Show notes
Dr. Edward Watts is the Chair of the History Department at University of California San Diego and author of several books including “Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny” and “The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome” which will be available this August, 2021. This conversation is a follow up to the conversation Dr. Watts and I had in 2020, prior to the presidential election. Here, we focus on political violence, specifically the events at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and what Ancient Roman history can tell us about what it may mean.**This episode was recorded on April 14, 2021**DR. EDWARD WATTS LINKSDr. Edward Watts: https://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/watts.html“Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny”: https://amzn.to/3peOilO“The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome”: https://amzn.to/2Qu0pysDr. Watts’ 2020 appearance on theEWpodcast, “Is America in a ‘Fall of Rome’ Moment?”: http://ericwhte.com/podcast-031-dr-edward-watts-and-is-america-in-a-fall-of-rome-moment/Full list of links: http://ericwhte.com/podcast-043-dr-edward-watts-and-what-rome-teaches-us-about-political-violence/TIMESTAMPS00:00 Introducing Dr. Edward Watts06:42 A historian of Rome reflects on the January 6th storming of the Capitol18:03 Ancient Rome’s ‘January 6th’19:52 How does a historian process current events?24:51 How Rome in the 2nd century BC was strikingly similar to the modern US36:49 What do Joe Biden and Marcus Aurelius have in common?45:40 Broken Republic? Or Benevolent Emperor?48:05 Spreading messages and ideas in Ancient Rome57:35 Has our Republic already fallen but we just don’t realize it yet?
