The Scribe’s Advantage

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The history behind each chapter, in animated documentaries

122 videos on the people, places and events the book visits, from the fall of Baghdad and the Bronze Age collapse to Caesar and Pompey, the Inca at Cajamarca and Constantinople in 1453. Each video sits in the chapter that tells its story, numbered in the order the chapter tells it, so you can watch a chapter straight through. Each card opens the video on YouTube.

Every video here was made by Kings and Generals and plays on its YouTube channel. This site is not affiliated with Kings and Generals.

Pen and ink banner of Baghdad burning at dusk: a boy and an old scholar carry armfuls of books along the bank of the Tigris, followed by families, a porter with a book chest and a donkey loaded with codices, while a boatman stacks books in a round reed boat; Mongol horsemen with bows wait at the far left, loose pages float on the river, and the smoke above the burning domes curls into the long shape of a dragon.

Prologue

The Account

3 videos in watch order

Baghdad, 1258. In February 1258 the Mongol army took Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, and its libraries burned. People carried out what books they could. Full size

  1. The Mongol sack of Baghdad, 1258

    1Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARYHulagu's siege and sack of Baghdad in 1258, then the Mamluk stand at Ain Jalut.Series: Mongols

    Also in Chapter 7, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 16, Chapter 26

  2. Abbasid Baghdad, the City of Peace

    2Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARYBaghdad from its founding by the Abbasids to its destruction by the Mongols.

    Also in Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 10, Chapter 13, Chapter 16, Chapter 25, Chapter 26

  3. Science in the Islamic Golden Age

    3Islamic Golden Age: Scientific Method DOCUMENTARYScholars of the Abbasid world and the beginnings of experimental science.Series: Islamic Golden Age

    Also in Chapter 10, Chapter 16, Chapter 25

Also on this chapter's history: Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities (Chapter 13, no. 6).

Pen and ink banner of a bearded man in a bearskin cap and a striped hide coat climbing a snowy Alpine ridge with a copper axe, a longbow and a bark container on a wooden pack frame; to the left a green valley with timber houses, goats and small figures climbing on his trail, to the right a glacier full of crevasses under the peaks.

Chapter 1

Red on the Snow

8 videos in watch order

The man on the pass. About 5,300 years ago a man climbed into the Ötztal Alps with a copper axe, a longbow and a quiver of arrows. His body came out of the glacier ice in 1991. Full size

  1. Sargon and the Akkadian Empire

    1Rise and Fall of the Akkadian EmpireSargon of Akkad builds the first empire over the Sumerian cities, and it collapses.

    Also in Chapter 19

  2. Xenia, the Greek law of hospitality

    2Ancient Law That Created the Greek Mediterranean World - Zeus' LawXenia, the sacred Greek law of hospitality to strangers, and how it bound together the Greek Mediterranean.

  3. The Late Bronze Age collapse

    3Did the Bronze Age Really Collapse? Ancient History DOCUMENTARYThe trade and diplomatic network of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean and the debate over how it collapsed.

    Also in Chapter 4

  4. The Greek Dark Ages

    4Did You Know Ancient Greece Had Its Dark Ages?Greece after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces: the lost Linear B script and the slow return of writing with the alphabet.

    Also in Chapter 4

  5. Genghis Khan and the Y chromosome

    5Is Genghis Khan Ancestor of the Millions?The genetic case for Genghis Khan's descendants among millions of living men.

    Also in Chapter 22

  6. The steppe migrations and the Indo-Europeans

    6Evolution of the Indo-European Languages - Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARYHow the Indo-European languages spread from the steppe across Europe and Asia.

  7. Sudan's civil wars and the fall of El Fasher

    7Sudan’s Three Civil Wars ExplainedWhy every peace in Sudan since independence has broken down into war, through the RSF war and El Fasher.

  8. Daily life and scribes in ancient Egypt

    8Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians - Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARYWork, food, family and the scribes of everyday life along the Nile.

Also on this chapter's history: Rise of Sumer: Cradle of Civilization DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 2, no. 1); Did the Trojan War Really Happen? (Chapter 4, no. 5).

Pen and ink banner of a Shang palace hall open to the fields: a diviner holds a heated ox shoulder blade in tongs over a brazier while a kneeling scribe waits with a knife, a ruler in a tall headdress sits with attendants behind, workers sort turtle shells and bones beside the pits, harvesters cut grain by the river beyond, and the smoke from the brazier curls into a small dragon above the roof.

Chapter 2

The Agricultural Down Payment: The Crop That Fed the Scribes and Set a Woman’s Fate

4 videos in watch order

Asking the bones. Shang kings put their questions to heated ox bones and turtle shells, read the cracks, and had the answers cut into the bone, more than three thousand years ago. They are the oldest body of Chinese writing known. Full size

  1. Uruk and the rise of Sumer

    1Rise of Sumer: Cradle of Civilization DOCUMENTARYSumer's first cities rise in southern Mesopotamia, with Uruk and its Eanna temple district at the center.

    Also in Chapter 1, Chapter 8

  2. Shang China and the oracle bones

    2How Old Is Chinese Civilization? - Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARYThe Shang and Zhou dynasties and the oracle bones of early China.

  3. Rice paddies and shared water

    3Subak - Balinese "Water Temples" and the Management of IrrigationBali's subak system, where water temples run the irrigation of the rice terraces.

