We discuss the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars and their effects on Ancient Greece.

Mountains and the Sea. Isolation and Connection.

After Solomon, the wheels fall off the wagon. There's a bitter breakup, Assyria shows up, and then babylon comes a calling. But we find a culutre capable of surviving terrible traumas when other socieites disappeared.

Little episode. We invent the concept of one super duper God and then explain why bad things happen to good people. While we are at it - we explain the nature of the universe, kill almost everything on Earth, and meet God in the Whirlwind for one last conversation.

Settling down in the land of milk and honey brought advantages and disadvantages. We discuss early Hebrew culture and the effects of geography on a kingdom stuck between Egypt and Babylon.

The New Kingdom rose from the trauma of the Middle Kingdom. It needed a hero and got one. It needed an army and built one. It even got a Ramsses II - Shelley's Ozymandias and blessed us with the awesomest statues ever made. And then sea barbarians with giant axes smashed it on theri way to somewhere else.

The Middle Kingdom was born and died in blood and fire. It aimed for stability and told wonderful tales until the wrong people heard them and got the wrong impression. Shhh! Loose lips sink kingdoms.

The Egyptian Old Kingdom created the first nation state and then built the largest structures people would build for 4000 years and then it all faded away like sand cast on an ocean breeze.

Ancient Egypt was made by geography. A river in the middle of the desert which flooded in a nice predicatable way which made Egypt the richest country in the world.

The Persians built the largest armies in the western world until the age of Napoleon. How did they do it? and what did they look like? Here we discuss the invention of imperial armies where diversity was a bonus and a negative.