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Confucius and His Age
Season 5 Episode 59
Confucius is one of the most famous and influential thinkers in all of human history, but who was he? What did he believe, and what did he teach? And…
2 years, 8 months ago
China in the Eastern Zhou: Spring and Autumn
Season 5 Episode 58
The Spring and Autumn period, lasting from 771 to 481 BC, marked the high point of aristocratic power in ancient China. This was an age of nobility a…
2 years, 9 months ago
Venice through the Ages, from Salt-Panners to Maritime Empire to Tourism: Interview with Professor Dennis Romano
Season 5 Episode 57
Venice's lagoon is an unstable environment, but it has hosted one of the longest-lasting and most stable cities in world history. The history of Veni…
2 years, 9 months ago
The State and the Environmental History of Early China: Interview with Professor Brian Lander
Season 5 Episode 56
The environment of China has been so thoroughly shaped by human activity that it's difficult to imagine it as a wild landscape, as it was at the end …
2 years, 9 months ago
The Western Zhou, 1046-771 BC
Season 5 Episode 55
The Zhou Dynasty ruled for longer than any other in Chinese history. Much of the cultural foundation of China was laid down during that age, from Con…
2 years, 9 months ago
The Fall of the Shang Dynasty and the Rise of the Zhou
Season 5 Episode 54
The Shang Dynasty marks China's entrance to history, but it was very different than the China we know from later periods: Human sacrifice on a massiv…
2 years, 9 months ago
The Rise of the State in China
Season 5 Episode 53
Chinese history is defined, more than anything else, by the importance of the state: its origins, its development, and the precise lineage leading ba…
2 years, 10 months ago
The Languages of Eurasia around 500 BC
Season 5 Episode 52
As an age of bronze gave way to one of iron, and then classical empires, the importance of writing grew all across Eurasia. That means more written s…
2 years, 10 months ago
Cities, the Etruscans, and Global Urbanism: Interview with Professor Simon Stoddart
Season 5 Episode 51
Cities are one of the defining features of the Iron Age Mediterranean, as urbanism spread across the sea and beyond to form the backbone of the class…
2 years, 10 months ago
Did Justinian Restore the Roman Empire or Ruin It? Professor Peter Sarris on the Emperor Justinian and His Legacy
Season 5 Episode 50
Justinian is, without a doubt, one of the most impactful historical figures of the past 2,000 years. Professor Peter Sarris, a longtime favorite hist…
2 years, 10 months ago