To those who have noted that this series focuses much on wars and battles; step back and take a look - it's what we've done - above all else. Nothing much has changed.
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I see all the reviews which criticize this series. If you are looking for hard core, detailed documentaries you probably should have abandoned the history channel about 10 years ago. As a vehicle to spark the interest high-school kids and provide images and concepts for discussion, this series has worked very well in my classroom. Biases and inaccuracies serve as the seeds for deeper dialogue about cultural perspectives and historicity. Indeed, the reputations of some of the talking heads have evolved over the years. It's colorful, its loud, and it keeps the kids' attention better than the stuff that came before.
I concede that there are better series out there for serious folks who like a deeper dive. -
mattpsaila31 March 2019Not everything is correct and the fact about history is some of it is based on opinions which obviously will have bias. It's very entertaining that covers a lot. It's heavily US biased which is expected when watching that is US produced
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mawriz18 December 2012There is so much more in human history than warfare. There is the arts and sciences, inventions, and discoveries. They seem to take their time and fully detail all the war scenes but only make a passing reference to the Renaissance, Enlightenment, the rise of civilizations in Mesopotamia and India, the invention of the alphabet, mathematics, astronomy, telegraph, light bulb, the discovery of electricity. They seem to only mention subjects like the Iron Age and the Industrial Revolution if it relates back to their war scenes.
Their resource persons seem to tell us things that we already know like it's hard to sail 1000 miles or stealing land will cause war. With the budget that History Channel has you would think that they could hire someone who can offer a different point of view or a deeper explanation.
If you want to know more about history other than warfare there are plenty of not only free but better documentaries on Youtube. -
krengaw00810 December 2012Unlike some other harsh fake name critics and spotty reviews posted already, i give this series two thumbs up for interesting story and video, maybe some facts are not 100% accurate or shown in a different light, at least these people took the time and money to tell those of us who haven't had our noses glued to history books some interesting details of our past, there will always be those critics who will slash through others hard work in five minutes to try and undo what many have spent a good part of their lives investigating to bring us something tangible, i for one thank them in making this extraordinary piece of work and allowing us to view it.
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riemerta27 December 2012Although I don't believe this is a perfect 10, I thought I'd rate it as such to offset the low ratings from other users. It seems that the majority of reviewers are most upset about events that were left out of 'The Story of All of Us' than the actual events portrayed. In actuality, this miniseries attempts to showcase several milestones in human history. Keyword: milestones. You can't expect the entire history of mankind to be told in 12 hours. I congratulate the show on its ability to give small snippets of history through individual accounts. On the other hand, take the historical 'facts' with a grain of salt, as you should get any information you receive from multiple sources anyways, especially from the History Channel.
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jeanvenom2 July 2014Yes, they did not mention a lot of things, I miss Roman Republic, Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon, French revolution, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Reformation but overall it is not bad and I learned or review a lot. It is also entertaining, sure, they might include more facts and less drama but it should not only show the history but also be entertaining.
Keep in mind that it is 12-episode show, altogether it is cca 550 minutes, it would take a couple of more seasons to cover all of the important history. I also liked America, the story of the US and they also failed to mention for example gangs, new music culture (jazz, soul, rap, etc.), so imagine if it is not possible to cover all of the important history about the state which is only cca 200 years old, how they can put history of the mankind in such a short series? -
robertp-eaton26 January 2014This is not meant to be a one shoe fits all series. I can think of about 5 things I learned new in this series. Almost a new fact per show. Pretty good. Except it was a little misleading when they said 45000 witches were burnt.... according to wikipedia thats a world wide estimate... it seems like they were portraying that to be the US only. But I was pleasantly surprised. I have terrybytes of documentaries that go into the specifics of what all the negative reviews wished to see... you need to understand they covered some varied topics... I thought the artificial heart, Alabama and the hybrid corn was a little boring... also Its funny they have Anthony Bordon and this Navy seal guy,,, I guess they were on a budget. I found their comments useless. Except the comment about the picture being worth more than a 1000 words. Good series. The gold guy in Venice was a little bit of a reach in connecting. But good show.
