There were some really interesting parts and all the interesting
Scott Williams:parts were the parts about sort of the ideas that people had and and those things
Scott Williams:that changed, people's perspectives and after about a year of struggling with
Scott Williams:this , I realized where the story was, and I realized what I needed to write.
Scott Williams:And the thing was, it had been there all along.
Scott:Welcome to Talk With History.
Scott:I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.
Scott:Hello.
Scott:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,
Scott:YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations
Scott:with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
Scott:Now, today, we are joined by Scott Williams, the author of Lightbulb Moments
Scott:in Human History from Cave to Coliseum.
Scott:Welcome, Scott.
Scott Williams:Hey Scott, how are you doing?
Scott:Now, before we get into chatting with Scott about his book, I want to
Scott:remind our listeners that you can find Scott's book on Amazon in various But if
Scott:you can't remember the exact title after you're done listening to today's episode,
Scott:as we say in our past episodes, you can always find links to light bulb moments
Scott:over at our website, talkwithhistory.
Scott:com.
Scott:So just go to talkwithhistory.
Scott:com, search for light bulb moments.
Scott:That's talkwithhistory.
Scott:com and search for light bulb moments and you'll be able to find
Scott:links directly to Scott's book.
Scott Williams:Fantastic.
Scott:We try to share history as much as we can.
Scott:now, as I mentioned earlier, we're joined today by Scott Williams,
Scott:the author of Lightbulb Moments in Human History from Cave to Coliseum.
Scott:Now, Scott is a self described optimistic smartass, writer,
Scott:humorist, and history nerd.
Scott:His fascination with humanity's lightbulb moments began as a child
Scott:while watching the first moon landing.
Scott:I appreciated your opening in the book.
Scott:He also has his own podcast that he hosts with his friend
Scott:CJ called What's My Age Again.
Scott:Now, thank you again for joining us tonight, Scott.
Scott:I, I really do appreciate it.
Scott Williams:thank you for having me.
Scott Williams:And just, just back on the moon landing, I don't know if you can see over the
Scott Williams:back of me, obviously the listeners can't see this, but I've got a, a signed
Scott Williams:Neil Armstrong photo up there, as so I'm Definitely a history in space nerd.
Scott:Yeah, no, I, I actually really appreciated the, the opening.
Scott:I didn't get to read the whole book.
Scott:I poked around a little bit.
Scott:But you sharing that kind of drew me right in to, to your perspective
Scott:and why you wrote this book.
Scott:So maybe we can jump right into that.
Scott:So was that moon landing, was that really something that kind of sparked
Scott:the flame of your interest in history and these kind of large historical moments?
Scott Williams:Oh, absolutely.
Scott Williams:I mean if you're six years old I mean I used to get up obviously in Australia
Scott Williams:the the the launches and landings were totally different times for what it was
Scott Williams:for you guys and Often I'd get up in the morning at like in the morning with my
Scott Williams:dad and we'd sit there watching launches.
Scott Williams:We actually saw the moon landing at school because we were actually at school
Scott Williams:and they rolled out the TV set and we watched the moon landing at school.
Scott Williams:And I mean, those kinds of things really stick with you.
Scott Williams:I, I fully understood the import of it.
Scott Williams:I knew it was a, a moment in history that was possibly, may never be, never
Scott Williams:be surpassed the way we're going.
Scott Williams:But it's, it's it was incredible.
Scott Williams:And certainly it sparked a love of those kind of big moments, big historical
Scott Williams:moments and big breakthroughs that I follow through now, obviously.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:So, so for, I mean, that, that was obviously when you were younger, was
Scott:there something else and you as you went through school, I mean, I know you
Scott:joked in that opening okay, now I got to start training to be an astronaut, but I
Scott:mean, that's, that's a little different.
Scott:Track , it's more of a, , go fly and learn engineering and all that stuff.
Scott:Then, then end up writing about history.
Scott:What kind of led you down the path of, eventually writing a book?
Scott Williams:Look, I think it's just one of those things that
Scott Williams:I've been fascinated with history.
Scott Williams:I only really wrote, started writing in my late fifties, so I wanted to write
Scott Williams:but I could never work out an angle.
Scott Williams:And finally the angle was the hardest thing for me.
Scott Williams:And it turned out that the angle was there all along.
Scott Williams:I just had to recognise that this, these big moments were the things
Scott Williams:that fascinated me, and the things that made me realise that the
Scott Williams:world continues to get better.
Scott Williams:I think, I hear a lot of people being very negative.
