The Wisdom of History

Do the lessons passed down to us by history, lessons whose origins may lie hundreds, even thousands of years in the past, still have value for us today? Is Santayana's oft-repeated saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," merely a way to offer lip service to history as a teacher - or can we indeed learn from it? And if we can, what is it that we should be learning? In this unflinching series of 36 lectures, a world-renowned scholar makes the case that we not only can learn from history, but must. Drawing on decades of experience as a classical historian, Professor Fears explores history's patterns to conclude that ignoring them - whether by choice or because we've never learned to see them - is to risk becoming their prisoner, repeating the mistakes that have toppled leaders, nations, and empires throughout time. In this personal reflection on history, Professor Fears has taken on the challenge of extracting the past's lessons in ways that speak to us today, showing us how the experience of ancient empires such as those of Rome and Persia have much to teach us about the risks and responsibilities of being a superpower. He shows how the study of those who left their impact on an earlier world - Caesar Augustus or Genghis Khan, George Washington or Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi or Josef Stalin - can equip us to make responsible choices as nations, citizens, or individuals in a post-9/11 world where those choices are more crucial than ever.

All Lectures:
1. Why We Study History
2. World War I and the Lessons of History
3. Hitler's Rise and the Lessons of History
4. World War II and the Lessons of History
5. Is Freedom a Universal Value?
6. Birth of Civilization in the Middle East
7. The Trojan War and the Middle East
8. Ancient Israel and the Middle East
9. Ancient Greece and the Middle East
10. Athenian Democracy and Empire
11. The Destiny of the Athenian Democracy
12. Alexander the Great and the Middle East
13. The Roman Republic as Superpower
14. Rome of the Caesars as Superpower
15. Rome and the Middle East
16. Why the Roman Empire Fell
17. Christianity
18. Islam
19.The Ottoman Empire and Turkey
20. The Spanish Empire and Latin America
21. Napoleon's Liberal Empire
22. The British Empire in India
23. Russia and Empire
24. China and Empire
25. The Empire of Genghis Khan
26. Britain's Legacy of Freedom
27. George Washington as Statesman
28. Thomas Jefferson as Statesman
29. America's Empire of Liberty - Lewis and Clark
30. America and Slavery
31. Abraham Lincoln as Statesman
32. The United States and Empire
33. Franklin Roosevelt as Statesman
34. A Superpower at the Crossroads
35. The Wisdom of History and the Citizen
36. The Wisdom of History and You