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satyrosjay29 January 2015Interesting summary of the history of mankind and worth watching if you don't mind the annoying electronic or techno music with drums at time to gamer type music catered to that generation that might rather be gaming. Even the characters are introduced as if they are characters in some video game with quick cuts and God that background music gets old. Perhaps it's to keep one awake for the boring and monotonous sounding narrator. Overall it is "fun" to watch" but one does get the feeling it's for a juvenile crowd from the simplicity to the rhetoric and the the way a that this is shot. Funny how they decided to show the buildings that seem to build themselves to show how some of these great wonders were built using CJI to reconstruct them. Interesting take but again a bit annoying with that background score. Have I reached a thousand words yet to get my thought across? Anyway worth a watch if you do love history but do wish they would elaborate a bit more. A for effort on behalf of the producers and directors though.
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JamieJamie-130 January 2015Compare it to Spark Notes or the Civilization video games.
At it's core it is basic periodization covering just before the copper age and advancing all the way to the modern day. The show highlights specific events that allowed the majority of human civilizations to shift from one era to the next.
Throw away the concepts of racism, propaganda, and agenda. The show talks about everything from the big bang, Jesus Christ, Chinese inventing gun powder, Rome founding democracy, early Americans founding liberty, The silk Road, Taj Mahal, Teotihuacan, and much more...
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I did enjoy watching an episode of "Mankind: The Story of All of Us" titled "The Invention of Gunpowder". It allowed me to learn more about what we had previously learned about in AP World History class. While it was a lot of repetition of the same information we have been learning, it was personally helpful for me to see it demonstrated/explained in a different way. Watching something instead of just hearing/reading about it, allowed me to make more connections that "stick" in my brain better. So, I believe that this activity would be beneficial to an AP World History student because it gives more insight about the invention and importance of gunpowder.
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hobbesdj22 December 2012This series has great visuals, but other than that it is downright terrible. First, It completely skips over ancient Indian civilization (mohenjo-daro anyone?), an ancient people that every ancient historian considers vital to the development of world civilization. I was also equally amazed that the series skipped over the transformation of Rome from a Republic to an Empire (Julius Caesar and Augustus anyone?). Rulers have been calling themselves Caesars/Czars/Kaisers for thousands of years, but no mention of Caesar? Incredibly, the series also omits Charlemagne and the Franks (the group who would lay the foundations for France and Germany), the Byzantine Empire, and perhaps most incredibly of all, Napoleon. I find it absolutely mind-blowing that these subjects wouldn't be included in a history of the world. World War I and II were glossed over, and far too much time is spent on less important events like the invention of the crossbow. The American Revolution and Civil War are similar overblown in their effect on the world. Last but not least, many of the 'facts' presented are either untrue or simply opinions that would be ignored in the academic community. An example of this is the coverage of the American revolution - the involvement of the French is left out and the documentary describes the British surrendering solely to the rebels at Yorktown. In reality, the British surrendered to a mixed army of American rebels and the French army - a victory made possible by the naval victory of the French over the British off the coast of Virginia. I had really hoped to show this series to my students but instead I will tell them that this is simply an entertainment show that is not to be taken seriously as a historical documentary. Other than Mike Loades I have never even heard of any of these 'historical experts'. I have absolutely no idea why Brian Williams from NBC, a news commentator, is featured in a historical documentary series. There is a plethora of respected historians who could have been consulted for this series - but instead the history channel decides to settle with Brian Williams and a few unknown authors. They should have consulted historians such as Kelly DeVries (UMD) as they did in other more serious historical documentaries. Stay away from this one if you want a serious historical overview of human history.
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Anamon7 January 2013Of all the epic History serials I've seen so far, I liked this one the least. It is a daunting task to retell the entire history of human civilization, but a lot of the potential is destroyed through a very unsympathetic presentation.
It begins with the tediously dramatic narrator, who puts so much emphasis on every single sentence that before long you wish you could tune him out. It doesn't help that most sentences are kept extremely short, which is at first irritating, then starts to feel condescending. You'll wish the narrator back, though, once you start to meet the interviewees featured. Not only are many of them completely absurd picks for the topics at hand (a Navy SEAL? A writer? A news anchor?), but a couple of them are downright annoying to watch and listen to. They couldn't find any historians, archaeologists or anthropologists who could give well-founded information—without all the theatrics?
The parts I disliked the least are, surprisingly, those I usually hate most in documentaries: the CGI scenes and reenactments. The reenactments work remarkably well because they're not overstated and, funnily, not overly dramatized. At least their pathos fades in comparison to that of the narrator and "experts". While reenactments usually feel like a very cheap and childish part of a serious documentary, those in Mankind were not at all bad. Similarly for the CGI scenes, which somehow seemed way less cheesy than the usual fare. They're allowed to be dramatic, and there's a few ridiculous ones, like for instance the Sphinx at the end of the first part, but overall they knew their place and were pretty well done.
