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Book Conversations About The History of Ideas

Download or read book Conversations About The History of Ideas written by Howard Burton and published by Open Agenda Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations About The History Of Ideas include the following five carefully-edited Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading intellectual historians with a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books: I. The Two Cultures, Revisited - A conversation with Stefan Collini, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge. The 'Two Cultures' debate of the 1960s between C.P. Snow and F.R. Leavis is one of the most misunderstood intellectual disputes of the 20th century. Most people think that the debate only revolved around the notion that our society is characterized by a divide between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand, and the sciences on the other. This book is based on an extended conversation between Howard Burton and University of Cambridge intellectual historian Stefan Collini— and author of the book, What Are Universities For?— which provides a careful examination and illuminating insights of what the issues really were in this debate. II. Deconstructing Genius - A conversation with Darrin McMahon, the Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor of History at Dartmouth College. This book is based on an in-depth conversation with intellectual historian Darrin McMahon, Dartmouth College. The word “genius” evokes great figures like Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Mozart but what quintessential quality unites these individuals? Can we measure it? Can we create it? This thoughtful conversation explores Darrin’s research on the evolution of genius from Plato to Einstein (which led him to write the book Divine Fury: A History of Genius) in an effort to illuminate what our evolving genius mythology reveals about the rest of us. III. Turning the Mirror: A View From The East - A conversation with Pankaj Mishra. This book is based on an in-depth conversation with award-winning writer Pankaj Mishra.They discuss several of Mishra’s books, including From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and An End To Suffering: The Buddha In The World, and his motivations behind them. IV. Pants On Fire: On Lying In Politics - A conversation with Martin Jay, the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History Emeritus at UC Berkeley. This book is based on an in-depth conversation with intellectual historian Martin Jay, UC Berkeley. A thought-provoking book in dialogue format examining Martin Jay’s extensive research on lying in politics from Plato and St. Augustine to Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss which culminated in his book The Virtues of Mendacity. V. Quest For Freedom - A conversation with Quentin Skinner, Barber Beaumont Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. This book is based on an in-depth conversation with intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, Barber Beaumont Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. Quentin Skinner is considered to be one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. This thoughtful, detailed conversation examines how Quentin Skinner came to appreciate the importance of the distinction between the modern view of freedom and the so-called neo-Roman view, together with what it implies for our current and future political understanding. Howard Burton is the creator and host of Ideas Roadshow and was the Founding Executive Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Book CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF IDEAS CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

Download or read book CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF IDEAS CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF IDEAS written by Howard Burton and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations About The History Of Ideas is a five-part Ideas Roadshow Collection of carefully-edited Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading intellectual historians with a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. All five books include a detailed essay setting up the different ideas and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter. The following experts have participated in this Collection: 1. Stefan Collini, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge;2. Darrin McMahon, the Mary Brinsmead Whe.

Book The Two Greatest Ideas

    Book Details:
  • Author : Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
  • Publisher : Princeton University Press
  • Release : 2021-11-16
  • ISBN : 0691211248
  • Pages : 280 pages

Download or read book The Two Greatest Ideas written by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two simple yet tremendously powerful ideas that shaped virtually every aspect of civilization This book is a breathtaking examination of the two greatest ideas in human history. The first is the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe. The second is the idea that the human mind can grasp itself. Acclaimed philosopher Linda Zagzebski shows how the first unleashed a cultural awakening that swept across the world in the first millennium BCE, giving birth to philosophy, mathematics, science, and virtually all the major world religions. It dominated until the Renaissance, when the discovery of subjectivity profoundly transformed the arts and sciences. This second great idea governed our perception of reality up until the dawn of the twenty-first century. Zagzebski explores how the interplay of the two ideas led to conflicts that have left us ambivalent about the relationship between the mind and the universe, and have given rise to a host of moral and political rifts over the deepest questions human beings face. Should we organize civil society around the ideal of living in harmony with the world or that of individual autonomy? Zagzebski explains how the two greatest ideas continue to divide us today over issues such as abortion, the environment, free speech, and racial and gender identity. This panoramic book reveals what is missing in our conception of ourselves and the world, and imagines a not-too-distant future when a third great idea, the idea that human minds can grasp each other, will help us gain an idea of the whole of reality.

