Mankind: The Story of All of Us

I enjoyed this tv show, but I can't believe you have not mentioned the Great Hungarian Empire once right after the Mongolians. They were great explorers, inventors, bloody rulers.

The huge part of the tv shows just as in reality huge part of history we can see through wars, inventions and even myself who thought knows what needs to be known learned new information.

The visuals were great, they invested time, money and paid attention to historically accurate costumes and languages. Worth your time. Especially if you are a history lover. Very detailed documentary with great commentaries from famous and not so famous people.

Not 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

Of 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.

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.

Unlike 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.