Scott Williams:And I know that the world, there are lots of problems in the world at the
Scott Williams:moment, obviously we can see in Ukraine, and in the Middle East and everything.
Scott Williams:But, in the end, if you, if you sort of went to any other time in
Scott Williams:history, things were still worse.
Scott Williams:And think where we've continued to iteratively get better and
Scott Williams:better by building on all the developments of people before us.
Scott Williams:And I think people have lost track of that.
Scott Williams:And I really wanted to to sort of bring that back for people to see
Scott Williams:that, hey, things aren't that bad.
Scott Williams:And I think my experience of things I've read over the years and my
Scott Williams:fascinations with all these things just made me realize that this is
Scott Williams:a lens to look at that through.
Jenn:You're very optimistic and I appreciate that because I think that's
Jenn:where we have to be with history And I'm I'm very much I don't like that
Jenn:term history repeats itself because I'm like You're never gonna be in the
Jenn:exact same place exact same time for history to actually repeat itself It
Jenn:can echo in some ways, but it will never actually repeat itself What would you
Jenn:define a lightbulb moment as like how big of a aha moment does it have to be?
Jenn:What what is?
Jenn:When you're writing a book like what did what do you
Jenn:constitute a lightbulb moment as?
Scott Williams:Okay, they can be, they, they don't have to be massive,
Scott Williams:but they have to be things that are unprecedented and eventually lead
Scott Williams:to something like the first caveman who chipped the first stone tool.
Scott Williams:Hitting two rocks together is not a big deal.
Scott Williams:But that iteratively led to machines, to all sorts of things.
Scott Williams:Just it took.
Scott Williams:Millions of years, but the, so it doesn't have to be a big thing, but one of the
Scott Williams:reasons why it seemed for so long humans in our current form have been around
Scott Williams:for hundreds of thousands of years, yet it's only in the last, probably
Scott Williams:two or three hundred years that things have really started to change big time.
Scott Williams:And that's because it took so long to get all the little building blocks in place.
Scott Williams:I mean like, they had to, cavemen had to learn how to communicate with each other.
Scott Williams:They had to make tools, they had to do all these things that, that took a long time.
Scott Williams:These things didn't happen overnight.
Scott Williams:And once things started to, to build, once we started to get these
Scott Williams:little sort of sparks of ingenuity.
Scott Williams:Building one upon the other, then things start to speed up to the point where
Scott Williams:we're now sort of, can't keep up with it.
Scott Williams:There's no one person could be Leonardo da Vinci now because there's just
Scott Williams:no one could keep all the different strands of knowledge in their head.
Scott Williams:a Lightbulb moment is just something that sparks.
Scott Williams:Some kind of paradigm shift.
Scott Williams:Yeah,
Jenn:remember in a grad school learning about what constitutes
Jenn:a civilization, right?
Jenn:When do anthropologists give the The term civilization to a group of people
Jenn:and it's when they can find proof that there have a bone that is healed So if
Jenn:there was a broken bone and it has healed they prove civilization because there's
Jenn:a group of people that can Set a bone.
Jenn:They're taking care of someone.
Jenn:They're helping someone to mend So they're they're doing all of those things
Jenn:you said it's like the result of the lightbulb moments It's the result of
Jenn:the communications result of learning about medicine it's the result of
Jenn:learning and being together as a group that the bone heals and they can see
Jenn:that on a skeleton and that's when they can tell that that was a civilization.
Jenn:So I can see what you're saying.
Scott Williams:Yeah, it's like collective learning.
Scott Williams:I mean, once we start to get a body of knowledge, we have to somehow pass it on.
Scott Williams:Now, for thousands and thousands of years, there was no writing.
Scott Williams:So the only way they could pass it on was by speech.
Scott Williams:But if someone got old and they died, they lost their information, and
Scott Williams:they were, like you were saying, when they can look after somebody who is
Scott Williams:unwell, that means they're beginning to appreciate what they bring to the group
Scott Williams:in knowledge, and that, that appreciation from knowledge then sort of, they then
Scott Williams:get a chance to pass that knowledge on.
Scott Williams:It just, it just shows, like you say, it's civilization building.
Jenn:Like you said, we're at this point now where AI, it's so fast.
Jenn:No one person can do it.
Jenn:It has to be like these collective, like now you can, maybe, maybe
Jenn:you can specialize in your one.
Jenn:area, your one field of study and have something great happen
Jenn:and you put the face of it.
Jenn:But if there's nobody who's going to be like a Thomas Edison today, like
Jenn:you just don't have the capacity to do it to people moving so fast as
Jenn:2000 Thomas Edison's living right now that are working really fast.