  4. Japan's women warriors

    4Japanese Warrior Women - Female Samurai DOCUMENTARYThe women warriors of Japan, from Tomoe Gozen onward.
Pen and ink banner of a Roman house in cutaway: in the lamplit middle room a mother in a draped gown sits on a wooden birthing chair, held by two women, while a midwife kneels before her, a girl brings a bowl of water and an old woman tends a brazier; to the left a steward writes on a tablet by the household shrine as a grandmother holds two children and a dog sleeps; to the right, past a garden colonnade, a man plows with oxen.

Chapter 3

The Birthing Chair

4 videos in watch order

The birthing chair. In a Roman house the midwife delivered on a birthing chair while the women of the household held the mother. Outside, the fields were plowed with oxen. Full size

  1. Caesar, Pompey and the end of the triumvirate

    1Caesar's Great Roman Civil War - How it all started - DOCUMENTARYHow the alliance of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus came apart.Series: Caesar's Civil War

  2. Pompey's death in Egypt

    2Siege of Alexandria 48 BC - Caesar's Civil War DOCUMENTARYCaesar lands in Egypt after Pompey's murder and is besieged in Alexandria.Series: Caesar's Civil War

  3. Crassus at Carrhae

    3Carrhae 53 BC - Roman–Parthian War DOCUMENTARYCrassus leads a Roman army to destruction against the Parthians at Carrhae.

  4. The assassination of Julius Caesar

    4Assassination of Julius Caesar: Why and How DOCUMENTARYBrutus, Cassius and the conspirators kill the dictator Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 BC.

    Also in Chapter 8

Also on this chapter's history: Caesar's Civil War: The War Begins 49BC DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 8, no. 4); What Happened In Rome After Caesar's Assassination - Roman DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 8, no. 7).

Pen and ink banner of the night Pylos burned: in a small archive room a scribe writes on a clay tablet beside shelves and baskets of tablets, flames already on the roof above him; to the left a guard with a crested helmet and round shield rises from his bench by the gate as people run past with jars and a horse rears; to the right people carry goods out past storerooms of tall oil jars.

Chapter 4

Those Who Bronze Together

18 videos in watch order

The archive at Pylos. Around 1180 BC the Palace of Nestor at Pylos burned. The fire baked its unfired clay tablets hard, and that is how they lasted. Full size

Show all 18 videos

  1. The Bronze Age collapse

    1Who Were The Sea Peoples? - Kings and Generals Bronze Age DOCUMENTARYWho the raiders Egypt called the Sea Peoples may have been.

  2. The Bronze Age collapse

    2How did Ancient Egypt Survive the Bronze Age Collapse?How Ramesses III held Egypt together while the Bronze Age world fell.

  3. The Bronze Age collapse

    3Were the Sea Peoples Actually Greek? Did Greeks Destroy the Bronze Age?The case for and against the Sea Peoples being Mycenaean Greeks.

  4. Mycenaean Greece

    4Mycenae - What do we know about it? Bronze Age Greece DOCUMENTARYWhat archaeology tells us about Mycenae and the palace kingdoms of Bronze Age Greece.

  5. Homer and the Bronze Age

    5Did the Trojan War Really Happen?The archaeology of Troy and the Bronze Age world behind the Iliad.

    Also in Chapter 1, Chapter 8

  6. Homer and the Bronze Age

    6Odysseus: Historicity, Inspirations and Themes from Ancient GreeceWhat history may sit behind Odysseus and the Odyssey.

  7. Phoenician Tyre and Carthage

    7Foundation of Carthage - Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARYPhoenician Tyre founds Carthage on the North African coast.

  8. Philip and Alexander

    8Armies and Tactics: Philip II and Macedonian PhalanxThe Macedonian army Philip II built and Alexander inherited.

  9. Philip and Alexander

    9Diplomatic Genius of Philip of MacedonHow Philip II made Macedon the master of Greece.

  10. Philip and Alexander

    10Alexander’s Impossible Conquest ExplainedWhy Alexander could topple the Persian Empire: Philip's legacy, Persian weakness and Macedonian arms.

  11. Philip and Alexander

    11Alexander the Great - All Battles and Conquests EXPLAINED in 6 HoursEvery battle and campaign of Alexander, in six hours.

  12. Philip and Alexander

    12Alexander the Great's Conquest - Balkan Campaign 335 BCAlexander secures the Danube frontier, then destroys Thebes, 335 BC.

  13. Alexandria and its Library

    13Alexandria: The Cultural Heart of Ancient Egypt, One of the Seven WondersAlexander's city in Egypt, its lighthouse, Museum and Library.

  14. Philip and Alexander

    14Alexander of Macedon - Conquest of Persia - Ancient History DOCUMENTARYAlexander's war against Darius III, from the Granicus to Persepolis.

  15. The end of Ptolemaic Egypt

    15Battle of Alexandria 30 BC - End of Antony and Cleopatra 4K DOCUMENTARYOctavian takes Alexandria in 30 BC, ending the reign of Antony and Cleopatra.

  16. Alexander's successors

    16Babylonian War - Diadochi Wars Continue - Ancient History DOCUMENTARYSeleucus fights Antigonus for Babylon and the eastern satrapies, 311 to 309 BC.Series: Diadochi Wars

  17. Alexander's successors

    17How the Diadochi Wars Ended - Successors of Alexander End His EmpireThe last wars among Alexander's successors and the settling of the Hellenistic kingdoms.Series: Diadochi Wars

  18. Alexander's successors

    18Sad End of Alexander's Empire - Diadochi Wars - Every Battle, Full StoryThe wars of Alexander's successors and the breakup of his empire.Series: Diadochi Wars

Also on this chapter's history: Did the Bronze Age Really Collapse? Ancient History DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 1, no. 3); Did You Know Ancient Greece Had Its Dark Ages? (Chapter 1, no. 4); What was lost when the Library of Alexandria burned? - DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 8, no. 12).

