Connections: “The Trigger Effect” and Fragile Technology Networks

Heavily recommended as a masterpiece of popular science and the classic illustration of how fragile interdependent systems are, trotted out in every blackout or supply chain thread.

The first episode of James Burke's 1978 BBC series Connections traces modern dependence on complex technological networks, starting with the 1965 New York blackout, and moves through ancient agriculture to Kuwait's oil-driven leap.