Scott Williams:I totally agree.
Scott Williams:And in fact, I see a problem with the fact that that one person can't
Scott Williams:monitor everything because I think a lot of the big ideas that I write
Scott Williams:about are things that are different strands of knowledge brought together
Scott Williams:by people who understood that this could be relevant to something else.
Scott Williams:But if you've got people who are so focused in their field, they don't
Scott Williams:know about another field, they can't see the connection, they can't see the
Scott Williams:relevance, you're not going to have.
Scott Williams:Transcribed Some of those big lightbulb moments, unless there's someone who
Scott Williams:is like a polymath who can just look at everything and say, Hey, hold
Scott Williams:on, that that's pertinent to that.
Scott Williams:So it's, it's difficult.
Jenn:Yes.
Jenn:And you, you've taken your light bulb moments and you've categorized them.
Jenn:You've put them into four groups.
Scott Williams:yeah, that's.
Scott Williams:That was I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's legit but I'm not a, I'm not
Scott Williams:a historian as such, and I'm not, it's not an intellectual book.
Scott Williams:I wanted to try and have something, a framework to hang it off, and I
Scott Williams:did characterize them into different groups, but that was more for anyone
Scott Williams:who was reading it who wanted to have something to, to sort of, just
Scott Williams:to look at and see what See how it, things related, but also my editor had
Scott Williams:said to me, you should do something a little bit more intellectual here.
Scott Williams:So that wasn't a part of the original book.
Scott Williams:And I, I chafed at that a bit because it made it seem like I was more
Scott Williams:of a theorist than I really am.
Scott Williams:So.
Jenn:I appreciate it.
Scott:I appreciated that.
Scott:I mean, I, so I appreciated, again, that was kind of in the, in the early part
Scott:of your book, you say, okay, here's the categories, but you do caveat listen,
Scott:I'm not a huge fan of these cats.
Scott:You poke, you poke fun at yourself right away.
Scott:And so I appreciate the humor, the humor right up front.
Scott:And I'm actually looking forward to digging deep, dig digging deeper into
Scott:the, into the book, because I feel like your book is one of those ones
Scott:that I could, someone could pick up at any given time and just flip to
Scott:a chapter or flip to a certain spot.
Scott:They can either read it all the way through, or they could just say, Hey,
Scott:this is an interesting, this caught my.
Scott:Caught my eye on TV.
Scott:Oh, yeah, that's one of the chapters in this book.
Scott:I mean, is that kind of how you intended this was to, to be easy
Scott:to read, either front to back or pick it up whenever you, you could.
Scott Williams:I tend to be one of those people who pick, pick things
Scott Williams:out of books and, and read what I can.
Scott Williams:So, but I didn't, I wouldn't say I intended that to happen.
Scott Williams:What I intended was to have, I mean, like we were talking before about an
Scott Williams:overarching view of like technology and things that I wanted to have an
Scott Williams:overarching view of history, which I mean there's, there's actually a kind
Scott Williams:of history called big history and it's basically just pulling back from all
Scott Williams:the minutiae and, and, and looking at trends and looking at things like that.
Scott Williams:I didn't want to get quite that far away, but I wanted to be able to pull back
Scott Williams:enough that you could see the patterns.
Scott Williams:I know, I know that there's not.
Scott Williams:History doesn't repeat itself.
Scott Williams:I I agree totally with what you said there, but there are patterns that
Scott Williams:recur, that are dealt with in different ways by different civilizations.
Scott Williams:And the, the, when you do that, when you pull back and do what I've, I've
Scott Williams:done, even for me, I didn't realize until I started to write what I was
Scott Williams:looking at here, where there was a lot of patterns and a lot of things that,
Scott Williams:that echoed in even present day stuff.
Scott:And that's, and that's where I could see your, the categorization.
Scott:that you, we, we joke about earlier, that would probably help you from a writing
Scott:perspective, at least for me, right?
Scott:That's the way my brain works, is I gotta outline something, I gotta have some
Scott:categories, and then, okay, I can pick and choose, okay, if, if it's a religion,
Scott:okay, this is when this religion came to the forefront, or that religion came to
Scott:the forefront, or that concept came out.
Scott:With that, I mean, when you're researching a book like this, there's, there's
Scott:no kind of One single source aside, if you just say the internet for all
Scott:of history, if we interviewed someone who is, who is, writing on John Quincy
Scott:Adams the other day, and he had a very specific source and one place he could
Scott:go to for some personal journals.
Scott:But for you, what were you using for your, for your research for this book?
