I wanted to express some love for the television program Engineering an Empire:
A big reason that I've set my Olde School Dungeons & Dragons campaign in a Sword & Sorcery version of Earth is that this both provides the players with instant basic familiarity and serves as a shortcut to establishing setting verisimilitude. In fact, R.E. Howard used the same reasoning in placing his Kull and Conan stories in the Hyborian Age.
Produced by History Channel, Engineering an Empire is a great tool for learning more about some of history's greatest empires. It's a fun and informative program that's easily accessible to non-engineers, covering some of the tools, structures, inventions and other technical advances that helped each featured nation rise to power. The show also does a good job of grounding the innovations in context (e.g., political, military, economic, etc.) by following various important personages who utilize said innovations as their empire develops.
Produced by History Channel, Engineering an Empire is a great tool for learning more about some of history's greatest empires. It's a fun and informative program that's easily accessible to non-engineers, covering some of the tools, structures, inventions and other technical advances that helped each featured nation rise to power. The show also does a good job of grounding the innovations in context (e.g., political, military, economic, etc.) by following various important personages who utilize said innovations as their empire develops.
While not all of the episodes are about ancient empires, Engineering an Empire still covers the heavyweights of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (e.g., Egypt, China, Greece, Persia, Rome, etc.) The quality of the episodes is a bit uneven (the ones covering Egypt and Rome are probably the best), but the show is still quite solid overall. Familiarity with the technology gives Dungeon Masters and other would-be world builders a great way to better understand these empires from a very practical and tactile point of view. Moreover, the show is filled with plenty of other background details to help bring these great powers to life at your gaming table (or elsewhere).
I also really got a kick out of seeing Peter Weller, Robocop himself, as the host!
Messr Weller, who picked up a Master's degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University and then a Ph.D. at UCLA in Italian Renaissance art history, spends some time as an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University, where he is apparently "a very popular professor and his classes are rated by students as 'difficult' and 'not easy'." I suppose it's something of a case of life imitating art, as Weller was a professor in his other iconic movie role:
So, if you're an antiquity buff, gear head, Sword & Sandal fan or are just have a bit of intellectual curiosity, I think you'll find that Engineering an Empire is an entertaining pop history mix of facts and technology.
SC's Parting Shot: 9 of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment