{"podcast":{"title":"Western Civ","slug":"western-civ-780766","podcast_index_feed_id":780766,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/5553835/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.westerncivpodcast.com","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/a45449e0f8427d59666fc5dfcf007a95.jpg","author":"Adam Walsh","episode_count":594,"summary":"A fast-moving history of the western world from the ancient world to the present day. Examine how the emergence of the western world as a global dominant power was not something that should ever have been taken for granted. This podcast traces the development of western civilization starting in the ancient Near East, through Greece and Rome, past the collapse of the Western Roman Empire into the Dark Ages, and then follows European and, ultimately, American history as the western world moved into a dominant world position.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-18T00:18:32.647147+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/western-civ-780766"},"episode":{"title":"Europe: A New History","slug":"europe-a-new-history","published_at":"2026-04-28T12:35:02+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/western-civ-780766/europe-a-new-history","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/western-civ-780766","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/europe-a-new-history--71099005","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71099005/europe.mp3","summary":"In this bonus, author interview, I sit down with historian Roderick Beaton and discuss his latest book, E urope: A New History . What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, “Europe” has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe’s major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years. BUY THE BOOK Support Western Civ","meta_description":"In this bonus, author interview, I sit down with historian Roderick Beaton and discuss his latest book, E urope: A New History . What do we talk about whe…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2720,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/western-civ-780766/episodes/europe-a-new-history/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/western-civ-780766/europe-a-new-history.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}