First Full-Video Lecture! A Survey of Western Architecture, part 1: Antiquity & the Early Middle Ages

Dr. Sam explores the methods that builders, from Egypt to Rome to medieval Europe, have used to create grand structures and to enclose beautiful spaces, whether by reaching outward across the landscape or upwards toward the sky, in order to enthrall the senses and to inspire emotions from terror to tranquility.

This is the first full-video lecture from Historiansplaining, available on YouTube, below. With the help of our new producer, Dan Rogers, Dr. Sam can peel back the layers of time & place with the visual treatment needed for the very optic-oriented topic of Western Architecture, bringing a whole new facet to the catalogue of Historiansplaining. This installment was filmed Live with questions from Historiansplaining Patrons – Thank you to all those who participated!

More audio installments and video installments to come: Currently this is the only episode of Historiansplaining that is available on YouTube exclusively.

Press play below for the whole new world of full-video Historiansplaining!

Video Quick Sample:

Watch the Full Video Lecture on YouTube:

Explore more in the Special-Topic Episodes Playlist

Things You Don’t Know

Did Columbus really think that he was going to reach Asia?
What little do we actually know about Shakespeare, the person?
Why is it misleading to apply the word “religion” to Judaism and Hinduism?
How did Tisquantum (popularly known as Squanto) already know how to speak English before the Pilgrims had ever arrived?
Ever heard that Florida has no history? Dr. Sam wants you to know how incorrect that common perception actually is…
How did so much of the Epic of Gilgamesh remain hidden and forgotten – but preserved – for over 2,000 years until being rediscovered in modern times?
What did Netflix’s movie “The Dig” miss about the most dramatic part of the whole Sutton Hoo discovery?
What does the English Civil War of the 1640s tell us about the American Civil War, and about the present?
What can we know about enslaved Africans who were held in a specific New England house, even without written records?
Who were the Freemasons of the 1700s? How did they grow from a local Scottish fraternity to a global network?
How can one mid-sized U.S. city – Tulsa, Oklahoma – serve as a microcosm of so much of the triumphalism and tragedy of American history?
Why can no one agree on what “capitalism” actually is? And why does a lack of clear definition call into question so many other myths of the modern world?
How – and why – did universities begin in the Middle Ages, long before the scientific revolution and the “Enlightenment”?
Was there really an Exodus from Egypt like the one described in the Bible?
How did accusing people of witchcraft further several political agendas of the time?
Why did every Renaissance-era ruler in Europe have a court astrologer?
Does a single coin prove that Vikings came all the way to what’s now the United States?
Why is the dramatic 2019 fire at Paris’ Notre Dame actually a common occurrence for cathedrals around Europe?
Why don’t US citizens directly elect their President? Or have a more proportional Senate?
Are people really becoming less religious than they used to be?
What did followers of the ancient and secretive branch of Christianity, Gnosticism, actually believe?
How did changes in the climate in the 1600s lead people to think they were living in the Apocalypse? How did this help spur the creation of institutions and forces that still shape the world today?
Could all of British history have turned out differently if the winds on the English channel had shifted direction on just one day in 1066?