Book Political Awakenings

Download or read book Political Awakenings written by Harry Kreisler and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a kid, Noam Chomsky handed out the Daily Mirror at his uncle's newsstand on 72nd Street, inadvertently finding himself in a buzzing intellectual and political hub for European immigrants in New York. Iranian human rights Nobelist Shirin Ebadi and her husband signed their own legal contract, attempting to restore equality to their marriage after the Iranian Revolution effectively erased the legal rights of women. Elizabeth Warren set out to expose those frauds declaring bankruptcy and taking advantage of the system-only to discover, in her research, a very different story of hard-working middle-class families facing economic collapse in the absence of a social safety net. While studying at Oxford, a young Tariq Ali made a bet with a friend that he could work the Vietnam War into every single answer on his final exams. In this rousing, thoughtful, often funny, and always inspiring volume, a diverse and impressive group of thinkers reflect on those formative experiences that shaped their own political commitments. A fascinating new window into the revealing links between the personal and the political, Political Awakenings will engage readers across generations.

Book Conversations of Modern World History  50 Voices from 1400 to the Present

Download or read book Conversations of Modern World History 50 Voices from 1400 to the Present written by Zachary Wingerd and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring fifty primary source documents introduced within an historical narrative, Conversations of Modern World History: 50 Voices from 1400 to the Present offers readers an overview of the last six hundred years of the human experience. From the Chinese Ming dynasty to the emerging Russian Federation, students learn stories and perspectives of the past as told by those who lived them. Both a textbook and a source reader, Conversations of Modern World History provides the historical and biographical contexts needed to understand and thoughtfully react to the conversation of history. A diverse group of men and women offer their perspective of various moments in history through their speeches, political statements, books, and journals. Each annotated document naturally leads to the next, helping readers understand that historical events were interconnected and that current discussions have roots going back hundreds of years. Conversations of Modern World History combines the best of general narrative textbooks, short biographies, and primary source readers to help students see the interconnectedness of humanity past and present. It is an ideal text for world history survey courses from the 1400s onward. Zachary Wingerd earned his Ph.D. in transatlantic history from the University of Texas, Arlington. He taught at Lon Morris College and the University of Texas, Tyler before joining the faculty at Baylor University. Dr. Wingerd has taught courses in world, American, Atlantic, Texas, and Latin American history, as well as historiography.

Book Strategy

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sir Lawrence Freedman
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2013-09-02
  • ISBN : 0199349908
  • Pages : 768 pages

Download or read book Strategy written by Sir Lawrence Freedman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-02 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control. Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability of this environment-subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the missteps of friends-provides strategy with its challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite what was anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