Pen and ink banner of a night wedding in a south Indian temple hall: a bride and groom in silk sit before a small fire while an old priest reads from a book, their families seated and standing around them with plates of rice and flowers, children running between carved granite pillars hung with lamps and marigold garlands; musicians play long pipes and a drum on the left, and on the right cooks stir great pots beside a temple elephant under a lit temple tower.

Chapter 5

What the Genome Actually Says

2 videos in watch order

A temple wedding. A wedding in a south Indian temple courtyard around the turn of this century, lit by oil lamps under carved granite pillars. Full size

  1. The Indo-Aryan migration into South Asia

    1Did the Aryan Invasion Actually Happen? Ancient Civilizations DOCUMENTARYThe evidence for and against an Indo-Aryan migration into India.

  2. Jewish life in the medieval Islamic world

    2How Did the Jews Live in the Early Caliphate? History of ReligionsHow Jews lived, traded and practiced medicine and law under the early caliphates.
Pen and ink banner of the Western Desert at first light: an old Aboriginal man sits barefoot in the red sand by a small fire, singing and keeping time with one hand, while a younger man across the fire listens and repeats after him under a desert tree; to the left red dunes, a rocky ridge, mulga and a waterhole run off into the distance along a walking track where a family walks; to the right, across a cold grey sea, Aboriginal Tasmanian people in wallaby skin cloaks gather shellfish beside a shell midden and a cooking fire below tall eucalyptus forest.

Chapter 6

The Spoken Word, Its Magic and Misery

Singing the country. In the Western Desert a songline carries the country in song, each phrase a stretch of ground, and an elder teaches it one verse at a time. On Tasmania, cut off by the rising sea about twelve thousand years ago, a few thousand people lived on as their bone tools and fishing fell away. Full size

Kings and Generals has no video yet on the history this chapter tells.

Pen and ink banner of the square at Cajamarca: on the right an Inca procession of sweepers, dancers in checked tunics and lords in feathered headdresses advances with the ruler carried high on a golden litter and an official holding a knotted quipu cord; on the left Spanish soldiers in steel helmets wait with their horses in the shadow of long stone halls, and a friar in a brown habit steps out holding a book; a great crowd fills the far side of the square under terraced green hills.

Chapter 7

The New World Meets the ‘Civilized World’

8 videos in watch order

Cajamarca, 1532. On November 16, 1532, the Inca ruler Atahualpa was carried into the square at Cajamarca, where Pizarro's men waited in the buildings around it. Full size

  1. The Inca Empire

    1Peak of the Incan EmpireThe Inca empire at its height under Huayna Capac.Series: Inca Empire

  2. The Inca and Cajamarca

    2Spanish Conquest of the Incan EmpirePizarro captures Atahualpa at Cajamarca and the Spanish take the Inca empire.Series: Inca Empire

  3. Cortés and the Aztecs

    3Aztecs: Arrival of Cortes and the ConquistadorsCortés lands in Mexico and reaches Moctezuma's capital.Series: Aztecs

  4. Cortés and the Aztecs

    4Fall of Tenochtitlan (1521) - Spanish-Aztec War DOCUMENTARYThe siege and fall of the Aztec capital in 1521.Series: Aztecs

  5. The Inca Empire

    5History of the Inca Empire DOCUMENTARYThe Inca from their origins to the Spanish conquest.

  6. The Maya

    6Rise of the MayaHow the Maya city-states rose across the lowlands of Mesoamerica, with their writing, calendar and astronomy.

  7. The Comanche

    7Comanches - A Nomadic Empire on the American PlainsHow the Comanche built a horse empire across the southern Plains.

  8. The Mongols take Baghdad and end the Song

    8Mongols: Civil Wars and Conquest of China - Battle of Yamen 1279 DOCUMENTARYKublai Khan's wars and the final destruction of the Song at Yamen, 1279.Series: Mongols

Also on this chapter's history: Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 1); Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities (Chapter 13, no. 6).

Pen and ink banner of the dig at Kouyunjik in 1847: workmen in robes and headcloths pass baskets up ladders out of a deep trench where a man in a wide hat stands before a carved winged bull and a young man kneels with a hand lens over the broken tablets heaped on the floor; beside the bull a wall relief shows a serpent dragon, and above the trench camels and donkeys wait by the tents with the Tigris and Mosul beyond.

Chapter 8

The Scribe’s Advantage

12 videos in watch order

Kouyunjik, 1847. In 1847 Austen Henry Layard began digging the mound of Kouyunjik at Nineveh. The palace rooms his workmen opened there held some of the tablets of Ashurbanipal's library. Full size

Show all 12 videos

  1. The Library of Ashurbanipal

    1Seven Other Wonders of the Ancient World - Historical 3D DOCUMENTARYLesser-known ancient wonders, among them the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and the Great Library of Alexandria.

  2. Mansa Musa's Hajj

    2Was Mansa Musa the Wealthiest Person Who Ever Lived?Mansa Musa of Mali and his famous pilgrimage to Mecca.

