The Rise and Decline of the Abbasid Caliphate

Was the Abbasid Caliphate really the Golden Age of Islam? If so, it had nothing to do with avoiding the political mistakes of previous caliphates. The Abbasids were just as Fratricidal and violent as their Umayyad predecessors. The only difference is that they also made a bunch of stuff that people liked, so all the stabby stuff gets ignored.

Sources and Affiliate Links

Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, by W. Montgomery Watt https://amzn.to/2I2MnOe

A History of the Arab Peoples, by Albert Hourani https://amzn.to/2HQivpc

God's Crucible, by David Levering Lewis https://amzn.to/2WzPyB0

Destiny Disrupted, by Tamim Ansary https://amzn.to/2WG4Wfn

The Middle East, by Bernard Lewis https://amzn.to/2HQm0fc

Central Economic Planning under the Wilson Administration

Could America ever go socialist? The truth of the matter is that it has once before, during World War One, before the Soviet Union.

Sources and Affiliate Links

http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/CPP/FP_PS19.pdf

https://www.nber.org/digest/jan05/w10580.html

https://www.nber.org/papers/w10580.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487186?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents

https://www.jstor.org/stable/447405?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3Ae45e8a26222c2ed6e4827585ec7006e3&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents

Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg https://amzn.to/2W7lk9U

Why is there a Shinto Shrine dedicated to Jesus?

Did Jesus go to Japan and become a rice farmer? Why is there a Japanese village that claims Jesus is buried there? And what does an emperor worshiping cult have to do with it? Watch to find out.

What Ruined the History Channel?

What happened to the History Channel? How did it go from a network airing mostly ww2 documentaries to airing mostly reality shows and conspiracy theories? The answer is Nancy Dubuc.

Sources

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-sep-30-tv-51428-story.html

https://www.multichannel.com/news/presidents-davids-history-raven-ae-372269

https://www.hearst.com/-/nickolas-davatzes-steps-down-as-president-ceo-of-a-e-television-networks-abbe-raven-succeeds-him

https://adage.com/article/special-report-cable-tv/dan-davids/108377

https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/new-chief-history-channel-81559

https://adage.com/article/media/barely-historical-history-channel-shows-struggle/144370

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/arts/television/18kennedy.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradlockwood/2011/10/17/high-ratings-aside-wheres-the-history-on-history/#cb1c6956ff0d

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/business/media/now-in-top-tier-history-channel-struggles-to-stay-there.html

https://deadline.com/2019/12/cable-ratings-2019-list-fox-news-total-viewers-espn-18-49-demo-1202817561/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJO1kbQc8z8

The Rise and Decline of the Kingdom of Israel

Sources and Affiliate Links

Testament: The Bible and History, by John Romer https://amzn.to/3eFlf57

Ancient Israel: What do we Know and How do we Know It?, by Lester L. Grabbe https://amzn.to/3eyF0uP

A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age Through the Jewish Wars, Walter C. Kaiser https://amzn.to/3ezBXTa

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts, by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman https://amzn.to/2BhQVPu

The Umayyad Caliphate

The History of OPEC

What is OPEC, and why does it exist? It's an international organization set up by countries that export large amounts of oil in hopes of controlling prices, however it's history shows a less than successful record.

Sources and Affiliate Links

The Evolution of OPEC, by Albert L. Danielsen https://amzn.to/2upC4ig

Global Organizations: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, by Heather Lehr Wagner https://amzn.to/2uiboQP

Oil, Debt, and Development: OPEC in the Third World, by Paul Hallwood and Stuart Sinclair https://amzn.to/37swVVi

The Problems of Impeachment

Articles of Impeachment have been drafted by the Democrat controlled congress for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. Regardless of the individual details of the current situation, how has impeachment impacted past elections, and what can we expect from the current election? In this video we look at the trends, and what damage impeachment might hold for political discourse.

Here is What You Should Know About the Kurds

Who are the Kurds? They are mountainous people living along the borderlands of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iran. They are also the world's largest ethnic group that doesn't have its own state. Why don't they have their own independent country? What has been their role in the history of the Middle East? Watch to find out.