Book Conversations About History  Volume 3

Download or read book Conversations About History Volume 3 written by Howard Burton and published by Open Agenda Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-24 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations About History, Volume 3, includes the following 5 carefully-edited Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading historians. This collection includes a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. Each book is broken into chapters with a detailed introduction and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: 1.Eating One’s Own: Examining Civil War - A Conversation with intellectual historian David Armitage, the Lloyd C. Blanfein Professor of History at Harvard University. This conversation covers David Armitage’s extensive research on the history of ideas of civil war from Ancient Rome to the present. A salient feature of his work is a strong focus on etymology as it relates to our understanding of how people interpreted (or misinterpreted) and perceived events in history which results in a fascinating exploration of how our understanding of various concepts has been prejudiced by past societies and past beliefs that we might not even be aware of, and how they, in turn, go on to influence other societies; and how this cumulative process frames our understanding of these ideas. 2. China: Up Close and Personal - A Conversation with Karl Gerth, Hwei-Chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chinese Studies and Professor of History at UC San Diego. This wide-ranging conversation covers the emerging American-style consumer culture of China which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, how it has transformed its economy and lifestyle and has the potential to reshape the world. 3. Sheathing the Bodkin: Combating Suicide - A Conversation with poet, author and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht. After intriguing details about how she combines writing poetry, doing scholarly history and public writing, this wide-ranging conversation movingly embellishes upon Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book, Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, which is an intellectual and cultural history of the most persuasive arguments against suicide from the Stoics and the Bible to Dante, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein, and such twentieth-century writers as Albert Camus. 4. For the Love of History - A Conversation with Margaret MacMillan, Professor of History at the University of Toronto and emeritus Professor of International History and the former warden of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. This wide-ranging conversation examines her research on patriotism and nationalism, which are essential themes of her lifelong work on 19th and 20th history. 5. The Epicurean Republic - A Conversation with award-winning author and independent scholar Matthew Stewart. In his later years, Thomas Jefferson referred to “the revolutionary part of the [American] Revolution”, which for him meant the founding ideals that would serve as a model for the world on how to build a modern state, as opposed to an incidental squabble between one country and its former colonists. This wide-ranging conversation explores how many of these ideals that Jefferson referred to are part of an intellectual thread that passes through key Enlightenment thinkers such as Spinoza and can be traced all the way back to Epicurus. Howard Burton is the founder and host of all Ideas Roadshow Conversations and was the Founding Executive Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy.

Book Great Ideas in History  Politics  and Philosophy

Download or read book Great Ideas in History Politics and Philosophy written by J Caleb Clanton and published by . This book was released on 2021-08 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the world at our fingertips through the internet, it can be paralyzing and overwhelming to take in all the information available. What's needed is a way to tune out the noise and home in on foundational ideas that can help us better navigate the complexities of our highly interconnected age. Great Ideas in History, Politics, and Philosophy offers a preliminary exposure to the intellectual resources--the great ideas--that have influenced and enriched human experience, cultures, and civilizations for centuries. This volume offers streamlined access to seminal passages from some of the most important texts in human history--texts that have inspired and informed enduring questions related to the pursuit of wisdom and worldview, religious faith, historical and moral reflection, and civic and political life. Selections are drawn from a variety of key traditions and historical contexts, including ancient Greece, China, India, and Rome; Judaism, early Christianity, and classical Islam; medieval Europe; the Renaissance and exploration period; the early modern period and Enlightenment; and early U.S. history. Here readers can acquaint themselves with towering perspectives, meditations, arguments, and documents in the academic disciplines of history, political science, and philosophy. Great Ideas in History, Politics, and Philosophy invites readers to enter into conversations that are both timely and timeless.

Book A World of Ideas   Conversations with Thoughtful Men and Women about American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future

Download or read book A World of Ideas Conversations with Thoughtful Men and Women about American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future written by Bill D. Moyers and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Conversation

    Book Details:
  • Author : Stephen Miller
  • Publisher : Yale University Press
  • Release : 2008-10-01
  • ISBN : 030013018X
  • Pages : 380 pages

Download or read book Conversation written by Stephen Miller and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essayist Stephen Miller pursues a lifelong interest in conversation by taking an historical and philosophical view of the subject. He chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. As Harry G. Frankfurt brought wide attention to the art of bullshit in his recent bestselling On Bullshit, so Miller now brings the art of conversation into the light, revealing why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. Miller explores the conversation about conversation among such great writers as Cicero, Montaigne, Swift, Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Virginia Woolf. He focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs in “The Age of Conversation” and examines how this era ended. Turning his attention to the United States, the author traces a prolonged decline in the theory and practice of conversation from Benjamin Franklin through Hemingway to Dick Cheney. He cites our technology (iPods, cell phones, and video games) and our insistence on unguarded forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental as powerful forces that are likely to diminish the art of conversation.

