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The central historical puzzle is how poor desert nomads defeated the Byzantine and Sassanian empires and conquered territory from Spain to India in less than a century.
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The central historical puzzle is how poor desert nomads defeated the Byzantine and Sassanian empires and conquered territory from Spain to India in less than a century.
The problem Jiang wants to explain is not merely that Octavian won, but that the least plausible contender in 44 BCE became the first emperor of Rome.
The lecture's opening puzzle is why Macedon, which Jiang describes as poor, weak, divided, and not culturally Greek, conquered the world rather than dominant Greek powers such as Sparta or Athens.
"the here's the roman empire as well as the sassanian persian empire and they both attack him sorry they both attack the muslims but..."
"In this battle what happens is basically Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, they run away from the battle, and then they return to Alexandria and..."
"Okay, so today we will be discussing how Greek culture spread around the world and how it can dominate the Western world and became..."
"how was it possible that Macedon, the kingdom of Macedon would conquer the world and not Sparta or Athens which for most of Greek..."
A source-grounded reading of Islam's rise as Jiang's first global revolution: a thin archive, a Moses-like prophet, a desert mistaken for backwardness, and a movement that fused religious devotion with revolt against debt, landlessness,...
Rome does not hand Octavian power because he is the best general, the most charismatic speaker, or the obvious heir.
Greek culture did not spread because everyone recognized its beauty.
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