  3. Fall of the Roman Republic

    3Mos Maiorum: What led to the fall of the Roman Republic?How the Republic's unwritten customs broke down.

  4. Caesar's Civil War

    4Caesar's Civil War: The War Begins 49BC DOCUMENTARYCaesar crosses the Rubicon in 49 BC and Pompey abandons Italy.Series: Caesar's Civil War

    Also in Chapter 3

  5. Caesar's Civil War

    5Caesar against Pompey - Great Roman Civil War DOCUMENTARYCaesar against Pompey: the Great Roman Civil War told campaign by campaign.Series: Caesar's Civil War

  6. Caesar's Civil War

    6How Caesar Won the Great Roman Civil War - Animated DOCUMENTARYCaesar's war against Pompey and the Senate, from the Rubicon in 49 BC to Munda in 45 BC.Series: Caesar's Civil War

  7. Cicero's Rome

    7What Happened In Rome After Caesar's Assassination - Roman DOCUMENTARYRome in the weeks after the Ides of March, from the funeral to Octavian's arrival.Series: Post-Caesar Civil Wars

    Also in Chapter 3

  8. Cicero's Rome

    8Post-Caesar Civil Wars - Battle of Mutina - Roman History DOCUMENTARYThe war of Mutina in 43 BC, when the Senate sent Octavian against Antony.Series: Post-Caesar Civil Wars

  9. Death of Cicero

    9Octavian and Antony: the Monsters - Post-Caesar Civil Wars DOCUMENTARYThe proscriptions of 43 BC, in which Cicero was hunted down near Formiae and killed.Series: Post-Caesar Civil Wars

  10. Cicero's Rome

    10Rise of Augustus - Post Caesar RomeOctavian, Antony and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate and its proscriptions.Series: Post-Caesar Civil Wars

  11. The Medici of Florence

    11Rise and Fall of the Medici Dynasty - Renaissance History DOCUMENTARYThe Medici bank and the family that ruled Renaissance Florence.

    Also in Chapter 13

  12. The Library of Alexandria

    12What was lost when the Library of Alexandria burned? - DOCUMENTARYWhat the Library of Alexandria held and how it was lost.

    Also in Chapter 4

Also on this chapter's history: Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Rise of Sumer: Cradle of Civilization DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 2, no. 1); Assassination of Julius Caesar: Why and How DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 3, no. 4); Did the Trojan War Really Happen? (Chapter 4, no. 5).

Pen and ink banner of a Hunan village before dawn: a boy in a blue scholar's gown and cap walks out with his father, who carries a lantern and a basket of brushes and food, while his mother, grandmother and little sister watch from the door of a stone house; other families with lanterns walk the paddy banks past a water buffalo, and an ancestral hall with a carved dragon on its roof ridge and a stone bridge stand beside a path into the misty hills.

Chapter 9

The Dragon Learns to Take a Test

1 video

Examination morning. In the late Qing a village boy set out before dawn for the county examination with his brushes, ink stone and food. It was the first of the tests that led, for very few, to office. Full size

  1. Zheng He's Treasure Fleet

    1Zheng He's Floating City: When China Dominated the OceansThe Ming treasure fleets that sailed as far as Africa under Zheng He.
Pen and ink banner of a family house on the Malabar Coast around 1490: on a shaded wooden veranda a mathematician in a white cloth sits with a board of fine sand on his lap, tracing figures with his fingertip, an iron stylus and two tied bundles of palm leaf manuscripts beside him; to the left three boys cut and blacken palm leaves by a brass lamp in front of the tiled house; to the right, past a stepped pond and a brick wall, people plant rice in flooded paddies beside a river with a covered boat, under the steep green wall of the Western Ghats.

Chapter 10

Caste and Calculus

The veranda at Trkkantiyur. Around 1490, on the veranda of his family's house on the Malabar Coast, Nilakantha Somayaji worked on a sand board and cut his results into palm leaves, among them a series for pi that Europe would publish nearly two centuries later. Full size

This chapter's history is told in videos placed with other chapters: Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Islamic Golden Age: Scientific Method DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 3).

Pen and ink banner of the salt flats near Basra: enslaved East African men in wrapped cloth scrape white salt crust into baskets and carry it on their heads through flooded flats where the salt lies in long ridges; an overseer with a whip rides a donkey on the left past reed huts, date palms and women carrying water jars, and on the right a crowd of laborers raises tools at the edge of the reeds under dark smoke.

Chapter 11

A River in Chains

10 videos in watch order

The salt flats of Basra. In ninth-century southern Iraq enslaved East Africans, the Zanj, were set to scraping salt crust off the marshes to make farmland. In 869 they rose in a revolt that lasted fourteen years. Full size

Show all 10 videos

  1. Roman slavery and its decline

    1How Europe Transitioned from Slavery to Serfdom - Middle Ages DOCUMENTARYHow slavery in the Roman world, counted in the millions, gave way to medieval serfdom.

  2. Slavery in the early caliphates

    2Slavery in the Early Caliphate - Medieval History DOCUMENTARYHow slavery worked in the early Islamic caliphates.

  3. The Zanj Rebellion

    3Zanj Rebellion - Slave rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate DOCUMENTARYThe revolt of enslaved East Africans in southern Iraq, 869 to 883.Series: Zanj Rebellion

  4. The Zanj Rebellion

    4The Largest Slave Rebellion Against the Caliphate - ANIMATED HISTORYThe revolt of enslaved East Africans in southern Iraq, 869 to 883, told in a newer film.Series: Zanj Rebellion

  5. The devshirme and the Janissaries

    5The Rise of the Janissaries: Ottoman Military RevolutionHow the Ottomans built the Janissary corps from levied Christian boys.

