A great series, very informative, but I kind of feel like it should have been called How America Got to Now. Beginning with the 1st episode, you would think that Chicago was the very 1st city in the world to create a sewer system. Not so - every city all the way back to Mesopotamia had a sewer system, but around the mid 19th century many had outgrown their old sewers and began updating them. At the same time Chicago was updating theirs, London was doing the exact same thing and without any help from the Americans. By the end of this segment the viewer is left with the impression that the Chicago sewer system was the sole inspiration for the London Underground - absolutely not true. The Brits were the 1st to invent the steam engine, the train and the underground subway without a single American to help them along. Here are some more American-centric examples from the series: The host goes straight from whale oil to the electric light without ever mentioning gas lights. Gas lights (another British invention) predated the electric light by about 80 years and were used throughout Europe. In the episode about glass the host barely mentions the camera and fast forwards to the camera NASA developed for the moon landing. BTW both the still photo camera and the movie camera were French inventions, but I suspect that's why they weren't included in the show. In the episode about sound, the host fails to talk about the invention of the radio and skips ahead to the vacuum tube which amplified the radio. But I guess that's because Marconi was an Italian and Lee DeForest was an American. In spite of these glaring omissions, this is still a really great series full of very important inventions that have shaped our world today. So I would encourage everyone to watch it, but then afterward look up gas lights, the camera and the radio and read about all of the non-Americans who also shaped our world.
Review of How We Got to Now