Scott Williams:Oh, look, it was, it was, I say the internet, but
Scott Williams:I would also, I would look at the internet and then I'd go, okay, I
Scott Williams:would, I would pick something up.
Scott Williams:I wanted to look for big ideas.
Scott Williams:But I wanted odd angles on big ideas too.
Scott Williams:I wanted, I wanted there to be stories involved.
Scott Williams:So I would look to see if there were stories involved with something.
Scott Williams:And I would, I would even look at Wikipedia.
Scott Williams:And then I would, once I saw that, then I'd go, okay, deep dive
Scott Williams:on their sources then on other sources to see the veracity of it.
Scott Williams:That's why I don't regard myself at any stretch, by any stretch of
Scott Williams:the imagination as a historian.
Scott Williams:I am not a historian because I don't do the proper groundwork
Scott Williams:a historian would do.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott Williams:I, I mean, I, I, and I would I would be loath to, people
Scott Williams:sometimes say, oh, you're a historian.
Scott Williams:No, I'm not.
Scott Williams:And that's not because I, I respect historians too much to
Scott Williams:equate myself with a historian.
Scott Williams:But I also, I respect history and I don't write stuff that's not true or that isn't
Scott Williams:any that hasn't been reported as true.
Scott Williams:If any history I've written is debated, I will then put a caveat
Scott Williams:on that and say, hey this is a great story, but it's debatable.
Scott Williams:But I will go with the great story, if there's one there,
Scott Williams:purely for entertainment's sake.
Scott Williams:It's an entertainment book.
Scott Williams:It's not, it's not, it is informative, but it's meant to be entertaining.
Scott Williams:, Jenn: see it as inspiring.
Scott Williams:It's one of those inspiring books, right?
Scott Williams:It's one of those If this person could do that, maybe I could do that.
Scott Williams:If that person was in this situation, I'd like to think I
Scott Williams:would do that in that situation.
Scott Williams:I think that's what history, we want to hear these, these history makers that
Scott Williams:made these hard decisions and did things that we can look at and be like, wow, I,
Scott Williams:I'm inspired to do something like that.
Scott Williams:Like Neil Armstrong.
Scott Williams:Right?
Scott Williams:I'm inspired to reach for the moon and then have a really
Scott Williams:great line once I hit the moon.
Scott Williams:Yeah, yeah.
Scott Williams:Absolutely.
Scott Williams:A glitch in the recording.
Scott:exactly.
Jenn:So how long did it take you to write the book?
Scott Williams:When I started, I started writing it as a history of education.
Scott Williams:That was, that, it began as that.
Scott Williams:And I spent probably about a year putting together as a history of education.
Scott Williams:And then I started to go There were some really interesting parts and
Scott Williams:all the interesting parts were the parts about sort of the ideas that
Scott Williams:people had and and those things that changed, people's perspectives and
Scott Williams:I'm a, I'm a teacher by, by trade.
Scott Williams:I, I, and so that was why I thought education was good.
Scott Williams:I was looking for an angle, education was the angle I was going for.
Scott Williams:Then I realized that A, not many people would be super interested and
Scott Williams:B, there was a better story there, or there was a better book there.
Scott Williams:And so.
Scott Williams:After about a year of struggling with this history of education, I
Scott Williams:realized where the story was, and I realized what I needed to write.
Scott Williams:And the thing was, it had been there all along.
Scott Williams:Ever since, like I say in the book, I don't know if you got that far, but my dad
Scott Williams:would read to me at night, and I wanted to be read non fiction books, so he'd
Scott Williams:read to me about ancient Egypt, he'd read to me about all these history things.
Scott Williams:And it started all back then.
Scott Williams:And then over the years I've just always touched base with, with
Scott Williams:history things, and even my my love of science fiction, to me science
Scott Williams:fiction is the history of the future.
Scott Williams:The history I'll never get to see.
Scott Williams:So I, I love science fiction because obviously I'll be dead, but that gives
Scott Williams:me a bit of an idea as to what history might be like, so it's, it, everything
Scott Williams:for me is about Historical moments.
Scott:SO what, what are some of your.
Scott:If I'm gonna tell a friend about this book, and, and even just the quick reading
Scott:that I did of the first, 20 or 30 pages I, I actually really started getting into it.
Scott:And then my kids, yelled at me about something and I had to go warm
Scott:up a hot dog or whatever it was.
Scott:But so what are some of your favorites that, as you were writing this or
Scott:that kind of stood out to you the most in this, particular book?
Scott Williams:Okay, some of the things that, I mean, not all of
Scott Williams:them are life changing moments.
