202 Decades of Western History

This episode dives into the ancient world, focusing on the Near East, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Bronze Age Collapse, and what Homer got right. You'll meet the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Israelites, Babylonians, and Persians. This is the second of four prologue episodes to set the stage before the decades narrative begins in 1 AD.

From the first Homo sapiens to the Sumerians, this episode sprints through 200,000 years of prehistory.  It covers the Neanderthals, denisovans, drowned land masses, mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the first farmers, indo-europeans, the Green Sahara, the unification of Egypt, and the first writing. This is the first of four prologue episodes to set the stage before the decades narrative begins in 1 AD.

Hello and welcome to the 202 Decades of Western History. This is a new podcast that will cover one decade of history each episode, starting from 1 AD. In this introduction, I'll convincingly and eloquently persuade you to keep listening to this podcast. You'll find out why the format is one decade per episode, how our perception of the passage of time is warped, and we'll set a few parameters around the huge task of covering the past 202 decades of western history.