Sat, Oct 16, 2021
Historian Paul Cooper traces the rise and fall of one of the most remarkable ancient civilizations: the society known today as the neo-Assyrian Empire. He describes how the Assyrians built their empire out of the ashes of the Bronze Age, and built an empire of iron that lasted for centuries, illustrating the extraordinary flourishing of art and technology that they fostered. Eventually, he shows what happened to cause their final, devastating collapse.
Sat, Feb 6, 2021
Paul Cooper examines one of history's most incredible stories of survival - the thousand-year epic of the Byzantine Empire. He explains how this civilization suffered the loss of its Western half, and continued the unbroken legacy of Rome right through the Middle Ages. Cooper discusses how the ancient city formed a bridge between two continents, and two ages, and from the outskirts of modern Istanbul where a line of ancient walls lies crumbling into the earth, explains how the impregnable defenses of Constantinople were finally brought crashing to the ground. The second half of the two part episode covers the period from the 8th Century A.D. to the fall of the empire in the Fifteenth Century A.D.
Mon, Jan 21, 2019
Sometime around the year 1100 BC, a wave of destruction washed over the Eastern Mediterranean. It wiped whole civilizations off the map, and left only ash and ruin in its wake. This catastrophe, known as "The Late Bronze Age Collapse", has become one of the enduring puzzles of archaeology. Historian Paul M.M. Cooper explores how and why so many societies could collapse all at once, seemingly without warning, as well as examine the lessons it might teach us in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
Sun, Jan 31, 2021
Paul Cooper examines one of history's most incredible stories of survival - the thousand-year epic of the Byzantine Empire. He explains how this civilization suffered the loss of its Western half, and continued the unbroken legacy of Rome right through the Middle Ages. Cooper discusses how the ancient city formed a bridge between two continents, and two ages, and from the outskirts of modern Istanbul where a line of ancient walls lies crumbling into the earth, explains how the impregnable defenses of Constantinople were finally brought crashing to the ground. The first of the two part episode covers the period from the founding of Byzantium through the 8th Century A.D.
Mon, Jan 21, 2019
Historian Paul M.M. Cooper examines the sudden arrival of advanced Roman civilization on the island of Great Britain in the first century BCE, how it endured for half a millennium against waves of barbarian invasions and its own inept rulers, and particularly what happened after its final dramatic collapse in the fifth century CE when Rome's mighty legions marched away, never to return.
Sat, Dec 5, 2020
Paul Cooper examines the remarkable story of the Han Dynasty, the first empire of ancient China. Using ancient Chinese poetry, songs and folk music, he traces the first empire's rise, its remarkable technological advances, and its early, tentative attempts to make contact with the empires of the west. Finally, he looks at all the reasons behind the first age of Imperial China's final, dramatic collapse which left a city in ruins, a dynasty in tatters and an empire in ashes.
Thu, Apr 9, 2020
In the tropical forests of Central America, vast stone pyramids built by the Mayan people slowly crumble beneath the trees. Series host Paul Cooper examines one of humanity's greatest romantic mysteries - the fall of the classic Maya civilization. He reviews how this great civilization grew up among environmental conditions that no other civilization has ever contended with, discusses the fatal flaws that lay beneath its surface, and relates what happened after its final, cataclysmic collapse.