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A Conversation with Professor Anthony Kaldellis on The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire & the Byzantine Empire

In this interview I speak to Byzantinist Anthony Kaldellis, who argues the Eastern Roman Empire was no absolutism but a polity governed by consent, where rulers who misread the public mood were removed. He examines how…

Dr. Vikas Shah MBE DL 26 min read

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“People come to Glastonbury and can try out ways of living that can be rolled out across the country. It's a place where people come to be a part of something… something greater than the sum of its parts.”
— Emily Eavis Co-organizer of Glastonbury Festival with her father Michael Eavis
“At Colossal, we are not going to work in humans or non-human primates because we felt like we're already going to have an uphill battle with transparency and education, and we don't want people to be like, if a hair-loss treatment comes out of Colossal, 'are they selling a gene from a woolly mammoth?'”
— Ben Lamm
“I do not approach challenges with the sole aim of targeting the largest customers in established markets to replace current players. Instead, I focus on the overlooked, marginalized customers who often find the products of big players unaffordable. By catering to them, that is how we initially found our foothold.”
— Sridhar Vembu Founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, cloud computing company

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The Wisdom Series

Ten essays. Distilled from 600+ conversations.

Insights, themes and patterns from years of long-form interviews — organised around the questions that matter most.

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  1. 01 Business & Economics A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 360 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts A Conversation with Professor Anthony Kaldellis on The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire & the Byzantine Empire 235 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy Incorruptible: Eric Ries on Why Good Companies Go Bad — and How to Build Ones That Don’t 167 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology Could Machines Be Conscious? A Conversation with Dr Tom McClelland on Minds, Machines and the Hard Problem of Consciousness 135 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine The Continuum of Mind: A Conversation with Professor Michael Levin on Cognition, Bioelectricity and the Future of Being 74 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

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