History of ideas
Inventions and the people who imagined them.
0:28Sun Tzu's Art of War in four ideas
Sun Tzu's classic in four ideas: win without fighting, know both sides, wage war by deception, and move like water around the ground you meet.
0:28Machiavelli's The Prince in four ideas
Machiavelli's 1513 manual in four ideas: hold power by skill against fortune's floods, be feared without hatred, and seem virtuous while staying armed.
0:28Plato's cave allegory, explained
Plato's cave: chained prisoners mistake shadows for the world. One climbs to the sunlight, then returns to people who cannot believe him.
0:28Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in four ideas
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in four ideas: the line between what you control and what you do not, obstacles as the way, the view from above, and memento mori.
0:28Orwell's 1984 in four ideas
Orwell's 1984 in four ideas: telescreens and Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak shrinking the language, and a Party that seeks power for its own sake.
0:28Thoreau's Walden in four ideas
Thoreau's Walden in four ideas: a $28 cabin by the pond, the four necessities, the real cost of a thing measured in life, and the lake as earth's eye.
0:28How the printing press changed books
From hand-copied manuscripts to Gutenberg’s reusable metal type: how one invention made books cheaper and spread them across Europe.
0:26Leonardo’s aerial screw
Leonardo da Vinci’s 1480s design for a machine that would screw itself into the air, and why it could never fly.