The story is, no doubt, a fascinating one. What might be a matter of personal preference is that I felt the series spent too much time on the latter stages. I would have preferred the final 4 parts compressed into 2, leaving more room for detail in the earlier chapters. But all in all, if you're not just looking for the next History box-set but have an actual interest in the topic, and considering that this 9-hour behemoth is a considerable time investment, there are many better alternatives out there. -
jack_o_hasanov_imdb6 August 2021It was very enjoyable to watch.
I always had a weakness for this kind of documentaries, I liked it very much. -
jackson_pope15 December 2012OK so here's the positive. The pseudo-history channel is slowly becoming the History Channel again. After giving a platform to fringe B.S. like the holy grail in America (really?) and Ancient Aliens I was genuinely excited for a sweeping epic about actual history. I was in for disappointment.
It's full of gross historical inaccuracies and in all the episodes I've seen I've yet to see an actual professional historian or archaeologist among their "experts".
In lieu of analysis they rely instead on vague generalities and dramatic presentation, which failed to be dramatic and utterly succeeded at being annoying. Epic 300 slo-mo isn't appropriate for everything, especially not farming.
In the end it's a superficial history show for people who are only superficially interested in history. If you've ever actually bothered to read a history book you are not missing anything by missing this.
But at least it's not another HC show about Nostradamus or 2012. I'll give it a star for that. -
ares662 January 2013A collection of cuts and pieces from everything and yet nothing. Basically they try to summarize human achievement in 12 episodes. Resulting in a rather biased detailed depiction of the west and ignore most of the east. Plus, everything is crammed in and really the details are left out. Even if this is heavily aimed towards a western audience, so much are just completely omitted. And I just have to ask myself, did a high school student do this the night before it's due? Leaves an unsatisfying tastes in the viewer after watching. Overall an ambiguous and not well planned out project. And finally, did they REALLY try to summarize the human civilization in 12 episodes?
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Watched this after viewing the not so bad America: the story of US. Apparently the History channel (in the US) can only handle some very short and simple, straight forward history like the one in the US. Mankind: the story of all of US is very shallow, narrow, biased, ignorant, and poorly made (yes, there are lots of reenactment, but there is no real experts in any aspect), the same as all US made "history" stuff, everything about Europeans, and throw in a little bit Egyptians, Persians, ... this and that for exotic decorations, as if the rest of the world, "all of us", as the title called, are either dead or aliens. In fact, this is so bad, that this prompts me to write my first written review on IMDb. I really think people should not waste their time on this, and this can just worsen the already bad enough ignorant misunderstanding and lack of understanding in real mankind history.
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gordon-28728 November 2012This series relies on short snippets to describe major parts of history or even events. For example, the Crusades were characterized by the sack of Jerusalem. While not the high point of Christianity by any means, the producer intends the viewer to take one data point and extrapolate it to the whole movement. Its depiction falls way short of the true history of the Crusades and what caused them. "Mankind the Story of All of Us" needn't have gone to this trouble since its series on the Crusades accomplished the purpose of mis-characterization. It relies on the tired narrative of power-hungry popes and a greedy mercenary Christian knighthood. Of course, nothing was said about how expensive it was for the Christian participants to finance their way, nor of jihad that bred the Crusades in the first place.
This series is not very informative and a waste of time. -
venkatesh-panchapakesan1 November 2013Well my mistake was not to listen to other reviewers and buy this garbage for £15. I had never seen anything from History channel before and somehow I thought History channel could be as good as the other Geography channel, just given some allowance for propaganda. After patiently watching about 8 episodes, I took this piece of sh**, broke the disks and threw into garbage where this belongs. So what is wrong?
First – If this series is the only thing you ever read or learnt about history, you would think that the history of mankind is history of wars and the most important people in the world are the psychopaths, sociopaths, plunderers, looters, mass murderers, deranged grunts, intellectually challenged minions and other un-evolved muscular part-apes. Add some dose of the usual expected 'West' propaganda and you get some really weird incomplete almost-inaccurate delusional half-baked view of the history of humanity.
