Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…I can tell. I would pick the Aztec Empire before the Spanish arrived. I feel I have vague glimpses of what ancient Athens was like. There are still Greek ruins. The Europeans marveled at the cities they saw, and they burnt all the books, and I think I would learn more by somewhere more strange. Maybe, maybe. The reason I’m interested in medieval Europe is, it’s where our world came from — the clocks we use, the writing system, all the clothes eventually evolved from that. The reason I’m interested — I long ago realized that the medieval period wasn’t a dip. It wasn’t like there was this high level of civilization, and then it dropped down for a while, and then it rose back up again. It was more like there was one civilization that was high and went down, and another civilization based in the north that rose up. In a sense, it was the beginning of everything. That’s why I want to know what the hell was going on in 600 or 700.…

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