Omega124
Challenging Fate
So by chance when listening to the soundtrack of civ, I encountered a thumbnail to a video called "History v. Ghenghis Khan". Not only was it a pretty interesting title, but I was intrigued because it was clearly an animation, and I thought it was pretty nice looking. So I gave it a whirl.
Link to video.
Honestly, not a lot of the information was particularly new to me; if you ever watch crash course world history's episode on the Mongols, it covers roughly the same topics, although History v. Ghenghis Khan video does it about five minutes quicker since it doesn't attempt to pad out the episode length with jokes.
What is interesting, and what ultimately made me quickly love this series after seeing just that one episode, was how the information was presented. Rather than simply listing the good and bad things that Khan (or other historical figures) did, the episode is arranged in the style of a courtroom battle. There's a defense and the prosecution, and they go back in both trying to argue whether the person ultimately was good or bad for their country and the world as a whole.
Both sides are given the same amount of time to make their cases, and the creators of the animation make sure both sides have ample evidence to back up their case. I especially love the debate format; the prosecutor might say X shows that Y was Z, but the defense can immediately make the counterargument that X was actually unrelated to Y, or that Z is actually a good thing, etc. It makes the whole presentation really fun to watch, and exposes you to viewpoints that you may not necessarily agree with, which I think is healthy to make sure your own viewpoints are in fact valid.
My only complaint is, again, it really only touches the bare basics of each topic. I don't think any episode has really changed any of my viewpoints of these people, since I already considered most of the information presented of each figure. I feel like these are more intended for people who don't know history as well as die-hard civilization fans. But for what it's worth, they were entertaining videos, and I think a good way to get people interested in the topics presented.
The Lenin episode was by far my favorite, btw. I highly recommend watching that one if only one.
Link to video.
Link to video.
Honestly, not a lot of the information was particularly new to me; if you ever watch crash course world history's episode on the Mongols, it covers roughly the same topics, although History v. Ghenghis Khan video does it about five minutes quicker since it doesn't attempt to pad out the episode length with jokes.
What is interesting, and what ultimately made me quickly love this series after seeing just that one episode, was how the information was presented. Rather than simply listing the good and bad things that Khan (or other historical figures) did, the episode is arranged in the style of a courtroom battle. There's a defense and the prosecution, and they go back in both trying to argue whether the person ultimately was good or bad for their country and the world as a whole.
Both sides are given the same amount of time to make their cases, and the creators of the animation make sure both sides have ample evidence to back up their case. I especially love the debate format; the prosecutor might say X shows that Y was Z, but the defense can immediately make the counterargument that X was actually unrelated to Y, or that Z is actually a good thing, etc. It makes the whole presentation really fun to watch, and exposes you to viewpoints that you may not necessarily agree with, which I think is healthy to make sure your own viewpoints are in fact valid.
My only complaint is, again, it really only touches the bare basics of each topic. I don't think any episode has really changed any of my viewpoints of these people, since I already considered most of the information presented of each figure. I feel like these are more intended for people who don't know history as well as die-hard civilization fans. But for what it's worth, they were entertaining videos, and I think a good way to get people interested in the topics presented.
The Lenin episode was by far my favorite, btw. I highly recommend watching that one if only one.
Link to video.
Spoiler The rest of the series, for good measure (There's only six altogether and they were all made two years ago so I doubt more will be made) :
