Gregory S. Aldrete

I've been collecting the Great Courses audio files for awhile but never got around to listening to one of them completely - I will listen to a few lectures and get distracted or forget about it. I was not sure I will finish this one either (knowing my pattern) but it started with the first civilizations and my World History project is at that stage as well so I figured I may as well listen. I ended up listening to the whole thing - and enjoying it a lot.

Aldrete defines the Ancient world a show more bit differently than how it is usually defined - he stretches it to the 9th century and the formation of Charlemagne’s empire (which is between 2 and 5 centuries later than the usual definitions) which would later become the base for the formation of Europe as we know it. His explanation on why in the last lectures makes sense - especially in a narrative which is not just based on the old definitions of the Classical World (as Greece and Rome more or less). The facts that the Tang in China is in decline at the same time (it falls in in 907 technically but the Golden age is done a century earlier), the Arab and Muslim world is starting to show up on the world stage and to influence it a lot more than before (with the reign of Harun al-Rashid almost matching the end of the period here) and the classical Mayan civilization is going into decline at the same time, it indeed looks like a better date to put a line through - the old civilizations and patterns are going down and away; the new ones which will be important for the world are getting established. It is not a perfect date, one can never be found when one tries to encompass the whole world but still...

So how global is this history? Maybe not as global as some would wish but that has more to do with the period than with the author. He starts with two stipulations: most of the history we know of is Urban history (because this is what we have data for mostly and because someone who is growing food has a somewhat boring life) and history starts when writing appears in a specific place (or when the place is described by someone else). That does not make pre-literate societies less civilized - but when writing is not there, these societies need to be examined in a different way - the lack of records and literature renders the usual tools of historians kinda useless. With these in mind, Aldrete takes us on a trip around the world to check on what is happening everywhere from the Mesopotamian Mud, Egypt, the Indus Valley and China to the Mayas, Tang, Charlemagne and Islam; from 3,500 BC to a bit after 800 AD. It sounds like 24 hours of lectures will be a lot of lectures but they are just enough to scratch the surface of a lot of these times and peoples - 4,300 years and almost as many kingdoms (it feels like that anyway). And yet, somewhere in there, he finds time to visit with the smaller kingdoms which influence the big ones, to check on the Hunter-Gatherers and Polynesians (because they don't fit the Urban models in that timeline), to have a whole lecture devoted to Homer and Indian Poetry (no weird theories on who copied whom - he has a better explanation on why they are so similar in places) and to have multiple lectures comparing different cultures in different ways.

At the end I wished it was at least 3 times longer than it was - there is so much more to be said about all these cultures. But as an introduction and an overview, it is a great series of lectures - as long as you are not against a mix of culture, society, politics and warfare. And as this is ancient history, how we know some of things we know is as important as the things themselves - so Aldrete mixes this as well. The PDF that comes with it has the highlights (and a bibliography both per lecture and overall). And it also gives you the spelling if all the names you may not have heard before.

Which does not make these lectures perfect (besides the length... they are definitely too short). I have minor issues with the Romans being so prominent in the lecture list (maybe because I knew the most about them and I was really curious about the rest; looking back it makes sense but it still felt a bit too Roman-centric in the middle) and the lack of maps. There are a few in the PDF but I hoped for more. As this also comes as a DVD, I hope there are more maps in the presentation -- but even without them, as long as you know where things are on a map (or can look them up), the audio-only format works.

