Premodernist

January videos

Happy new year! My Patreon videos are going to be a little later this time, probably around the middle of the month. I hope that's okay.

The parallel lives of Ancient Rome and Ancient China

Rome and Han-dynasty China were at their most powerful during the same period, the first two centuries AD/CE. Some historians have drawn parallels between the two empires, noting apparent similarities between the stages of their history. In this video I review the stages as laid out by the historian Walter Scheidel and give my thoughts.

Why did medieval people believe in astrology?

Here's the patron-only video for November. Astrology was used almost universally during the Middle Ages. It was a standard subject taught at universities. Everyone with a university education was expected to be familiar with it, and it was an integral part of medical practice. Rulers consulted astrologers when making important decisions.

So these are the questions I address here: What was astrology in the Middle Ages? Why did people take it seriously? Why did it finally go away? (We don...

Why learn about history?

Here's my first patrons-only video. I talk about my three reasons for thinking that history is worth studying, and also a couple things I don't think history is useful for.

Since at time of posting there aren't any patrons yet, I picked the topic. Eventually, if folks pledge at the middle tier or higher, they'll get to vote on topics.

If you use captions let me know how the experience is. Patreon says they automatically caption videos. I can't figure out how to get them to appear,...