tzu, the Chinese conceived a civilization reflecting cosmic harmony, sustained by civic and social virtue, ancient ritual, and reverence for ancestors.

Aired 1991-09-10

In the world's first great nation, the annual flooding of the Nile conferred not only fertility, but also a deep respect for social and cosmic stability, a belief in the resurrection of the dead, and the hope of eternal life.

Aired 1991-09-17

Independent of great civilizations elsewhere, the Maya and Aztecs developed a violent, fatalistic culture, envisioning a cosmos that required bloody sacrifice for renewal. It placed the sovereignty of nature above all else - even human life.

Aired 1991-09-24

Now adopted nearly all over the globe, the modern Western ideas of individualism, property, and purposeful history trace their roots to Christianity, Greco-Roman humanism, and Germanic social values.