If anyone is interested, the list of lectures is as follows:
1. Cities, Civilizations, and Sources
2. From Out of the Mesopotamian Mud
3. Cultures of the Ancient Near East
4. Ancient Egypt: The Gift of the Nile
5. Pharaohs, Tombs, and Gods
6. The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley
7. The Vedic Age of Ancient India
8. Mystery Cultures of Early Greece
9. Homer and Indian Poetry
10. Athens and Experiments in Democracy
11. Hoplite Warfare and Sparta
12. Civilization Dawns in China: Shang and Zhou
13. Confucius and the Greek Philosophers
14. Mystics, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians
15. Persians and Greeks
16. Greek Art and Architecture
17. Greek Tragedy and the Sophists
18. The Peloponnesian War and the Trial of Socrates
19. Philip of Macedon: Architect of Empire
20. Alexander the Great Goes East
21. Unifiers of India: Chandragupta and Asoka
22. Shi Huangdi: First Emperor of China
23. Earliest Historians of Greece and China
24. The Hellenistic World
25. The Great Empire of the Han Dynasty
26. People of the Toga: Etruscans, Early Rome
27. The Crucible: Punic Wars, Roman Imperialism
28. The Death of the Roman Republic
29. Augustus: Creator of the Roman Empire
30. Roman Emperors: Good, Bad, and Crazy
31. Han and Roman Empires Compared: Geography
32. Han and Roman Empires Compared: Government
33. Han and Roman Empires Compared: Problems
34. Early Americas: Resources and Olmecs
35. Pots and Pyramids: Moche and Teotihuacán
36. Blood and Corn: Mayan Civilization
37. Hunter-Gatherers and Polynesians
38. The Art and Architecture of Power
39. Comparative Armies: Rome, China, Maya
40. Later Roman Empire: Crisis and Christianity
41. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?
42. The Byzantine Empire and the Legacy of Rome
43. China from Chaos to Order under the Tang
44. The Golden Age of Tang Culture
45. The Rise and Flourishing of Islam
46. Holy Men and Women: Monasticism and Saints
47. Charlemagne: Father of Europe
48. Endings, Beginnings, What Does It All Mean show less

If you have ever wondered how the linen armor described in writings about ancient battles could be of much use, here’s the answer.
The authors, academics at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, decided to make linen armor and test its effectiveness. They first conducted extensive reviews of ancient writings and visual depictions of the armor. Their bibliography and list of visual sources is extensive and included in the book.
Using linen produced in the traditional way, they laminated show more layers with rabbit glue. They then conducted penetration tests with bows of ancient design, firing arrows with bronze or iron arrowheads. Their results are extensively documented in tables and photographs. This chapter resembles an ancient version of the sort of ammo test articles one finds in firearms magazines.
The armor works. It works so well, that they actually shot each other with arrows at combat ranges, with no injuries. Among the many photos, some color, the one that will always stand out in my memory shows a guy with an arrow sticking out of linen chest armor. Well, Kevlar is a fabric, so I shouldn’t be amazed, but I am. (If you’re thinking of making your own, though, modern steel hunting arrowheads completely penetrated the linen armor.)
The book is somewhat dry reading, but the results are so fascinating, it is anything but dull. I hope their next project is re-inventing Greek fire. show less

One would think that A Historian Goes to the Movies: Ancient Rome would be mesmerizing. Sword and sandals spectaculars? Comparisons with the actual events depicted? A cast of thousands? A finger on the pulse of each decade in which these were produced? The inside jokes, allusions and references in the films?

Lecturer Gregory S. Aldrete, professor emeritus of history and humanistic studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, who delivers this master class as part of The Great Courses show more series provides all of the above. But somehow the result was just OK. In the early going, I fell asleep several times, although the class improved when he got to Monty Python’s Life of Brian. (How could it not?) The concept of a history professor assessing a movie’s fealty to history as well as its artistic merit is a fantastic idea; however, next time The Great Courses could get someone more charismatic to deliver the lectures. show less

Good overview of important historical battles which were failures, including the context of those battles and reasonable analysis of what went wrong and why. Largely puts failures into a few major categories (failure to learn from events and failure to adapt to new technology being the two broadest categories). My favorite part was actually the quotes from contemporary experts on the failures, which tended to be far more pithy than more recent analyses. A particularly sad part was using the show more three failed campaigns in Afghanistan as an example, leaving it to the reader today to see exactly the same lessons in our current fourth failed campaign.

The speaker has annoying Shatneresque pacing and delivery, but listening at 2.5-3x eliminates this. It would be a much better course as a video presentation with images and maps of the battles, but audio only worked pretty well (and let me listen while driving.) show less