    Also in Chapter 13

  6. The devshirme and the Janissaries

    6Elite Guard of the Ottoman Sultans - the JanissariesThe Janissaries, their recruitment, training and power.

    Also in Chapter 13

  7. Slavery and the American Civil War

    7How Slavery Caused the American Civil WarHow slavery drove the United States to civil war.

  8. Slavery and the American Civil War

    8The Real Reason Behind the American Civil WarThe causes of the American Civil War, read from the sources.

  9. Slavery and the American Civil War

    9How the American Civil War Happened - Road to the WarThe road to the American Civil War, from the founders' compromises over slavery to secession.

  10. The Romani in Europe

    10From India to Europe: The Romani OdysseyThe Romani migration from India to Europe and its long history.
Pen and ink banner of the anchorage at Malindi in 1498: a pilot in a white robe and cap sits in a small rowing boat looking up at a towering Portuguese ship with red crosses on its sails and sailors at its rail; on the left the town's coral stone houses, mosque and palms rise above a busy beach of traders with bales and fishermen with nets, and on the right dhows with triangular sails ride at anchor with more ships farther out.

Chapter 12

The Stolen River

5 videos in watch order

The pilot at Malindi. At Malindi in 1498 Vasco da Gama's ships took on a pilot who knew the monsoon route across the Indian Ocean to India. Full size

  1. The Teutonic Order in Prussia

    1Structure of the Teutonic Order DOCUMENTARYHow the Teutonic Order was organized and governed in Prussia.Series: Teutonic Order

  2. The Teutonic Order in Prussia

    2How the Teutonic Order Conquered Prussia - Military Orders DOCUMENTARYThe Teutonic Knights' long conquest of the pagan Prussians.Series: Teutonic Order

  3. The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean

    3Ottoman-Portuguese War - Age of Colonization DOCUMENTARYThe opening rounds of the Ottoman-Portuguese wars.

  4. The Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt

    4Ottoman-Mamluk War of 1516-1517 DOCUMENTARYSelim I destroys the Mamluk Sultanate and takes Egypt.

  5. The Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt

    5The Battle That Changed the Middle East - Ottomans Broke the MamluksMarj Dabiq and Ridaniya, the battles that ended Mamluk rule.

Also on this chapter's history: Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 1).

Pen and ink banner of a high room in Florence: an elderly Greek scholar in a dark robe and tall hat teaches a circle of young men in red and black from an open manuscript, with Brunelleschi's dome filling the window behind him; on the left servants unpack chests of books and a student copies a page, and on the right two students hold a book up to the window light beside a globe, a blank map and a shelf of books.

Chapter 13

The Flight of the Dragon

6 videos in watch order

Greek in Florence. Greek scholars from Byzantium taught in Italian cities through the fifteenth century, before and after Constantinople fell in 1453, and brought chests of Greek manuscripts with them. Full size

  1. The fall of Constantinople, 1453

    1Fall Of Constantinople 1453 - Ottoman Wars DOCUMENTARYThe siege of 1453 in the channel's original telling.

  2. The fall of Constantinople, 1453

    2Fall of Constantinople 1453 - Ottoman Empire DOCUMENTARYMehmed II's siege and the end of the Byzantine Empire.

  3. Byzantium and the Greek classics

    3Was the Byzantine Empire the Heir to the Ancient Greeks?How much of ancient Greece Byzantium kept.

  4. Constantinople after the conquest

    4What Happened After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453? Ottoman HistoryThe Ottoman capital and the Byzantine world after the conquest.

    Also in Chapter 20

  5. Greek fire

    5Byzantine Navy: Greek Fire, Tactics, Ships - Medieval HistoryThe Byzantine navy: its ships, its tactics and the secret weapon of Greek fire.

  6. The fall of Baghdad

    6Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and HumanitiesPhilosophy and learning in the Abbasid caliphate.Series: Islamic Golden Age

    Also in Prologue, Chapter 7, Chapter 16, Chapter 25

Also on this chapter's history: Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 1); Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Rise and Fall of the Medici Dynasty - Renaissance History DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 8, no. 11); The Rise of the Janissaries: Ottoman Military Revolution (Chapter 11, no. 5); Elite Guard of the Ottoman Sultans - the Janissaries (Chapter 11, no. 6).

Pen and ink banner of a university town in the Thirty Years' War: on the left a tall stone building cut away to show a printing press under the roof and a broad stair below it, where scholars carry stacks of printed books down floor by floor to a courier at the street; at the center a bearded scholar writes a letter by candlelight among books and a globe; on the right a courier rides out past a burning farmhouse and a column of pikemen toward a striped barrier, and another crosses a stone bridge.

Chapter 14

Latin: A Republic of Letters Across Borders and Time

2 videos in watch order

Letters in wartime. Through the Thirty Years' War, from 1618 to 1648, scholars went on writing to one another across Europe, and couriers carried the letters past the armies. Full size

  1. The fragmented Holy Roman Empire

    1Why Was Germany so Fragmented in the Middle Ages - Medieval DOCUMENTARYWhy the Holy Roman Empire stayed a patchwork of princes, bishops and cities instead of becoming one kingdom.