Scott Williams:One of the ones I really like is the beer, beer before bread hypothesis,
Scott Williams:which is a hypothesis that humanity didn't band together in cities and,
Scott Williams:and farm and everything to, to, to grow food and to make bread.
Scott Williams:They, they needed to make beer.
Scott Williams:And so one of the reasons that they they sort of develop farming was to create a a
Scott Williams:reliable source of grain for making beer.
Scott:Grain for making beer.
Scott Williams:and that's, that's actually a, a bona fide theory.
Scott Williams:That's not someone off the internet.
Scott Williams:That's actually, there's a scientific paper that, that, that, it's only a
Scott Williams:theory, but it's still an interesting one.
Scott Williams:And it certainly,
Scott:fun one, yeah.
Scott Williams:it's a fun one.
Scott Williams:And when you see how important beer was to early civilizations,
Scott Williams:the Mesopotamians loved beer.
Scott Williams:Although the beer they drank wasn't exactly like what
Scott Williams:we would drink, apparently.
Scott Williams:It was more like porridge and they had to drink it with a straw because of all
Scott Williams:the bits and pieces that were in it.
Scott:Oh my gosh.
Scott Williams:the,
Scott:Hardy
Scott Williams:yeah, the Egyptians loved beer.
Scott Williams:The Chinese love beer.
Scott Williams:So it was a, it was one of those things that, it's universal.
Scott Williams:And it's conceivable that, that, that beer before bread
Scott Williams:hypothesis was true, was true.
Scott Williams:The fact that writing was pretty much invented by accountants.
Scott Williams:So even though we see writing now as literary, literary sort
Scott Williams:of pursuits and all that kind of stuff, it was the accountants of
Scott Williams:Mesopotamia that that really started to sort of put things down on.
Scott Williams:Not paper, obviously on clay, but they start to make marks in clay.
Scott Williams:Those marks became more important, more complex and then a bit length,
Scott Williams:a written language came out of that.
Scott Williams:That was interesting.
Scott:I mean, that, that makes sense.
Scott:That it, it's, it's useful for money.
Scott:Useful for money.
Scott:That's right.
Scott:Right.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:Leave it, to leave it to the accountants and, the IRS types,
Scott:here, at least here in the States.
Scott:Mm-Hmm.
Scott:, that, to, to invent the system that would that would track all
Scott:the taxes that, that I gotta
Scott Williams:Oh, yeah.
Scott Williams:Yeah.
Scott Williams:I mean, what, and that's, that's definitely a lightbulb moment.
Scott Williams:Some of them, there's a story in there about Sun Tzu, the,
Scott Williams:the famous Chinese general.
Scott Williams:And I wouldn't say it's a lightbulb moment other than the fact that he codified some
Scott Williams:of the, sort of the ideas to do with war.
Scott Williams:But there was a story in the, in the book about how his emperor had challenged
Scott Williams:him to get a a group of, like female I think concubines to, to act like an army.
Scott Williams:So he he divided them into two groups and he made one of the king's, of
Scott Williams:the emperor's concubines, the leader of each group, and then basically
Scott Williams:taught them some manoeuvres.
Scott Williams:And when he brought the king out, or the emperor out to watch, they
Scott Williams:mucked it all up, they fell about laughing, and thought it was hilarious.
Scott Williams:And so, he executed both of the concubines who were the leaders, and
Scott Williams:then retrained the ones that were left, and they performed perfectly after that.
Scott:Absolutely.
Scott:It's motivation.
Scott:Yeah, that, that, that, that'll teach you to learn the art
Scott:of war very, very quickly.
Scott:Oh, my goodness.
Scott Williams:So yeah, there's loads of stuff like that.
Scott Williams:A lot of, a lot of the stories to do with mythology and ancient
Scott Williams:Egypt and Rome and Greece.
Scott Williams:I mean, I, I won't give away, there's, there's a lot in there and obviously
Scott Williams:and this one could be a little bit controversial in the States, but there's
Scott Williams:some interesting stuff about Christianity too, but we might not go there right now.
Scott:Yeah I mean, there's lots of things.
Scott:I mean, and that's a great point.
Scott:And that's why I appreciated you setting the stage of hey, there are categories.
Scott:If you, the reader, wants to think of things in a certain category,
Scott:you're giving us the tools.
Scott:And then you say, hey, you don't have to use them because
Scott:I don't even like using them.
Scott:But to your point, religion, politics, the idea of government
Scott:and all that, that kind of stuff.
Scott:I mean, I'm sure a lot of those things are those, those light bulb moments.
Jenn:And I think that it's important to know your, the history.
