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Ted McCormick
Interview: Ted McCormick on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment

Interview: Ted McCormick on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment

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My latest guest on the History for Atheists video channel is Associate Professor Ted McCormick. Ted is a specialist in intellectual history and the history of science at Concordia University in Canada. He examines the intersections between science, technology, economy and empire in the early modern era. Recently, he has taken an interest in how the concept of “the Enlightenment” has been taken up as something of an ideological cause by some popular writers. In particular he has critiqued the…

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Interview: Thony Christie on the Galileo Affair

Interview: Thony Christie on the Galileo Affair

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This is a long-awaited addition to the History for Atheists video channel – my long and detailed interview with historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and…

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The Great Library of Alexandria – Part One

The Great Library of Alexandria – Part One

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The latest video on the History for Atheists video channel is Part One of a two-part episode on the Great Library of Alexandria. What was the Great Library and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this first part we will examine some of the misconceptions about the Great Library, look at what it was and – more importantly – what it was not.  And in the upcoming second part, we will explore how the Great Library came…

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Tom Holland
Interview: Tom Holland on “Dominion”

Interview: Tom Holland on “Dominion”

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For my latest interview on the History for Atheists video channel I am joined by best-selling history writer Tom Holland to discuss his book Dominion (2020). Tom is the author of a number of books, including Rubicon (2003), Persian Fire (2005) and Millennium (2008). In his latest work Holland set out to explore why the ancient world seems so alien to us when examined closely and came to the provocative conclusion that we live in a culture that has been…

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