Whenever I engage in a conversation with someone about some historical event, or philosophical discussion, I find myself dedicating a significant amount of time contextualizing the discussion. This is mostly due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people do not read; however, even amongst the learned and well read, most people do not share the same interests as I do. I have always struggled with, and wondered, “Where do I even Start”?
From time to time, I listen to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, which is a podcast that takes a fairly in depth look at historical events for an audience of amateur history enthusiasts. One podcast in particular, “King of Kings”, illustrates the difficulty of contextualization. How far down the rabbit hole do we go to give context to the Battle of Thermopylae? Possibly the single most famous battle that your average person knows about prior to the birth of Christ. Carlin sets the stage by talking about the ancient conflicts between the Assyrian and Babylonian empires more than a thousand year prior. A thousand years of history is needed to contextualize one single battle in ancient Hellenistic Greece.
I write this musing not so much to complain about the difficulty of contextualizing, but rather to demonstrate the issue of discussing these issues.