tppubl Thought I would watch episode 4 to see what was served up. Discovered, to my bemusement, that Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was portrayed as an Uzbek. That's news to me - the give away is in his name ak-Khwarizmi - of Khwarezm. He lived during the Abased Caliphate - circa 780 - 850 AD and is famous for al-jibr - better known as algebra. The Uzbeks were still nomadic peoples at this time. Maths had long been studied in places like Babylon and India at this time. Cordoba and Baghdad may have been large by the standards of the petty realms of Europe at that time but that didn't make them the largest cities in the world. In the West Cordoba would have vied with Byzantium for honours, and in Central Asia, several cities could easily have taken the crown - in particular Old Urgench (Konye-Urgench)capital of the Khwazemian Empire. And let's not forget the cities of China (or Song as it was then known). One could go on Misleading in important aspects

kaaber-2 It's a beautifully filmed and cleverly structured series that offers many interesting angles and unearthing of lesser-known facts. It's certainly watchable. And it's honest marketing because its wish to be a feature film (or twenty feature films, in the very least) so blatantly gets the better of scholarly sobriety time and again. I, for one, can deal with that. I don't mind documentaries with actors dressed up as historical persons as long as the costumes are okay and the actors don't get any lines to speak – and in this, Andrew Marr's History succeeds in moderation.What irks me most about the series is its ill-concealed propagation of our by now all too familiar politically correct gospel that goes: "all white people are ba-ad and greedy, all others are innocent victims." And Andrew Marr's indignant tone of voice and sardonic face don't help matters.Take his episode on Pizarro's raid of the Incas. According to Marr, the Inca Atahualpa, simply because he had heard that the Bible contained the word of God, blundered into throwing the Bible to the ground, thus giving Pizarro occasion to butcher the whole indigenous Peruvian population. After supplying the Spanish with gold, 'Pizarro had no further use of Atahualpa' and had the poor dear garroted. In so many words, Pizarro is deprived of other motives, such as foreseeing that executing the Inca would bring the entire empire to its knees – and it lies entirely beyond Marr's moral lesson to relate that the Inca Empire just might have been far worse than the Spanish.One more example from the series will suffice: when relating the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945, Marr follows the usual marring of this event by omitting to mention that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets. One was military head quarters, the other home of the Mitsubishi torpedo factories. That the Japanese chose to surround their military HQs and plants with women and children does not entirely justify the usual footage of children playing in schoolyards as the only 'before shots' of the bombings.What we don't get in Marr's series, luckily, are the attempts to excuse the communist regimes – excuses that were running rampant until fifteen years ago, oddly enough. Marr is quite explicit on this point, lumping 'reds' together with Nazis, and here I quite agree with him, and I salute the BBC for finally realizing the truth. It took some time. No, Marr's sermon is in praise of Islamic culture. They were (are?) so much wiser and more artistic than the rest, on this point miracle follows miracle and wonders never cease, and then the Muslims had the good fortune of not being wicked westerners. Such as Marco Polo, whom Marr proceeds to strip of all honours, like the compulsory liar he is. I mean Marco, not Marr. Or wait: I'll leave that for others to decide.

elroy_geronimo A great comprehensive series about our history. Of course it can't tell all, but it's based on the latest findings and discoveries. It reminds me of "Il était une fois..." a series I loved as a child. It also has a lot of facts that have a sort of "QI"-ness about them. Little things you didn't know and big revelations about things we thought we knew. All brought to us by fascinating stories framed with visually beautiful reenactments and everyday imagery If you love history you'll love this show and if you watch this show you will fall in love with history... So what's not to love? Well, Andrew Marr is no Richard Attenbough and he will put off people rather than attract them. And the previously mentioned reenactments are not all up to par with the Hollywood imagery we're all spoiled with...Still I enjoyed every episode thus far and encourage every one to watch it!!

Mouth Box It's craggy, it's rugged and it looks like it was formed from hot volcanic ash around 70,000 years ago. Yes, it's Andrew Marr's face – desperately in need of dental work but as trustworthy and kindly as your favourite teacher at school.The History of the World was always going to be a ridiculously ambitious project. But Andrew Marr is tackling it with great flair – as fearlessly as Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar or any of the charismatic historical figures he's introduced us to so far.Of course, the dramatic reconstructions are a little clunky at times, and some of history's greatest figures do look like they've been cast after a quick flick through the actor's directory Spotlight. But I for one don't care. Because I am loving Andrew Marr's History of the World.Last night I sat down and watched the first four episodes back to back, and when you cram a potted version of world history into such a short time frame quite a lot of things start to make sense. We kicked off with a look at how the earliest humans spread around the world, mainly, it seems, by balancing their way across precarious narrow stone bridges. Then we explored the great empires of Rome and China – two ancient civilisations who, in the absence of long haul air travel, co-existed for thousands of years without ever knowing of each other's existence. How peaceful the world would be today if the United States and the Muslim World were as blissfully unaware of each other.My favourite episode so far looked at how the Vikings became the Russians. Apparently they couldn't decide which of the world's religions would suit them best, so they invited the heads of all the world's religions to come to Russia and pitch to them, saying they would choose the one they liked best. They immediately turned down Islam because they didn't want to give up drinking, and finally plumped for the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church, because they liked the style of the paintings and the big pointy gold domes.Television like this make me wish I'd paid more attention in history classes at school, and underlines the fact that a subject is generally only as interesting as the person who teaches it to you. Presenters like Professor Brian Cox, Simon Schama and Andrew Marr are bringing science and history to life for a generation who previously thought these subjects were dull and boring.You can catch up with the whole series of Andrew Marr's History of the World on iPlayer, and I highly recommend that you do.Read more TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk