Oh God, the British accents were excruciating. He mixed in quotes from eyewitnesses and contemporary commentators, as well as poetry and bits of drama (Shakespeare) – some were overly long but others, particularly the quotes, were valuable - unless he tried to do an accent. I got a little annoyed when he didn’t particularly mention the Berlin Wall (and thought in general that a lot of the post-WW2 stuff was skimpy) but I guess it is understandable with so much to cover.
The lectures lasted about 25 hours in total – which is nothing when trying to cover 600+ years of history for a continent. Once the core themes were established, the lectures progressed in a vaguely chronological order as you would expect – and I found some bits more interesting than others (also as you would expect). The Great Chain of Being is largely an archaic idea now but one that was vital for societal stability for centuries: in one of the early lectures, Bucholz discusses how the GCoB is the reason there weren’t constant peasant revolts and whatnot – if your whole concept of the world is built around the Chain, to question the Chain is basically to question God and that wasn’t generally advised. Seize the “New World” to the west – but there is also subtler elements concerning political alliances, marriages and buffer zones, which was stayed particularly relevant all the way up to the end of history(tm) in 1989. Part of the former is perhaps obvious – it’s surely no great surprise that the western sea-faring countries were the ones to The course begins with Bucholz setting out two themes which come into play time and time again through the years – geography as destiny and the Great Chain of Being. This lecture series, which covered European history from the 1300s, has helped me fill in some of my knowledge gaps. It is only in the last couple of years that I’ve expanding my range and that has, for various reasons, been largely British in focus. I’ve long been a fan of modern history (20th century) and at university, we studied history and culture from various angles – almost all post-Industrial Revolution though.
#FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION II SERIES#
(A lecture series listened to while I’ve been spinning yarn)
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