Predictive History

Aristotle is a paradox. He is one of the most mysterious figures in world history. He's one of the most famous, but he's one of the most mysterious. He's a paradox for three reasons. * The First Paradox: He is considered to be one of

We can understand the dynamic between Philip II and his son Alexander through the lens of a father-son model. The father is the founder and the builder of a great organization. As such, he will have three particular characteristics unique to him: * First, he will exercise really good judgment

Greek culture spread around the world, came to dominate the Western World, and became the basis of Western Civilization. Normally, Westerners understood this process as one of diffusion, meaning that Greek civilization was the best, and so everyone wanted access to it. Historically, that's not true. What happened

The Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were prophets of democracy. They saw themselves as teachers who taught Athenians how to practice democracy. They argued for three major benefits of this system: 1. Kings are bad. Kings have hubris, and hubris creates all sorts of problems. In the play Antigone

Every society has a problem: how do we organize the thinking of the people within it? How do you create an identity? In modern society, there are three institutions that create a collective identity. * Public Schools: You're here to learn about the history of China, to learn about

We are starting an overview of Greek history. We remember the story so far: we talked about the Bronze Age, where Mycenaean Greece was trading and fighting with the rest of the world. Then the Bronze Age collapse happened, and Mycenaean Greece came to an end. Because of its destruction,

Greek civilization is incredible. It is the greatest, most creative, most significant civilization in human history. The Greeks created Western civilization, and not only were the Greeks the greatest civilization, but there has also not been a second great civilization. Let's think about how incredible the Greeks were.

Let's paint a picture of the world in about 1200 BC. The center of this world was what we call Mycenaean Greece. Across the Aegean Sea from Mycenaean Greece is Anatolia, which today we refer to as Turkey. In Anatolia, the Hittite Empire ruled. Further south was a

Anthropologist Marija Gimbutas makes the argument that for the longest time—for most of its history—Europe was egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic. Today, however, we live in a patriarchy with a lot of inequality, and we are always at war with each other. So, what changed? Old Europe was conquered

The story so far is that 200,000 years ago, we humans, Homo sapiens, were born in Africa. Then, about 50,000 years ago, because of climate change, we started to spread around the world. We went into Europe, then into Asia, then we crossed the Bering Strait into North