Shame on you History channel for just calling yourself that
Second – the annoying seriously imbecile editing and sound – here is an analogy of the editing style – the man walks into the kitchen – dadda dadda dush – two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo – takes a cup – white – cut – with handle – cut – having a saucer – cut - two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo – goes to the kettle – black – cut – hot – cut – water boiling – cut - two flash cuts, two static images, one slow-mo all accompanies by noises and dadda dadda dush – it might have been interesting if it was used sparingly and to good use – to use it EVERY minute for every insignificant piece of information is really child like – this is the kind of professional who should never ever be allowed to cut anything other than tomatoes in his/ her home
Third – I knew Josh Brolin as an incompetent actor, did not know he is also an incompetent narrator – every frigging word is emphasised and told and retold in an annoyingly dramatized voice - please check David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman on how to use your voice effectively and non-intrusively
Fourth – who are these 'experts' with their meaningless soundbites? – are all the historians dead? – where do you find people so totally unrelated to the field (except the doctors on the episode of plague) – why not ask the corner grocery stores guy for his opinion on the important historic events?
Fifth – This is NOT the history of all of us – just the history of Europe and some sprinklings of other insignificant pieces from few parts of the world – where is Indus valley where is Mesopotamia – and all the Chinese did was to invent crossbow and gunpowder and build a long wall? – the entire America before the virus infected Columbus came was that they were eating each other?
Again, my mistake for thinking History channel would be competent – Never ever will I buy another documentary from this garbage channel -
unclegerald200426 May 2015How does the producers of this "education" know a white woman created farming, the planting of seeds, sowing of land, caring of crops?
How does the producers of this "education" know that Stone Hendge was a church?
This "education" makes too many claims and qualify these unsubstantiated claims with snippets of video interviews of intellectuals that may or may not be making the same claims.
This is not educational! This is all flash and trash for ignorant uneducated uninterested people who want to learn history from an MTV-type formate of all show and no substance. -
monkeyrack8 January 2014Watched the first 20 minutes of this and was horrified, behind the great CGI was the most factually inaccurate documentary I have ever seen. Weapons used before we know existed, earliest cave paintings in France? No Spain, the United Kingdom shown as a separate island when in fact it was still connected to mainland Europe, Stonehenge showing only a fraction of its construction. I stopped watching when the Architect of the great pyramid was depicted as a great innovator, what about the architect of the pyramid of Djoser 850 years earlier? A pile of glorified crap that I found frankly insulting. Most humankind changing history happened well before the dawn of the USA so it would be nice to see Americans learning and teaching truths of our origins. That's if your not too busy clinging on to an archaic constitution enabling you to carry guns and shoot each other.
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I would have a lot more respect for this series if Jesus weren't repeatedly mentioned as a marker for the timeline in multiple episodes. There is no valid historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. Otherwise, not bad but could use a little more detail on some of the episodes.
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JakeBrinkman13 February 2019This show should actually be called The Story of All of US because it only includes world history that, in some way, has affected the USA.
I wrote that previous sentence before I learned that there already was a previous series titled America: The Story of the US. I haven't seen that series, but I honestly have no idea what the difference is between these two shows. The most absurd example I can remember is that, while discussing the first time mass production was ever used, it is interrupted by a lengthy American Civil War segment talking about how America perfected mass production centuries later and how the original version was far inferior. It was completely uncalled for and seemed very out of place.
Speaking of absurdity, the segment discussing the Chinese invention and militarization of GUNPOWDER ends with a stereotyped Kung Fu fist fight. Why?
Another poor point is that the "experts" they bring in for discussion are typically not experts. There are a couple of ex-soldiers and Dr. Oz. No respectable doctors or historians. No high ranking military officers. Everything they said sounded just as generic and common knowledge as Brolin's narration.
Despite all of that, it's hard to blame them for directing the narrative when you're only given 9 hours to tell the entirety of human history. The show does still give a good, brief summary of an American world history course. People who would like a refresher on that information will probably enjoy this show, but don't watch it expecting it to teach you anything you haven't heard before. -
parthur-137363 September 2019This sorry documentary is so full of disproven events and an obvious agenda for rewriting history. It is embarrassment to the history channel.
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micult27 November 2012This is not so much a history of us all as it is a history of Europe and China. The History Channel somehow manages to spend several minutes discussing the achievements of the sub-Saharan African Kingdoms of Mali, Great Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia without showing any dark-skinned faces. Bustling marketplaces, students studying in universities, individuals mining for gold, impressive architectural constructions but amazingly not one black African is shown in ancient Mali, Zimbabwe, or Ethiopia. That takes real, concerted effort on someone's part. No mentions of Kush, the 25th dynasty of Egypt, etc. I would have expected this in the 1950s but not in 2012.