The Background and Reasons for this Blog

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I decided to research how civilizations fall and what that means to us in the modern world. The purpose of my research topic was to provide a source of information pertaining to the fall of civilizations and how this information can apply to the modern world. 

The information about and around how human civilizations fall is important because it is not just a knowledge of the past but it is also a means of looking at where we as a species have weaknesses. From these weaknesses we can learn from the lessons of the past and therefore apply them to similar future situations. The research gathered is curated to bring to the fore some of the most relevant collapses of civilization with the fall of Athens providing an insight into how that ancient democracy could provide lessons to our increasingly democracy driven world. This city’s specific crumbling may not be as dramatic or as world changing as others such as the Western Roman Empire or the Han Empire, but it is relevant as a democratic state and specifically the first one in history. I researched a number of key civilizations that may offer insight as to why they fell. 

Firstly, I felt it would be a necessary insight into democracy, as that is a fundamental structural part of the west today, to take a look at the world’s first democracy in Athens in the classical Greece. Secondly, I researched some of the bigger and more well-known falls that led to full societal meltdown and technological and political regress. The primary examples I chose were the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Bronze Age Collapse. These more well-known collapses are useful because they show that there is never truly one singular factor in play when it comes to how they fall in the first place. 

The primary readership and listeners for this project are young adults who are wishing to learn a bit more about significant but more obscure areas of history. I believe it will be appealing as its aim is to be accessible and understandable to anyone with any level of historical knowledge. By achieving this a modern young audience that is used to working in the fast paced world of social media will hopefully find this blog easier to engage with and therefore make the information on it more memorable. The secondary audience is anyone with an interest in politics and history. As the intention of this blog is to help people understand the human errors of the past so that they can prepare and analyse the present world and the future. An audience that has a current understanding of history is likely to be interested in more creative and exclusive resources such as the video or the podcast element of this blog.

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