The Thucydides Trap

There's just too much to hate about this movie. I tried to fit it all in one more episode, but I couldn't. So this covers how Nolan got the character of Circe so abysmally wrong, the structural necessity of the Achilles arc? No, we don't need that! And if the text says that Odysseus surfs a tidal wave, why would you cut that?

As Inigo Montoya famously said "'Zeus' Law' you keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means." That was the original line, they changed it to "word" for the film.

Nolan's Odyssey is awful. Truly heinous. "How bad can it be?" you say? Well this show is two hours. It's part one. I'm naming them after the Erinyes, so you can accurately guess that there are two more of comparable length.

Yes, I will do an Odyssey show soon. I just don't want to sit anywhere for three hours. Until then, I keep getting asked about the Bronze Age Collapse. Fortunately, I already have a show about just that. It's from five years ago, it's a long scroll down the page, so I'm bumping it because I am, and have always been, way ahead of Nolan (I also did a show about Oppenheimer before he did.)

Why do you keep hearing the term "Thucydides Trap"? Here's why. Short answer: Smart Dude (Thucydides) talks about the nature of empire (Peloponnesian War) and why it inevitably leads to people dying (current global power shift). I think we'd all like to stop living through history, but what are you gonna do?

For this Anzac Day special we explore the underrated story of Australia's only Navy Victoria Cross recipient - Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean and how he not only fought until his last breath, he fought well past it.

Why do Americans put cheese on everything? In the tapestry of history it begins with Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot arbitrarily drawing lines on a map at the end of WW1. You wanted a show about an economic crisis caused by a criminal Republican president of the USA fighting a war in the Middle East, you really should have specified which crime/president/war/Middle East.

The BBC rather audaciously called the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor "without precedent." History knows better. Enough people asked that I made a show, enjoy.

This was a mandatory subject when I went to high school, so I didn't think I needed to cover it. Boy, was I wrong. So here's how the Nazis came to power. You're supposed to stop it from happening again.

Do you want to know what a bonus show sounds like? Merry Christmas! This is about the weird origins of April Fool's Day, but surprisingly you can't explore that without going into Christmas and New Year's, they're all the same magical animal. By the way, do you know why New Year's Day is always exactly a week after Christmas? Have fun with that.