Reflecting History

In this episode, I had a chance to sit down with Lan Cao and Harlan Van Cao. We discussed a number of topics, including: Lan's experience and life as a refugee of the Vietnam War and how that experie...

7 Sep 20201h 4min

Slavery is a difficult topic to learn and teach about. Combine this with some of the big picture problems inherent in most education systems and there is bound to be misconceptions and confusion aboun...

17 Aug 202025min

A team of scientists returns home from a journey to investigate the causes of a massive supernova. What they discover in the remnants of the cloudy nebula will change humanity forever. The chief astro...

27 Jul 202026min

What do we mean when we say that a civilization collapsed? This is an extremely common way to speak about ancient societies and governmental systems. It typically carries a negative connotation, but d...

6 Jul 202036min

Personal identity and the self are major concepts of historical and philosophical study. But applying these concepts to others IS history. It's a major purpose of what we do. This episode discusses th...

15 Jun 202022min

If the civilizational narrative of progress as a result of human use of agriculture is flawed, then why did states and civilizations develop? How do we define a state? Were the earliest states single ...

25 Mai 202044min

In what ways did early humans landscape and change the environment over time? How did early humans develop agriculture? Why was grain such a staple crop for early humans? While the standard historical...

4 Mai 202038min

In some ways, common historical narratives form the backbone of our study of history. There are certain historical stories that are as old as history itself, and are thus taken for granted by the hist...

13 Apr 202031min