Jenn:No matter if you like it or not, or if it sits well with you, you need
Jenn:to, you should know it because if you're going to have a conversation,
Jenn:a critical thinking conversation about something, then you need to know what's
Jenn:the other side and what's the evidence and let's have a conversation about it.
Jenn:So I think that's good that you put that in there.
Jenn:Don't shy away from that.
Scott Williams:Oh, absolutely.
Scott Williams:And I think one thing we have done recently, and I, I suppose we're
Scott Williams:looking at the dumbing down of society the people don't tend to quick think
Scott Williams:critically, and they don't look at the past, they don't look at science
Scott Williams:and so many of these things that we really need to move forward.
Scott Williams:And I mean, I've, I've hear my saying that I think the world keeps getting better.
Scott Williams:But.
Scott Williams:We're in a bit of a downturn now.
Scott Williams:I'd say if, if, if I always say that it's like the stock market.
Scott Williams:We're on a steady uptick, but there are corrections along the way.
Scott Williams:And right now I think we're in a correction.
Scott:Is there anything when you were studying kind of these
Scott:lightbulb moments, and I think you alluded to it, like even writing,
Scott:it depends on what's done with it.
Scott:Writing could have been positive, like the Bible, or it could have been negative
Scott Williams:Mein Kampf.
Scott Williams:Yeah.
Scott:That's what you wrote in the book.
Scott:I mean, was there other things like that, in, in your book for lightbulb
Scott:moments that were could have, that were both, I guess, positive and negative?
Scott Williams:Oh look, tools can be used for multiple, multiple things.
Scott Williams:You can use a knife to, to sort of butter bread.
Scott Williams:You can also stab someone with a knife.
Scott Williams:There's lots of, there's lots of alternate uses for seemingly good things.
Scott Williams:Free speech is a great thing, but free speech can be abused.
Scott Williams:And I think I'm, no one's calling for the, for free speech to be curtailed, but.
Scott Williams:You do wonder why people can get away with saying blatant untruths and, and
Scott Williams:changing Like basically changing people's outlook on history based on untruths.
Scott Williams:That, that to me is, is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.
Scott Williams:But then how do you police that when free speech is so important?
Scott:Now, I think I saw when I was poking around on Amazon,
Scott:that do you have another another, like a volume two coming out here
Scott Williams:I do, I do have volume two coming out.
Scott Williams:There's, there we go.
Scott Williams:There's volume one, volume two.
Scott:Oh, there you
Jenn:go.
Jenn:There you go.
Jenn:There was just so many that you found that you had another book.
Scott Williams:well, basically what I'm doing is I'm, I'm, I'm
Scott Williams:just moving through history.
Scott Williams:The first book goes from the first humans up to the end of the Roman Empire.
Scott Williams:And then I'm picking up from, yeah, from the middle ages up
Scott Williams:to the scientific revolution.
Scott Williams:Right now I'm working on book three.
Scott Williams:which is the Enlightenment.
Scott Williams:In fact, it's that the working title at the moment is Revolution to
Scott Williams:Evolution, which is going to pick up on the the French Revolution, American
Scott Williams:Revolution, and then up to Darwin.
Scott Williams:And then I'm going to keep on going basically.
Scott Williams:But the idea is to, is to, to do it chronologically.
Scott Williams:So you can iteratively, iteratively build.
Scott Williams:And the fact that the first book.
Scott Williams:Covers probably two million years of history.
Scott Williams:The second book covers a thousand years.
Scott Williams:The third book is going to cover 200 years maybe.
Scott Williams:And, and that
Scott Williams:how fast things are growing.
Scott Williams:Yeah.
Scott Williams:So in fact, the original idea was to do three books.
Scott Williams:It's probably going to end up being five.
Scott:Wow.
Scott:That's
Scott Williams:I'm, I'm, I'm sort of, making it, stretching
Scott Williams:it out to try to do whatever.
Scott Williams:I'm basically, I'm struggling to fit it all in.
Scott Williams:And in fact, I'm sure any, I'm sure anyone could look at the first book and go, why
Scott Williams:didn't you put this, this, this, or this?
Scott Williams:And the further I go along.
Scott Williams:The more there's going to be.
Scott Williams:So I think if you've read in the introduction I'm putting in
Scott Williams:ones that I think are important.
Scott Williams:They're not the only important lightbulb moments.
Scott Williams:I think I can't possibly do it It's just a way of me sort of showing this
Scott Williams:iterative building and how how the world is getting better and how we
Scott Williams:need to appreciate that our lives are You know, immensely better than the
Scott Williams:lives of people even 200 years ago.
