Professor Jiang

Professor Jiang Xueqin explains the influence of Zoroastrianism on the development of the Hebrew Bible. After Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, he enabled the Jews to return to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple. Ezra oversaw major religious reforms, including the creation and redaction of what we know today as the Hebrew Bible. Because of the influence of Zoroastrianism, the Bible began to emp...

Professor Jiang Xueqin argues that Jesus was a unique religious genius who synthesized the major global religions of his day to create a new religion, which we today refer to as Gnosticism. Like other great religious leaders, Jesus had a three-tier gospel. To the public, he taught that true faith demanded compassion. To his disciples, he taught that true faith demanded self-sacrifice. Then there w...

Why are the teachings of Jesus and his apostle Paul so different? Jesus preached compassion and mercy towards all, while Paul preached that Jesus was the son of God who atoned for our sins with his sacrifice. Professor Jiang Xueqin presents a unique perspective on Paul’s motivations. He argues that Paul was an agent of the Roman empire who wanted to use Jesus to combat messianic Judaism. The Roman...

Professor Jiang Xueqin argues that the idea of monotheism launched modernity. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the bishops of the Roman Empire had to decide on the relationship between God and Jesus. They established the Godhead as orthodoxy, and rejected Arianism as heresy. The Holy Trinity marked a radical intellectual revolution that would eventually give birth to capitalism, science, and th...

Professor Jiang Xueqin explains why Europe experienced the Dark Ages. After Rome was sacked in 410 CE, Europe experienced a crisis of faith. Were the Pagan Gods taking vengeance? Did Christianity preach a religion of meekness? In response, the Catholic theologian Augustine wrote "The City of God," in which he proposed to take the Catholic Church "out of history." From now on, k...

Who was the historical Muhammad? How did Islam triumph over both the Byzantine and Sasanian empires? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Professor Jiang Xueqin argues that Islam was the first global revolution. While the Byzantine and Sasanian empires appeared to be superpowers, they were weak and fragile due to decades of plague, war, and succession struggles. The Arabian peninsula...

Professor Jiang Xueqin explains that Dante's Divine Comedy was the intellectual blueprint for the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. In a previous lecture, we explored how Augustine's writings would pave the way for Europe's Dark Ages. In his treatise "City of God," Augustine argued that we were born in sin, and we can commit only more sin...

Professor Jiang explains the enduring influence of Dante. Dante recognized that if he is to succeed in birthing a new European mind he must displace Vergil's Aeneid. To do this, Dante makes Vergil into his guide, and Vergil reveals that he is an unreliable narrator. At the beginning of their epic journey, Vergil insists to Dante that only the baptized can enter Heaven. Those who were virtuous...

Traditionally, we have understood historical movement as either a line or a circle. We are either progressing towards the truth, or trapped in an endless loop. In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Professor Jiang proposes a new theory, which he calls "the oceanic currents of history."When we examine the fall and decline of global empires, a pattern emerges. As the empire exp...

How was Rome able to defeat all its powerful enemies in the Mediterranean world? Why did Rome decline and fall? What is Rome's influence on the world today? What lessons can we learn from it? Professor Jiang argues that it was Rome's distinct cultural system (which focused on liberty, public virtue, and piety) which permitted it to triumph over its rivals. But after Rome became an empire,...

The Byzantine empire saw itself as the continuation of the Roman empire. Professor Jiang argues that Constantinople and Rome had opposing cultural systems. Rome was a pagan Latin republic, and Constantinople was a Christian multicultural empire.

Voltaire once wrote: "The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Professor argues that Voltaire was right, and the Holy Roman Empire was a useful fiction created to legitimize the rule of Charlemagne and his successors.

We have understood Western civilization to be composed of four major traditions -- that of the Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin argues that the Viking legacy is just as important for the development of Western civilization. During the Viking Age (793 - 1066 CE), the Vikings would interact with and influence the regions from which...

What was the Viking worldview? What was their value system? Why did they venture out into the world? Unfortunately, the Vikings maintained an oral tradition, most of which was lost after they converted to Christianity. What we do know about the Vikings comes from archaeology and the Norse mythology that was written down in the Poetic and Prose Edda. In this talk to his Chinese high school students...

The Abbasid Caliphate was considered the Golden Age of Islam. Before the Mongolian conquest, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad was the global center of learning and literacy. Muslim scientists and mathematicians were respected and influential even in Europe. Why did the Islamic world enter its Golden Age, while Europe was stuck in its Dark Ages? Why did this Golden Age come to an end? Why did Christi...

Why did China stop being creative after the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE)? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains that it's because the Ming and Qing dynasties achieved a level of national unity that was not possible in the past. While this national unity ensured the longevity of the emperor and his imperial bureaucracy, it made the nation insular and stagnant. Th...

Genghis Khan is considered the world's greatest conquerer. Why was he so successful? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin argues that Genghis Khan had the same characteristics as other great conquerors, such as Sargon of Akkad, Philip of Macedon, and Julius Caesar. Genghis Khan believed that he had a divine mission to re-make the world. In overcoming hardship and defe...

What were the Crusades? Why did they start? Why did they end? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explores the history of Europe's late middle ages. He shows that while the Roman Catholic Church was dominant, there were still challenges to its authority. Muslims controlled the Holy Land, Muslim Iberia was more wealthy and innovative, and the Orthodox Church claimed s...

The Renaissance was a re-imagining of Classical Greece in a Christian European context, a spirit that would birth modernity. How did it start? Scholars argued that the Renaissance came about due to a perfect storm of structural factors. The build-up of commercial trade, the re-discovery of Greco-Roman thinkers, and the development of intellectual centers (such as universities and monasteries) were...

In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains how the Protestant Reformation birthed capitalism. Martin Luther and John Calvin saw the Catholic Church as inherently and irredeemably corrupt. Martin Luther proposed "justification by faith," which argued that Christians can only be redeemed by their unwavering faith in God (regardless of how much money they donate...

What is the Scientific Revolution, and how did it happen? Why did it happen in Europe, and not anywhere else? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains that the Scientific Revolution happened because of a change in focus from asking "What is Truth?" to asking "How can we know Truth?". To resolve the geocentric vs. heliocentric debate, Europeans pio...

How did a few thousand Spanish Conquistadors subdue and conquer millions of Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. Most scholars believe it's a combination of superior Spanish military technology, spreading of deadly infectious diseases, and internal tribal conflict that led to the demise of once powerful empires. In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin argues that it was the religi...

The Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, and Chinese were the first four gunpowder empires. So how did Europe come to conquer the world? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin explains that it's because Europe adopted a whole society approach to warfare. Because of open co-operative competition within Europe, nations were forced to transition from feudalism to the nation-state,...

This video begins a three-part series on the French Revolution. The over-arching thesis is that the French Revolution was a religious crusade, and it was made successful by the contributions of three geniuses. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the Poet of the Revolution who dreamed of a better world based on Reason. Maximilien De Robespierre was the Prophet who had the courage and conviction to lead his p...

The French Revolution allowed for the meteoric rise of an idealistic provincial lawyer. During the Reign of Terror, Robespierre could have been king, but ultimately fell to the guillotine, like thousands of his victims. What explains his spectacular rise and fall? In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin argues that Robespierre saw himself as the Prophet of the French Revolut...