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Ascent of Man, The

A COUPLE of billion years squashed into 13 episodes and a cross-hatched jacket with leather elbow patches. DR JACOB BRONOWSKI was your host, alternately striding across and squatting in dozens of dustbowls, excavated saunas and giant clockfaces. Title emphatically implied this was a man’s world and here was a man doing it his way, to wit, long rambling perorations to camera interspersed with long-haul flights to the four corners of the known world with barely another human face in sight. Our host’s hunched joviality and willingness to saunter through the craggiest of mudflats in best smoking room finery helped soften the sense of being kept behind after school – that, plus the fact he spent the final episode simply wandering around his own home, picking up objects and talking about them; an approach sorely lacking from the likes of Tonight With Trevor McDonald.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Applemask

    March 27, 2010 at 11:19 pm

    Jacob Bronowski achieved everything after his death.

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