Curated playlist
Western culture
- Scramble for Africa1870s–1914 European colonisation of Africa
- Age of EnlightenmentEuropean cultural movement
- Western SchismThe Western Schism began on the 20th of September 1378, with a single, startling act: a group of French cardinals gathered at Fondi and elected a second pope. There was already a pope. He was sitting in Rome. For the next thirty-nine…
- CapitalismCapitalism is a word that began as an insult. The term in its modern sense is first attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850, who defined it as the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others. The economist and historian Robert…
- Western imperialism in AsiaWestern imperialism in Asia begins with a spice. In the 15th century, with the Ottoman Turks holding the Silk Road, Western European rulers wanted their own way east. The hunger for porcelain, silk, spices, and tea sent sea captains around…
- Great DivergenceThe Great Divergence is the name historians give to one of the most consequential shifts in human history: the moment when the Western world broke free from the economic constraints that had governed every civilization for millennia and…
- Media franchiseA media franchise is a collection of related works derived from a single original creative property, such as a film, a novel, a television program, or a video game. Bob Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, put it plainly: a…
- RenaissanceAround 1440, from a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, a machine began throwing off pages by the hundred. Within sixty years that movable-type press had reached some 270 cities across Central, Western, and Eastern Europe. By the end of…
- Colonisation of AfricaThe colonisation of Africa did not begin with European flags planted in the 19th century. It began far earlier, when Phoenician traders established the city of Utica around 1100 BC, and when Greek merchants settled along the North African…
- Western worldThe Western world has no fixed borders. That simple fact, buried in dictionaries and debated by historians for centuries, turns out to be one of the most consequential ideas in human history. What we call "the West" is not a place you can…
- ChristianityChristianity counts more than 2.3 billion followers, roughly 28.8% of the world's population, making it the largest and most widespread religion on Earth. Its adherents form a majority in 120 countries and territories. Yet it began as…
- Human rightsHuman rights are universally recognized moral principles that set standards of behavior and are often protected by national and international law. They are described as inherent and inalienable, belonging to every individual simply by…
- Western cultureWestern culture has no fixed borders on any map. The term has shifted meaning across centuries, swallowed and expelled whole civilizations, and remains contested by philosophers today. Kwame Anthony Appiah pointed out in 2016 that many of…
- Abrahamic religionsThe Abrahamic religions are a set of monotheistic faiths that trace a shared spiritual lineage to Abraham, a figure each tradition regards either as a patriarch, a prophet, or both. Three of them, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, together…
- Neo-Latin studiesThe study of Latin and its literature from the Italian Renaissance to the present day defines a vast field known as Neo-Latin studies. This discipline covers many centuries, different subject matter, and a very wide geographical spread…
- Modern eraThe modern era is the name historians give to the current period of human history, the stretch of time we are still living inside right now. The label was not always so generous in scope. It was first applied only to the history of Europe…
- Greek East and Latin WestGreek East and Latin West began as a geographic shorthand for the two halves of a single civilization, yet the divide they named would prove durable enough to split Christianity itself. Picture the Roman world at its height: one empire,…
- Western literatureWestern literature stretches across more than a thousand years of European history, encompassing works in dozens of languages from Albanian to Yiddish, from ancient Greek to modern Russian. It is a tradition that has never stood still.…
- Western philosophyWestern philosophy begins with a man who looked at the world and said, "all is water." His name was Thales of Miletus, born around 625 BC in Ionia, and he is recognized as the first philosopher. What set him apart was not the answer but…
- Country musicCountry music got its name in an unlikely way. For decades, the genre was called hillbilly music, and only in the 1940s did the term "country music" catch on. By 2023-45 percent of Americans reported listening to it, a share that had…
- Greco-Roman worldThe Greco-Roman world was not a single empire or a single people, but a vast zone of shared language, law, myth, and architecture that stretched from the Atlantic coast of Iberia to the banks of the Euphrates. The Roman jurist Ulpian, born…
- Judeo-ChristianJudeo-Christian is a term that carries enormous political and cultural weight, yet it began its life with a surprisingly narrow meaning. In a letter dated the 17th of October, 1821, Alexander McCaul used the phrase "Judæo Christian" simply…
- Pop musicThe term "pop song" was first used in 1926, describing a piece of music "having popular appeal". Pop music as we know it today did not arrive until the mid-1950s, born at the same moment in the United States and the United Kingdom. For a…
- Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was one of the most expansive and enduring political structures the ancient world produced, stretching from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria. At its height…
- Information AgeThe Information Age began in the mid-20th century, and one date sits at its root. In 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain built the first working transistor at Bell Labs, working under William Shockley. That germanium-based…