Title Page | Table
of Contents | Letter from the Series Creator
| Introduction | Excerpt
from the Teacher's Guide
The idea for the television series first occurred to me in the 1980s, as the quincentenary of Columbus's so called discovery of the Americas was being planned. It was obvious then that there would be a plethora of programs and books about Columbus, but what about the rest of the world? What was it like? How did Columbus's voyage, and the voyages of other explorers, affect peoples outside of Europe? How did they respond? With some development funding in place, my wife and I convened a meeting of a group of distinguished scholars of this period and set about designing a series that would address some of these issues. Out of that meeting came an approach: viewing the history of this period as a series of encounters between peoples of differing cultures, faiths and histories, and looking at those encounters from a variety of points of view. As fascinating as the subject was, and as timely as it seemed in a world that was becoming ever smaller and more interdependent, work on the project was postponed out of economic necessity.
The backing of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1998 resurrected the idea, with one key difference. We were to look at the world of the 15th century and we were also to explore the short- and long term impact of those events on our contemporary world as we entered the 21st century. We began to probe deeply into the world of the 15th century, the world of five hundred years ago. Of the five great empires of the time, none was in Europe. Great cultures existed in Africa, Asia Minor, China and the Americas. And, as diverse as the world of the 15th century was, so, too, were the reactions of these civilizations to the arrival of the Europeans. We would view the encounters from the perspective of all the peoples affected by them. We would hear their voices. We would attempt to see the world, through non Western as well as Western eyes, using the indigenous accounts that have survived. Time for a fresh perspective on this seminal period of history.
Before the scripts were written, a vast amount of research was done, guided by the scholars involved in the project. The advisory board, consisting of experts in a variety of specializations, were sensitive to the global nature of the project and supportive of this approach to history. They contributed ideas and recommended focus points. They reported on the latest research in their respective fields. The scholars then wrote position papers that were the basis for the scripts, and once the scripts were written, they were sent to the scholars for comment, criticism and further suggestions. Basic shooting scripts were written and sent to the scholars for approval. Film for the segments was subsequently shot in China, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore and Portugal. Other footage came from stock houses or foreign film companies. Illustrations - paintings, photographs, maps, and cartoons - were gathered from a plethora of sources. Once all the visual material was in place, the scripts were rewritten in the struggle to bring history alive for a contemporary audience without benefit of film cameras in the 15th century. The challenge of trying to communicate complex intellectual ideas within a visual context and doing so in a compelling and entertaining way was daunting and took in some cases as many as twenty revisions and endless hours in the editing room. Film making is an intensive collaboration and a particularly rewarding one in this case because of the support and enthusiasm of the scholars for the project. The result, after nearly four years of work, is "Crucible of the Millennium."
Nat Brandt