Scott Williams:So I think sometimes we just don't appreciate what we've got.
Jenn:I like that
Scott:gratitude.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And, and that's one thing.
Scott:And if you've been listening, if you have been listening to podcasts and you,
Scott:you would know that, that I tell people all the time, I'm not the history nerd,
Scott:but I've learned a lot doing all this stuff with Jen and learning about the
Scott:lens that we look at things through.
Scott:And you even mentioned that in the very beginning, right?
Scott:As long as, as you can.
Scott:Be curious and be open enough to know that you are looking at something
Scott:through a lens and you can be willing enough to be open to that conversation.
Scott:You can be grateful and studying history and even knowing just a little bit
Scott:about history, whether it's watching one of our videos or reading your book
Scott:about those big light bulb moments that will give you that perspective
Scott:and help you understand like, Hey, I really don't have it that bad.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:And I like it's that Scott like this is your book.
Jenn:So you're going to choose the light bulb moments, right?
Jenn:If someone else has other ones, and they can go write their book.
Scott:No,
Scott Williams:I saw something and went, Oh my God, why
Scott Williams:didn't I put that in the book?
Scott Williams:Then I just, I just stopped being hard on myself and going, I did the
Scott Williams:best I could, and there's loads of things I could have put in that I
Scott Williams:haven't put in, and I know that.
Scott Williams:But yeah, I'm, I'm really happy with how it's come out.
Scott Williams:I'm happy with The feel.
Scott Williams:I think the, the feedback I've got is, it meant I'm trying to make
Scott Williams:history appealing, interesting.
Scott Williams:A bit funny 'cause there are funny parts in history.
Scott Williams:I wanna, I want to tease those things out so people get to see the
Scott Williams:interesting, fun parts of history.
Scott Williams:It isn't all just dates and things like that.
Scott Williams:It's, it's a living thing that, that these people were alive.
Scott Williams:I mean, they, they had lives like you and I, they.
Scott Williams:were, they lived, they died, they had problems, and to see them as real people
Scott Williams:who were stupid and did dumb things and, but also did amazing things, it's
Scott Williams:and that people like say Churchill, who was incredible, but also had a really
Scott Williams:bad side to him, and I think you can acknowledge that You could acknowledge
Scott Williams:the greatness and still say, hey, this person wasn't, he was a bit of a
Scott Williams:racist and he was a bit of this and a bit of that, but he also was inspiring
Scott Williams:and did all these amazing things.
Scott Williams:I have a real problem with people trying to revise history in a way which
Scott Williams:takes away the, that greatness factor and say George Washington's our own
Scott Williams:slaves, therefore he was a bad person.
Scott Williams:And and not looking at The way things were at the time.
Scott Williams:You can't judge people by today's standards.
Scott Williams:That's not how history works.
Scott:not at all.
Scott:And I think we were just talking about that
Jenn:earlier.
Jenn:I think that's the whole point, I was they just took down that
Jenn:they removed the Thomas Jefferson statue from the New York city hall.
Jenn:It's been up there for a hundred and it's been in there for 187 years.
Jenn:And I say, we're not doing our jobs as historians.
Jenn:If that stuff is happening, because if people can, can dumb people down
Jenn:to one thing about them and it's a bad thing and then remove everything
Jenn:else that they've influenced and done and created and changed.
Jenn:Then we're not doing job as historians to provide context.
Jenn:And that is what historians do because nothing is happening today.
Jenn:That is 200 years ago that we live off of today.
Jenn:And so I, I totally agree with you.
Jenn:I find it very, It's fascinating that people want to just take all the past
Jenn:and judge it today and then put it on a side and I really dislike the former
Jenn:President Obama had used this right and wrong side of history and I really
Jenn:dislike those terms because there is no right and wrong side of history.
Jenn:It's all the accurate side of history.
Jenn:It's all the truth side of history.
Jenn:If you're looking for a right side, it's the side that's the truth.
Jenn:That's the right side.
Jenn:The wrong side is.
Jenn:changing it or saying something different or, or making something else more
Jenn:important than what it is for an agenda.
Jenn:That's the wrong side of history.
Jenn:So I have a hard time with this, this trying to judge history and
Jenn:and, and clean it out from what.
Jenn:People had to have done in the past because nobody was perfect.
Scott Williams:No, it doesn't mean you can't look at history through different
Scott Williams:lenses and say like I, I use the example of my grandmother who was born in 1895.
Scott Williams:She was born when Australia or before Australia even was a country, but she
Scott Williams:grew up during what was called the time of the white Australia policy where
Scott Williams:basically, no one who wasn't white and Anglo Saxon could come into the country.