Book Hannibal and Me

Download or read book Hannibal and Me written by Andreas Kluth and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-01-05 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dynamic and exciting way to understand success and failure, through the life of Hannibal, one of history's greatest generals. The life of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with his army in 218 B.C.E., is the stuff of legend. And the epic choices he and his opponents made-on the battlefield and elsewhere in life-offer lessons about responding to our victories and our defeats that are as relevant today as they were more than 2,000 years ago. A big new idea book inspired by ancient history, Hannibal and Me explores the truths behind triumph and disaster in our lives by examining the decisions made by Hannibal and others, including Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Steve Jobs, Ernest Shackleton, and Paul Cézanne-men and women who learned from their mistakes. By showing why some people overcome failure and others succumb to it, and why some fall victim to success while others thrive on it, Hannibal and Me demonstrates how to recognize the seeds of success within our own failures and the threats of failure hidden in our successes. The result is a page-turning adventure tale, a compelling human drama, and an insightful guide to understanding behavior. This is essential reading for anyone who seeks to transform misfortune into success at work, at home, and in life.

Book A Jane Austen Education

Download or read book A Jane Austen Education written by William Deresiewicz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eloquent memoir of a young man's life transformed by literature. In A Jane Austen Education, Austen scholar William Deresiewicz turns to the author's novels to reveal the remarkable life lessons hidden within. With humor and candor, Deresiewicz employs his own experiences to demonstrate the enduring power of Austen's teachings. Progressing from his days as an immature student to a happily married man, Deresiewicz's A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man's discovery of the world outside himself. A self-styled intellectual rebel dedicated to writers such as James Joyce and Joseph Conrad, Deresiewicz never thought Austen's novels would have anything to offer him. But when he was assigned to read Emma as a graduate student at Columbia, something extraordinary happened. Austen's devotion to the everyday, and her belief in the value of ordinary lives, ignited something in Deresiewicz. He began viewing the world through Austen's eyes and treating those around him as generously as Austen treated her characters. Along the way, Deresiewicz was amazed to discover that the people in his life developed the depth and richness of literary characters-that his own life had suddenly acquired all the fascination of a novel. His real education had finally begun. Weaving his own story-and Austen's-around the ones her novels tell, Deresiewicz shows how her books are both about education and themselves an education. Her heroines learn about friendship and feeling, staying young and being good, and, of course, love. As they grow up, they learn lessons that are imparted to Austen's reader, who learns and grows by their sides. A Jane Austen Education is a testament to the transformative power of literature, a celebration of Austen's mastery, and a joy to read. Whether for a newcomer to Austen or a lifelong devotee, Deresiewicz brings fresh insights to the novelist and her beloved works. Ultimately, Austen's world becomes indelibly entwined with our own, showing the relevance of her message and the triumph of her vision.

Book The Consequences of Ideas

Download or read book The Consequences of Ideas written by R. C. Sproul and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: R. C. Sproul surveys history's greatest philosophers and thinkers, helping readers understand the ideas that have shaped the world--and continue to shape nearly everything we think and do.

Book The Truth about Stories

Download or read book The Truth about Stories written by Thomas King and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2003 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

