This program investigates the smart machines and robots that may one day run society and do work for humans. To explore this strange new era, the program integrates live action with extensive animation and visual effects.

American society in the years from 1920 to 1945 experienced great transformation and upheaval. Significant changes in the role of government, in the nation's world outlook, in the economy, in technology, and in the social order challenged those who lived in this tumultuous period framed by the two world wars. This transformation lies at the core of this collection of biographical essays. Each individual in his or her own way grappled with the difficulties...

The modern humans whom we call Cro-Magnons began to settle Europe 45,000 years ago. What was their crucial advantage over Neanderthals and other more archaic people? How did the Cro-Magnons bring together the material and spiritual worlds in ways never before seen?

What are the leading theories about the beginnings of agriculture? Why is it the case that the consequences of agriculture are more interesting than its origins? How do the remains of early farming societies in southwestern Asia and the Nile Valley help us to trace these effects?

Europe seems to have been colonized only about 800,000 years ago-the dating is controversial. Archaeological research indicates people who lived a flexible and highly mobile life, but with cognitive and linguistic abilities that seem no match for those of modern humans.

Starting with the Harappan collapse (c. 1700 B.C.), we enter the Vedic period, when far-reaching cultural, religious, and technological changes swept South Asia, culminating in the discovery of the monsoon wind cycle (c. 100 B.C.), which opened the door to travel and trade across the Indian Ocean and beyond.

Here we explore the increasingly complex Longshanoid cultures that grew up over a wide swath of northern China after 3000 B.C. What do we know about the three early dynasties-Xia, Shang, and Zhou-and the realms over which they presided?

In journeying north across the eastern Mediterranean from Egypt, we come across the Minoan civilization of Crete, whose site was the Palace of Minos at Knossos on that island. What made the religious beliefs at the heart of Minoan civilization so different from those found in other early states?