Sources and Affiliate Links

"Assyrians, Kurds, and ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire", by Hirmis Aboona https://amzn.to/37K7mQc

"The Burning Tigris", by Peter Balakian, https://amzn.to/2OKNeow

"Paris 1919", by Margaret MacMillan, https://amzn.to/2OrxVlN

"The Kurds" by Heather Wagner, https://amzn.to/2DsvB7v

"The Kurds in Syria" by Kerim Yildiz, https://amzn.to/2OqEJAc

"The Kurds: Their Effect on the Attempt to Democratize Iraq: A Strategic Estimate", https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA437044/page/n11

https://aleteia.org/2017/12/03/christian-iraqis-trying-to-return-home-face-new-obstacle-in-kurdish-conflict-with-iraqi-forces/

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2017/1004/Can-Christians-rebuild-their-own-homeland-in-Iraqi-Kurdistan

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/25/iraqi-kurdistan-arabs-displaced-cordoned-detained

https://www.investigativeproject.org/5788/advocates-kurds-keeping-christians-and-yazidis

Who Are the Ethiopian Jews?

There is a community of people from the highlands of Ethiopia who are practicing Jews, but for most of their history they were geographically isolated from Jews elsewhere in the world. How did a population of Africans come to practice Judaism, and what's their history? That's what this video is trying to find out.

How did the Classical Gold Standard Work?

Have you ever wondered what happened to the gold standard? Have you ever wondered how the gold standard worked? Not just on the national level but on an international one too? This video explains how an international monetary regime was created, and how it maintained functionality without the need of a giant international institution.

What would have happened if the Ottoman Empire stayed out of World War One?

Here's what a psychologist thought Hitler when he lost the War

During World War Two the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the CIA) recruited Harvard Psychologists to create a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler, and in this profile they created a list of predicted outcomes for Hitler's fate after the war. This video explores this list of predictions.

A Conspiracy Theory Accuses the Catholic Church of Assassinating Abraham Lincoln

Did Pope Pius IX order the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln? No. But a French-Canadian Priest named Charles Chiniquy made this allegation in 1886 with his book "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome." I came across this idea while doing research for another video, and it was so crazy I just had to make a video about it.

Did the Conquest of Canaan Happen?

Sources and Affiliate Links

"Testament: The Bible and History" by John Romer https://amzn.to/2QejXqr

"The Bible Unearthed" by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman https://amzn.to/2A14EpV

"Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction" by Paul Bahn https://amzn.to/34wOC5h

"Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction" by Eric H. Cline https://amzn.to/2N3EGL9

"A History of Israel" by Walter C. Kaiser, JR. https://amzn.to/2ZID3IH

The Rashidun Caliphate and the Islamic Conquests

What happened to Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammad? Well, there were succession crises, assassinations, conquests, and rebellions. This time of expansion and turmoil was lead by the Rashidun, or the "Rightly Guided" Caliphs. Men who personally knew the prophet, and are recognized by all Muslims as genuine successors to Muhammad. But short sighted mistakes would lead to the end of the Rashidun Caliphate, and the Birth of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Who are the Black Hebrew Israelites?

Who are the Black Hebrew Israelites? You may have seen them on street corners of urban areas, sounding like a racist end times preacher. They are a movement of African Americans who believe that the Biblical Israelites were black, and that blacks in America are descendants of those Israelites. Beyond that the many groups that have this belief have wildly different belief sets, some going straight to practicing Judaism, and many going on to sound like a black version of the KKK.

The earliest figures of this movement were former slaves in post Civil War America, starting out in the great plains and moving eastward by the turn of the century. Figures like William Saunders Crowdy, Frank Cherry, Arnold Josiah Ford, and Arthur Wentworth Mathew formed the foundations in the US for this movement, ranging from anti-racist to explicitly racist.

Sources and Affiliate Links

"Chosen People" by Jacob Dorman https://amzn.to/2NoReO9

"Thin Description" by John L. Jackson Jr. https://amzn.to/2xkHXM7

"Barack Obama vs The Black Hebrew Israelites" by Vocab Malone https://amzn.to/2ZZpcKw

"Stepping Into Zion" by Janice W. Fernheimer https://amzn.to/2LsqEAR

"From Babylon to Timbuktu" by Rudolph R. Windsor https://amzn.to/2Nn2TwY

"New World A-Coming" by Judith Weisenfeld https://amzn.to/2XidIoh

The First Person Silenced by Nazi Germany

Sources and Affiliates

"Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" by Eric Metaxas https://amzn.to/2E4CfBE

"No Rusty Swords" by Dietrich Boenhoeffer https://amzn.to/2VuGZeT