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A History of the Future
It is a 2019 documentary series by The History Channel Iberia, written and hosted by Professor Diego Rubio, and produced by Onza Entertainment. The series comprises four episodes, each of which explores one key aspect of society's future (work, democracy, globalization and climate) by analyzing past precedents and modern data and projecting historical trends. The series has been commissioned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the channel entitled "History of the Future." To create it, the team examined hundreds of hours of archival footage and modern 4K images filmed across the five continents. The series features interviews with 19 leading academics, including Timothy Snyder (Yale), Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT), Naomi Oreskes (Harvard), Graham Allison (Harvard), Carl Benedikt Frey (Oxford), Steven Levitsky (Harvard), Rana Mitter (Oxford), César Hidalgo (MIT), Tim Leuning (LSE), Myles Allen (Oxford), Manuel Muñiz (IE) and Joanna Haigh (Imperial College).
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Season 1 Episode Guide See All
Episode 1
The Future of Work
This first episode starts in the city of Istanbul. Rubio examines the story of the first Arabic printing press, banned by Ottoman emperors for four centuries to prevent the destruction of jobs. The episode then analyses how the rulers of various other time periods tried to curb technological innovation throughout history, until the nineteenth century when the British government unleashed automation and sparked the First Industrial Revolution. Rubio examines the "Engels Pause" that subsequently occurred (precariousness and impoverishment of workers) and compares it to the situation of many developed countries today. He shows how technological change has affected people in the past, for better or worse, and speculates about how it will affect citizens in the next few decades. According to Rubio, in the digital age, "it is not the future of work, but the future of workers, that is at stake."
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