  2. The Thirty Years' War

    2Why the Thirty Years' War Was So Devastating - European Wars of ReligionWhy the war of 1618 to 1648 ruined Central Europe.

    Also in Chapter 16

Pen and ink banner of a hillside school in Busan in 1951: children sit on straw mats with slates while a young woman teacher points to a blackboard propped against a pine, a small boy beside her; other classes meet under tents to the left as women carry water up the slope, and to the right refugee shacks with laundry lines crowd the hill above a harbor full of ships and cranes.

Chapter 15

Institutional Divergence

2 videos in watch order

School on the hillside. During the Korean War refugees crowded into Busan, and schools met in tents and in the open air, the children on straw mats with slates on their knees. Full size

  1. The retreat from Pyongyang, 1950

    1Korean War 1950-1953 - Chinese Intervention 1950 - COLD WAR DOCUMENTARYChina enters the Korean War and drives the UN armies back from the Yalu and out of North Korea.Series: Korean War

  2. The Korean armistice of 1953

    2How the Korean War Ended - COLD WAR DOCUMENTARYThe armistice of 1953 and the divided peninsula it left.Series: Korean War
Pen and ink banner of monks arriving at Kells: a small group in rough habits walks up a country road carrying leather book satchels, a carved reliquary and a great book held to the eldest monk's chest, a cart of chests behind them; on the hilltop ahead masons raise stone walls and a round tower in timber scaffolding, and cattle graze by a thatched cottage where women spin wool.

Chapter 16

The Gate and the Gatekeeper

1 video

From Iona to Kells. After the Viking raids on Iona its monks moved inland to Kells in Ireland, where a new monastery went up from 807. They brought their books and relics with them. Full size

  1. The Red Army in the Russian Civil War

    1Rise of the Red Army - Eastern Front Week-by-Week Prelude #2How the Bolsheviks built the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in the Civil War and the 1920s.Series: Eastern Front Week-by-Week

Also on this chapter's history: Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 1); Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Islamic Golden Age: Scientific Method DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 3); Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities (Chapter 13, no. 6); Why the Thirty Years' War Was So Devastating - European Wars of Religion (Chapter 14, no. 2).

Pen and ink banner of the Dutch Republic: on the left windmills and a long dyke over green polders where diggers mend the bank and cows graze; at the center a counting room where merchants weigh spices on a balance and a woman writes in a large ledger beneath maps and globes; on the right porters carry sacks along an Amsterdam quay as a crane lifts barrels from a tall ship.

Chapter 17

Challenge and Response

3 videos in watch order

The Dutch Republic. In the seventeenth century the Dutch held back the sea with dykes and windmills, and East India Company ships brought spices home to Amsterdam to be weighed, sold and entered in the books. Full size

  1. Morris Chang and TSMC

    1Taiwan's Chip Industry: Success Amid Geopolitical Tensions and AI-Era ProspectsHow Taiwan built TSMC and the world's leading chip industry.

    Also in Chapter 26

  2. The General Crisis of the seventeenth century

    2Why Were Things So Terrible In the 17th Century - General Crisis TheoryThe global crisis of the 1600s: cold, famine, war and revolt.

  3. The Dutch East India Company

    3How the Dutch Colonized IndonesiaThe Dutch East India Company and the conquest of the Indonesian islands.
Pen and ink banner of a cotton field in the Mississippi Delta: a small barefoot girl stands still between the rows looking toward a shut one room schoolhouse while her family and neighbors pick cotton around her with long sacks over their shoulders; a cabin, a mule wagon heaped with cotton and a gin stand on the left, and on the right a white man on horseback watches from near the big house under the oaks.

Chapter 18

The Deadweight Loss of Exclusion: Lost Einsteins

1 video

Picking season. In the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s sharecropping families picked cotton together, and children were kept out of school at picking time. Full size

  1. Napoleon in Prussia, 1806

    1Napoleonic Wars: Battles of Jena - Auerstedt 1806 DOCUMENTARYNapoleon shatters Prussia at Jena and Auerstedt and occupies its lands.
Pen and ink banner of a tiled chamber of the Ottoman harem: the queen mother sits on cushions before a carved lattice screen holding a written order, a scribe kneels writing on a long scroll, and a grand vizier in a tall turban bows to receive a paper; to the left women of the household talk and sew while a girl reads beside her teacher near a fountain, and to the right a guard stands at a carved door beside a window onto the domes and the Bosphorus.

Chapter 19

She’s Working 9 to 5, and Then Some

4 videos in watch order

The valide sultan. In the early 1600s, the years called the Sultanate of Women, the sultan's mother could rule for a boy sultan, sending her orders to the grand vizier in writing. Full size

  1. The Iranian Revolution

    1Why Iranian Revolution Happened - Kings and Generals ModernFrom the Pahlavi shahs to the revolution of 1979.

  2. The Slavic slave trade

    2Slavic Slave TradeThe medieval and early modern trade in Slavic captives.

  3. Ottoman succession and fratricide

    3Why did the Ottoman Sultans Kill their Brothers?Ottoman succession and the law of fratricide.

  4. The Sultanate of Women

    4Sultanate of Women in the Ottoman Empire DOCUMENTARYThe era when Ottoman royal women shaped imperial politics.

Also on this chapter's history: Rise and Fall of the Akkadian Empire (Chapter 1, no. 1); Meiji Restoration Explained: Rise of Japan DOCUMENTARY (Chapter 21, no. 5); Was Napoleon a Military Tyrant or a Reformer? Kings and Generals Documentary (Chapter 23, no. 1).

