Docs

Up to my late 20s I was really not touched by learning history. I could perhaps find an excuse in the fact that being born in a "wanna be" communist country, with strong traditionalism regarding schooling, I was fed up mostly with sterile garbage. Carefully selected and stripped so it would not let room for any "dangerous" imagination, the simplistic point of view narrowed my options to rote learning the order of events up to the "details" of only bare dates. You knew the day and month, you got a good mark, you missed - your chances were almost null because the other information regarding the event was largely generic or nonexistent. After the Revolution, the history teachers remained mostly the same, though I do remember some young temporary students coming to teach for their grades, and injecting some love for the complexity of this... let's call it science and art.

Another welcomed distraction, worth mentioning, was Sid Meier's Civilization, that inspired me to do some research of my own regarding history, as well as to put some effort in programming with a good friend, our first windows object system in dos (what times!) and an editor for a game that sadly was never finished (ZBog, we could've made history!). BTW, the last installment of Civilization is truly a worthy successor.

As history fast forwards, I came across Mr Schama's A History of Britain, a delightful immersion in the history of the island that had so much to tell before somewhat sinking in its own shadow, as all the traditional colossi tend to. I am praising the storytelling style, imagery and cinematic style. If it grows on you too, I think you'll find the audiobooks a wonderful addition latter on, to remind you of the experience.
To amazon buy it, or just check the reviews: > A History of Britain <
Also the BBC's Shakespearian plays are a nice way to augment the experience and to notice the differences. I write down only one more movie that touched me deeply, A man for all seasons, and I make a mental knot to remind me to add others when I'll have the time.

Oh! [update:] The Civilisation series of Kenneth Clark is simply amazing and more broadly than only Britain's story. As for something new, I've got my eyes on an interesting piece, where you can see "first hand": Attenborough, Freud, Jung, Russell and others that made interviews with BBC. Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words , you see.

Power of Art, again by Simon Schama, goes even further with the cinematic ambition, imagining and portraying the very artists depicted in various stances. The artists and their works are described with some critical analysis that is bound to make you wonder and research even further. Or, just to enjoy that you've added some gray matter in art matters.


Now that I've covered some history and praised the storytelling technique of making it digestible, it's hard not to mention Joseph Campbell. His Mythos documentary is both interesting and entertaining, delivering some of the archetypes used to construct the stories from the more popular and mythological point of view.

Strangely still about history somehow, the Nobel's Laureate neuroscientist Eric Kandel's In Search of Memory, delivers besides the thrilling quest for discovering some very interesting facts about our brains, a nice perfume about his own life crossing some major historical events. If you have had the opportunity to see the documentary, please drop me a line where I could find it and how it is in regards to the book herein presented.

If you are interested in a more popular but still very well done documentaries about the brain, I posted some > info here <, where you'll also find a shortcut to amazon for Campbell.


Well now, as the times are still pressuring us with the obnoxious status anxiety, allow yourself a little time for self-deprecating humor eventually watching (if you can find it :) the excellent >Status Anxiety<.

Only then would I allow you to immerse into your wall mounted plasma display, to watch at your discretion the exquisitely Planet Earth documentaries, presented if possible with the warm and enthralling voice of mister... well, Sir David Attenborough

I've heard of the recent Life series, but sadly I had to settle for the time being with the joy of listening to nevertheless wonderful David Attenborough's Life Stories.

If you are still with me and you don't find my long discourse as being Japanese to you, I stop here for the time being. But I just have to mention Japanorama, as a documentary to be seen with your notes pad open, as you'll have plenty opportunities to grab some references that you'll have to search afterwards, it is very compressed and a joy to see.