Speed [HD]

Balancing Information With Entertainment: An Ambitious Miniseries Sometimes Has More Style Than Substance
For good or for bad, "Mankind: The Story Of All Of Us" is the quintessential History Channel miniseries. In twelve episodes that span the globe, the show has broad ambitions that sometimes provide interesting facts and sometimes merely spectacle. It's a glitzy effort that is loaded with dramatic recreations and CGI effects and oftentimes seems content to be more entertainment oriented than educational. As actual history, one can't really hope to boil down the rise of civilization across the world to a mere 9 hours (without commercials) but "Mankind" gives it a go with intermittent success. This is not a text book lesson or a college course, though, if you're looking for a classic presentation. This is an ADD whirlwind across various cultures and time frames hitting on subjects both vital and somewhat arbitrary. The episodes don't slow down for an in-depth analysis of any particular topic, but race across time jamming as much content as possible into each segment. Its focus, by its own...

Very well done.
I am a middle school history teacher so I purchased this to show my students. So far we have only watched about the Stone Age but my students BEGGED me to leave it on! They can't wait until we get to Egypt to watch more. I have several students who have been less than enthusiastic about history so when I hear those students leaving to go home & saying they're going to go home to watch the History Channel, and come back the next day actually having done it...very encouraging :)

Mankind; Story of All of Us
As an AP art history teacher, this series helps my students "see" the progression of time and allows them visual references to help place artifacts they have studied into their rightful place in history. Watching the Viking burial scene and recalling the artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship brings it all together better than reading Beowulf. I've enjoyed it and look forward to having for my classes on sub days, or to wrap up segments before exams.

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