Pen and ink banner of a Turkish village square in 1928: a broad stone stairway climbing toward the mosque has become an open air school, with farmers, women in headscarves, a soldier and young people seated in rows down the steps with slates while a teacher at the foot points to a blackboard; more adults study on benches under the plane trees to the left by the market, and on the right children play at a fountain while an old scribe in a turban sits beside a tied stack of manuscripts.

Chapter 20

The Twentieth-Century Resets

2 videos in watch order

The new letters, 1928. In 1928 Turkey changed from the Arabic script to a Latin alphabet, and from the start of 1929 nation schools taught adults across the country to read and write it. Full size

  1. The Mitsubishi Zero

    1Rise and Fall of Zero: A6M and Its Struggle for Pacific SupremacyThe Mitsubishi A6M Zero and its fight for the Pacific.

  2. The Ottoman expansion after Mehmed II

    2How the Ottomans Became a Superpower and Tripled in SizeBayezid II and Selim I expand the Ottoman state, and Bayezid takes in the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Also on this chapter's history: What Happened After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453? Ottoman History (Chapter 13, no. 4).

Pen and ink banner of Uraga Bay in July 1853: in a village schoolroom with its paper screens open to the bay, a woman teacher and her pupils at low desks look out toward four foreign warships, two of them paddle steamers trailing smoke, ringed by small guard boats; on the left samurai officials and townspeople watch from behind a long cloth screen as a painter sketches and fishermen haul boats onto the beach, with Mount Fuji in the distance.

Chapter 21

The Summer of Civilization

5 videos in watch order

The black ships. In July 1853 Commodore Perry's four American warships, two of them steamers, anchored off Uraga. Japan already had thousands of village schools, the terakoya. Full size

  1. Japan closed and opened

    1How Europeans Tried to End Japanese Isolation - Colonialism DOCUMENTARYTwo centuries of Tokugawa isolation, the Dutch at Dejima, and the foreign attempts to open Japan before Perry.

  2. Japan closed and opened

    2What Was the Structure of Medieval Japan?- Guide to the Shogun TV ShowThe Edo social order: samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants, and those outside the four classes.

  3. Japan closed and opened

    3Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 - Battle of Tsushima DOCUMENTARYAdmiral Togo destroys the Russian Baltic Fleet at Tsushima, 1905.

  4. Japan closed and opened

    4How the Meiji Restoration Turned Japan into an Empire - Pacific War #0.2The Meiji reforms that turned Japan into a modern military power, through the Russo-Japanese War.Series: Pacific War

  5. Japan closed and opened

    5Meiji Restoration Explained: Rise of Japan DOCUMENTARYThe fall of the shogunate and Japan's rapid modernization.

    Also in Chapter 19

Pen and ink banner of the Vavilov institute in the winter siege of Leningrad: around a single lamp three gaunt scientists in coats sort seeds into small vials and write in a notebook, while others sleep at their desks and against the long rows of seed drawers, and sacks of potatoes and grain stand untouched; through the frosted windows, the snowy city, St Isaac's dome and a barrage balloon.

Chapter 22

The Student and the Teacher

14 videos in watch order

The seed bank in the siege. Through the siege of Leningrad the staff of the Vavilov plant institute guarded its seed collection, and several of them starved at their posts rather than eat it. Full size

Show all 14 videos

  1. The siege of Leningrad

    1Leningrad Isolated, Moscow in Hitler's Sights - Eastern Front DOCUMENTARYSeptember 1941: Leningrad is cut off as the drive on Moscow begins.

  2. The siege of Leningrad

    2Hitler Orders City’s Erasure - Zhukov Saves Leningrad - Eastern FrontThe Wehrmacht closes on Leningrad in 1941 and the siege begins.

  3. Alfred and the Vikings

    3Vikings: Battle of Edington 878 - Great Heathen Army DOCUMENTARYAlfred defeats Guthrum's Great Heathen Army at Edington.Series: Vikings in England

  4. Alfred, the burhs and the Danelaw

    4Vikings: War for England - Danelaw DOCUMENTARYAfter Edington, Alfred's burhs held Wessex against new Viking fleets, and his son Edward and daughter Æthelflæd won back the Danelaw.Series: Vikings in England

  5. Alfred and the Vikings

    5The Battle That Saved England - Saxons vs Vikings - Edington 878Edington 878, in the channel's newer full telling.Series: Vikings in England

  6. Alfred and the Vikings

    6Alfred's Reforms Save England - Battle of ButtingtonAlfred's fortified towns, army reforms, schools and translations, and the Viking defeat at Buttington.Series: Vikings in England

  7. Alfred and the Vikings

    7Why Did the Saxons Lose to the Vikings? Medieval Animated DOCUMENTARYWhy the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms failed against the Viking raids and the Great Heathen Army.

  8. The Mongol conquest of Rus

    8Destruction of Kievan Rus - Mongol Conquest DOCUMENTARYBatu's campaigns of 1237 to 1240 and the fall of Kyiv.

  9. Under the Golden Horde

    9How Rus Survived Mongols and Crusaders - Rise of NovgorodNovgorod and Alexander Nevsky between the Mongols and the crusaders.

  10. Under the Golden Horde

    10How the Mongols Lost Russia - Medieval History Animated DOCUMENTARYThe decline of the Golden Horde and the rise of Moscow.

