Saturday, November 2, 2013

Review: America Revealed

If you know me well, you know I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and that I'm always reading, hopping around on Wikipedia, or watching documentaries.  So here is one I want to share on PBS (or Amazon streaming, where I discovered it) called America Revealed.  It looks at our country in an entirely new way, through its systems and networks.

I was hooked after the first of the four episodes, which focused on food manufacturing and distribution.  And yes, it does look at the good (organic,) the bad (GMOs,) and the ugly (inside a beef processing plant.)  But it doesn't offer opinions on the political side, which I liked.  You are left to draw you own conclusions. (GMOs bad, organic good.)

Hosted by Yul Kwon, an attorney and former Survivor: Cook Islands winner, the average American viewer is taken "backstage" to places, companies, and factories that we would normally never see.  The four episodes focus, respectively, on farming and food distribution, transportation, the power grid, and American manufacturing.  Every episode was an eye-opener, sharing a lot of information that the mainstream media does not.

I don't plug things on my blog unless they are worth your time, and this series definitively qualifies. What makes it interesting is that it forces us to get out of our bubble and reminds us that at the heart of all of these coordinated networks are people just like you and me, from the farmer, to the man in charge of the Northeast power grid, to the commercial bee keeper, to the person who assembles guitars.  It puts faces to the people who make and distribute things we see around us and the sources that power them. Pretty fascinating.

A link to the episodes on PBS.org is below.  Also available on Amazon streaming if you have Prime HERE

PBS.org links:

Episode 1:  The Food Machine

Episode 2:  Nation on the Move

Episode 3:  Electric Nation

Episode 4:  Made in the USA



1 comment:

MOM said...

Sounds interesting. Will have to check it out.