Book 22 Ideas to Fix the World

Download or read book 22 Ideas to Fix the World written by Piotr Dutkiewicz and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis still reverberate throughout the globe. Markets are down, unemployment is up, and nations from Greece to Ireland find their very infrastructure on the brink of collapse. There is also a crisis in the management of global affairs, with the institutions of global governance challenged as never before, accompanied by conflicts ranging from Syria, to Iran, to Mali. Domestically, the bases for democratic legitimacy, social sustainability, and environmental adaptability are also changing. In this unique volume from the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations and the Social Science Research Council, some of the world’s greatest minds—from Nobel Prize winners to long-time activists—explore what the prolonged instability of the so-called Great Recession means for our traditional understanding of how governments can and should function. Through interviews that are sure to spark lively debate, 22 Ideas to Fix the World presents both analysis of past geopolitical events and possible solutions and predictions for the future. The book surveys issues relevant to the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Speaking from a variety of perspectives, including economic, social, developmental, and political, the discussions here increase our understanding of what’s wrong with the world and how to get it right. Interviewees explore topics like the Arab Spring, the influence of international financial organizations, the possibilities for the growth of democracy, the acceleration of global warming, and how to develop enforceable standards for market and social regulation. These inspiring exchanges from some of our most sophisticated thinkers on world policy are honest, brief, and easily understood, presenting thought-provoking ideas in a clear and accessible manner that cuts through the academic jargon that too often obscures more than it reveals. 22 Ideas to Fix the World is living history in the finest sense—a lasting chronicle of the state of the global community today. Interviews with: Zygmunt Bauman, Shimshon Bichler & Jonathan Nitzan, Craig Calhoun, Ha-Joon Chang, Fred Dallmayr, Mike Davis, Bob Deacon, Kemal Dervis, Jiemian Yang, Peter J. Katzenstein, Ivan Krastev, Will Kymlicka, Manuel F. Montes, José Antonio Ocampo, Vladimir Popov, Jospeh Stiglitz, Olzhas Suleimenov, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Immanuel Wallerstein, Paul Watson, Vladimir Yakunin, Muhammad Yunus

Book Literature  Theory and the History of Ideas

Download or read book Literature Theory and the History of Ideas written by Arshad Ahammad A. and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-02 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this book, covering a wide range of themes such as history, globalisation, colonialism, trauma, ecology, cinema, science, post-humanism, feminisms, and alternative sexualities, explore the structures of power that bring about and contour the prevailing, stereotypical and hegemonic notions of identity, gender and culture. The focal point of these interactions is the perpetual dissemination of ideas which stimulate the knowledge system with its roots spread across diverse scholarly disciplines. This collection will be of great interest to academicians, scholars, researchers, and students, as it explores various discourses in literature, cultural studies, literary theory and film studies.

Book Conversations About History  Volume 2

Download or read book Conversations About History Volume 2 written by Howard Burton and published by Open Agenda Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-24 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations About History, Volume 2, includes the following 5 carefully-edited Ideas Roadshow Conversations featuring leading historians. This collection includes a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. Each book is broken into chapters with a detailed introduction and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: 1.Constitutional Investigations - A Conversation with Linda Colley, the Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Linda Colley is a leading expert on British, imperial and global history since 1700. After inspiring insights about Linda Colley’s teachers and professors who had a strong impact on her future career as a historian, this wide-ranging conversation provides a detailed examination of the global history and present state of constitutions and their impact. 2. The Passionate Historian - A Conversation with John Elliott, Professor of Modern History at University of Oxford. This extensive conversation provides behind-the-scenes insights into how an undergraduate encounter with a 17th-century painting of The Count-Duke Olivares led John Elliott on a lifelong odyssey to study the history of Spain, Europe and the Americas in the early modern period to become one of the greatest Spanish historians of our age. 3. The Derveni Papyrus - A Conversation with Richard Janko, Gerald F. Else Distinguished University Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. This comprehensive conversation covers Richard Janko’s research on the Derveni Papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript from the 4th century BCE and the most important text relating to early Greek literature, science, religion and philosophy to have come to light since the Renaissance. 4. Byzantium: Beyond the Cliché - A Conversation between Howard Burton and Maria Mavroudi, Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Maria Mavroudi specializes in the study of the Byzantine Empire and this wide-ranging conversation explores her extensive research on the Byzantine Empire and how it has repeatedly been undervalued by historians despite its having been a military and cultural powerhouse for more than a millennium. 5. Apocalypse Then: The First Crusade - A Conversation with Jay Rubenstein, Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Premodern World at the University of Southern California. This thought-provoking book provides us with fascinating expert insights into medieval society and how the First Crusade happened: What could have suddenly caused tens of thousands of knights, commoners and even nuns at the end of the 11th century to leave their normal lives behind and trek thousands of miles across hostile territory in an unprecedented vicious and bloody quest to wrest Jerusalem from its occupying powers? Howard Burton is the founder and host of all Ideas Roadshow Conversations and was the Founding Executive Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy.