Andrew Marr's History of the World
The Age of Empire
Andrew Marr's History of the World - Empire
Ever since modern people began to spread from Africa, our biggest battle had been with the forces of nature.
But, as we created the first civilisations, we found we faced a sharper threat… Human nature.
3,000 years ago the world was being churned and pulled apart in the first great age of Empire. This was the time of vicious civil wars, all the way from China, through India, to the Mediterranean.
And you'd think that all this violence would push the human story back.
The awkward truth is that all the violence in fact drove the human story forward. This is a period of extraordinary new thinking on everything
from democracy to God, from some of the greatest minds we've ever come across.
War is always terrible. But here, anyway, is the case for war.
