The BBC has aired a new documentary series, Civilisations: Rise and Fall, which examines the decline of four ancient worlds: Rome, Egypt, the Aztecs and the samurai of Japan. Narrated by Sophie Okonedo, the series focuses on factors including climate catastrophe, war, pandemic, mass migration, colonial greed and inequality, drawing parallels to contemporary challenges.
The series is the latest in a line of Civilisation programmes, following Kenneth Clark's 1969 original and the 2018 successor fronted by Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga. According to a review, the new series arrives at a time of deep existential crisis within the BBC itself.
Commentators include Valerie Amos, who notes that "the seeds of a society's destruction are sown within it," and Luke Kemp of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, who argues that wealth inequality is the most common and crucial element in societal collapse, corroding the social fabric and leaving societies as a brittle shell. Other contributors include Antony Gormley and Alastair Campbell.
The series features cultural artefacts held in the British Museum, such as a 550-year-old Aztec turquoise skull, the Rosetta Stone, a head of Augustus, a samurai sword, the Projecta casket and a terracotta theatre mask. The review notes that the provenance of these objects is not addressed, suggesting that reparation could be the subject of a future instalment.
The programme combines dramatic re-enactments with expert analysis to illustrate how these civilisations fell. The review describes the series as "wildly prescient" and observes that human behaviour appears unchanged, with wealth inequality highlighted as a recurring theme in societal collapse.
