The first episode of Crash Course: World History is about the Agricultural Revolution (and double cheeseburgers). I hope you like it and share it with your friends and/or teachers and/or students. I AM VERY NERVOUS AND EXCITED.
I am going to try and enumerate the many ways in which this video (series) is great (sure I debated whether I should go with the rhyme and I went with it).
1. Anything, anything, anything to get people to pay attention to history. Today my Social History and Literary Works in Modern (ie. golden centuries (XV-XVIII) not like, now) spent the last half hour of our semester bemoaning (it’s great when the spanish bemoan) the fact that there is not enough emphasis on the humanities because the humanities teach us to be human. Not machines. Humans who can do such things as dominate the planet, although with some very negative consequences.
2. Hey, do you know that I’m going to write my honors thesis on the history of junk food? I only tell everyone all the time. Basically, it’s undeniable how important our food source is to our history. I think, in the same way that the agricultural revolution allowed us to, you know, have cities (and let’s be honest, everything happens in cities because things happen when you put people together, woohoo cities), the development of processed food as the basis of our food source (with the TV dinner being exemplarary) really changed the formation of our society. There are gender roles to talk about and the entire formation of families and it’s super interesting.
3. How cute are those graphics? Win for vector graphics. Always.
4. Don’t you want to be John Green’s friend? I do.
5. How do I join the team of “semi-professional quasi-historians?”