  11. Ukraine under the tsars and Stalin

    11Holodomor - Ukrainians Between Two World WarsUkraine between the wars and the famine of 1932 to 1933.

  12. Chechnya

    12How Russia Lost the First Chechen War - Modern History DOCUMENTARYRussia's failed war in Chechnya, 1994 to 1996.Series: Chechen Wars

  13. Chechnya

    13How Russia Won the Second Chechen War - Modern History DOCUMENTARYRussia's second war in Chechnya from 1999 and the installation of Kadyrov's rule.Series: Chechen Wars

  14. Ukraine under the tsars and Stalin

    14How the Russian Empire Tried to Russify Ukraine DOCUMENTARYTsarist bans on the Ukrainian language and press.

Also on this chapter's history: Is Genghis Khan Ancestor of the Millions? (Chapter 1, no. 5).

Pen and ink banner of the Palais-Royal in July 1789: on the left a printing house cut away to show the press under the roof and a steep stair where apprentices pass stacks of fresh sheets down from hand to hand into the street; at the center a young man speaks from a café table under the arcades to a crowd of artisans, market women, soldiers and a priest reading pamphlets as sheets drift down from the windows; on the right people read on benches in the gardens and a boy holds up a broadsheet.

Chapter 23

The River Knows No Gate

1 video

The Palais-Royal, 1789. In July 1789 crowds filled the gardens of the Palais-Royal in Paris to hear speakers and read the pamphlets the presses turned out by the thousand. Full size

  1. The French Revolution and Napoleon

    1Was Napoleon a Military Tyrant or a Reformer? Kings and Generals DocumentaryNapoleon's reforms in France, above all the Civil Code of 1804, and the debate over his rule.

    Also in Chapter 19

Pen and ink banner of an Antarctic station in 1965: in a lamplit hut two men in heavy sweaters sit at a plank table, one holding up a glass of whisky with a chunk of glacier ice in it, a stream of tiny bubbles rising, the other leaning in to watch beside a block of ice on the table; to the left men in parkas lift an ice core from a drilling tripod on the ice cap beside trays of cores and a tracked snow vehicle; to the right Adelie penguins crowd the rocky shore by icebergs and broken sea ice where a ship lies at anchor.

Chapter 24

The Dragon We Made Burns Us All

1 video

Old air in the glass. In 1965, at the French station at Dumont d'Urville in Antarctica, Claude Lorius dropped a piece of old ice into his whisky and watched the air trapped in it bubble out. By 1987 the ice from Vostok showed the carbon in that air and the world's heat rising and falling together for 160,000 years. Full size

Kings and Generals has no video on this chapter’s machine. The nearest is the ice.

  1. The Arctic, its ice and the oil under it

    1Why the Arctic Matters NowThe melting Arctic and the oil and gas under its ice, the nearest Kings and Generals comes to this chapter’s permafrost and oil.
Pen and ink banner of a warehouse under skylights: at the center a worker in an apron feeds a hardcover book into a heavy guillotine cutter that shears off its spine, and loose pages run down a belt through a scanning machine into plain bins; to the left a forklift brings in pallets of used books while workers unload a truck at the loading dock; to the right bales of paper are tied and carried out to a truck beside a cart heaped with cut off book covers.

Chapter 25

A Printing Press in Every Pocket

Cutting the spines. Used books bought by the pallet have their spines cut off, their pages scanned on both sides at once, and the paper sent to recycling. The book calls it the burning and the hoarding of the books in the same transaction. Full size

This chapter's history is told in videos placed with other chapters: Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Islamic Golden Age: Scientific Method DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 3); Islamic Golden Age - Philosophy and Humanities (Chapter 13, no. 6).

Pen and ink banner of a Forbidden City courtyard in 1948: curators in suits and spectacles and porters in padded jackets pack rolled scrolls, porcelain bowls in straw, bronze vessels and tied books into plain wooden crates; to the left more objects are carried out of an open hall, and to the right porters with shoulder poles carry finished crates past stacks of them toward a waiting truck under the red walls and golden roofs.

Chapter 26

The Dragon That Refuses to Die: Disruption, Division, Drugged and Despised… Yet Hoarding On

5 videos in watch order

Packing the palace. From 1933 the Palace Museum packed its treasures into crates and moved them ahead of the war. In 1948 and 1949 thousands of those crates were shipped to Taiwan. Full size

  1. The Opium Wars

    1Jardine-Matheson: How Opium Wars Founded Hong KongThe trading house behind the opium trade and the founding of Hong Kong.

  2. The Opium Wars

    2How a Company Hooked China on Opium - Tea Led to the Opium WarHow the East India Company's tea trade led to opium and war.

  3. War with Japan, 1937

    3China at War - Pacific War #0.5 DOCUMENTARYJapan's invasion of China, from Manchuria to the war of 1937.Series: Pacific War

  4. The Forbidden City and Taiwan

    4What Happened to the Last Emperor of China?Puyi, from the Forbidden City to Manchukuo and the People's Republic.

  5. Taiwan after 1949

    5How Taiwan Became a DemocracyTaiwan's road from martial law to free elections.

Also on this chapter's history: Mongols: Zenith of Empire - Siege of Baghdad 1258 and Battle of Ain Jalut 1260 DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 1); Medieval Baghdad: Rise and Fall of the City of Peace - DOCUMENTARY (Prologue, no. 2); Taiwan's Chip Industry: Success Amid Geopolitical Tensions and AI-Era Prospects (Chapter 17, no. 1).