Predictive History · series 1 of 10
The Story of Civilization
The core course: sixty lectures from the transition to agriculture to the decline of the American empire.
Episodes
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56:53The Religious Imagination
Jiang Xueqin examines two case studies that highlight the power of religion.
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53:39Elite Overproduction and the Bronze Age Collapse
In this lecture Jiang Xueqin explores with his Chinese students why the Bronze Age collapsed.
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54:38Aristotle and the Greek Legacy
Plato and Aristotle are considered the two most influential philosophers of Western antiquity. But there are three central paradoxes surrounding the life and work of Aristotle. He is considered a brilliant thinker, but we do not have any of his original writings. Over two hundred works are attributed to him, and the range of his works is extra-ordinary and super-human – he’s written about metaphysics, rhetoric, theater, politics, ethics, physics, and biology. Finally, while he studied under Plato for twenty years, his empirical approach to epistemology contradicts Plato’s rationalist approach. How can we explain these paradoxes?
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1:11:25 - #22
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1:06:35Rome's Rise, Fall, and Legacy
How was Rome able to defeat all its powerful enemies in the Mediterranean world? Why did Rome decline and fall? What is Rome's influence on the world today? What lessons can we learn from it?
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1:05:36The Rise and Fall of the Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine empire saw itself as the continuation of the Roman empire.
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1:04:06The Useful Fiction of the Holy Roman Empire
Voltaire once wrote: "The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
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- END
- BONUS