This program discusses the reasons why the industrial revolution happened in Britain rather than a city in China or the Islamic Empire. The invention of the Rocket Steam Engine sparked a complete change in civilization as it was known in the 1800s—machines replacing people to do labor. Rather than people living on their own time, their lives were set by the rhythm of machines. They internalized the rhythm of the clock to such a point that they no longer had to reference their watches. In contrast to this new development in society, the people in China did saw “no need for unnecessary action”—quote on the emperor’s wall in the Forbidden City. While clocks had been know about for centuries, the only use that the emperor saw for them was to remind the guards to change shifts. One fact that I found interesting was that if frog legs were placed into a cup of water they would petrify, but when placed into a cup of tea they did not. tea acted as an “anti-bacterial” agent for their water as well as their digestive system. The practice of drinking tea, popular in both Britain and Japan, allowed them to survive and surpass the usual difficulty of population influx. Near the end of the documentary, they discuss how there cannot be development if people live in harmony with nature. The builder of the railroad between Manchester and Liverpool spent years leveling and altering the land in order to allow a flat path for his steam-engine. Thus, the connection between nature and people was diminished, as is the nature of a transient “time is money” culture.