Scott Williams:She was a terrible racist.
Scott Williams:But, she was a lovely person, but she was a terrible racist because of the era she
Scott Williams:grew up in, and everyone was racist then.
Scott Williams:I mean, Australia wasn't that far away from South Africa, in many respects.
Scott Williams:So, you gotta look at it in that respect.
Scott Williams:And, she, she grew up through the World War I, Great Depression, World War II.
Scott Williams:She ended up, she saw the moon landing.
Scott Williams:I mean, society changed so much in that time.
Scott Williams:And I'm sure some of her attitudes change, but there's a certain point
Scott Williams:where when you're a person of a certain age, there's only so far you can change.
Scott Williams:And I think, I look at her, I remember the good person she was, but I acknowledge
Scott Williams:that There were problems, but I also know why those problems happened.
Scott Williams:And I don't, I don't, I don't sort of say she's not my grandmother anymore because
Scott Williams:she said mean things about black people.
Scott Williams:I mean, she did, she was awful.
Scott Williams:I, I was actually quite shocked at some of the things she said, even as a child.
Scott Williams:So that was, it was a wake up call.
Scott Williams:There's no doubt about that, but she was also a good person in other respects,
Scott Williams:but she came from a time when the default position was everyone was a racist.
Scott Williams:. Scott: And that's why I always appreciate our conversations on talk
Scott Williams:with history because, I think our guests, have that perspective of,
Scott Williams:of learning about history and being willing to say yes, that that wasn't.
Scott Williams:By today's lens those actions back then weren't right.
Scott Williams:However, people have gotten better and we have to understand where they
Scott Williams:came from And so again, that's what I appreciate about books like yours
Scott Williams:that bring some humor into this and make it a little bit more accessible
Scott Williams:for the non history nerds like myself.
Scott Williams:And it, it's something that I, I can, I would mention to my friends at work
Scott Williams:and say, Hey, if, if you want a good, kind of coffee table, history book, or
Scott Williams:if you want to check out a history book, this one's super fun because it talks
Scott Williams:about all these, these larger concepts that most people will, be familiar with,
Scott Williams:but maybe not the details behind them.
Scott Williams:And then you interjecting your humor.
Scott Williams:Throughout the book, is, is great.
Scott Williams:So for for those listening, Scott, what's the best place that you would
Scott Williams:want them to come to you if you, they wanted to look for your, your current
Scott Williams:book or your book that's coming out?
Scott Williams:I think in the spring is what I saw.
Scott Williams:Yeah, look, it's if you come to my website
Scott Williams:lightbulbmomentshistory.
Scott Williams:com, it's got links to all the places you can get it, but you can, the other thing
Scott Williams:is I've just released a, an audio book of the first book that came out this month.
Scott Williams:Okay.
Scott Williams:So for, for listeners who don't like sitting down reading books,
Scott Williams:but like to listen to things cause, Hey, I'm a podcast listener and
Scott Williams:I'm an audio book listener too.
Scott Williams:Like I, most of my reading is done.
Scott Williams:while walking or doing housework.
Scott Williams:And I don't get time to sit down and read as much as I'd like.
Scott Williams:So that's there.
Scott Williams:It's there now.
Scott Williams:It's it's available.
Scott Williams:It's not quite there and audible for some reason yet, but everywhere else, Spotify,
Scott Williams:it's the audio books available out there.
Scott Williams:I think it's quite accessible.
Scott Williams:I'm not reading it.
Scott Williams:So but I engaged a professional person to do that But as far as yeah everywhere else
Scott Williams:The books are the first books available everywhere Amazon and everywhere else.
Scott Williams:The second book will be available everywhere as well but certainly my
Scott Williams:website's a good place to come and I can you can sign up for my mailing list.
Scott:awesome.
Scott:No, that's, that's great.
Scott:And, and we will we're, we're actually planning on putting
Scott:together like a little kind of holiday gift guide, we're going to.
Scott:Put out maybe on our channel or something like that.
Scott:So we're absolutely going to include your, your book in that.
Scott:Cause I think it's a great one.
Scott:It's fun.
Scott:It's got, got a little bit of a different tone compared to some of the, some of
Scott:the active academic book that Jen reads that I, I can't, I just can't pick up.
Scott:It's just not my thing.
Scott:It's okay.
Scott:I
Jenn:like the fun ones too.
Jenn:I like, we learn in all
Scott:different ways.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott Williams:my book has lots of pictures too,
Scott:perfect for someone like me.
Scott:It's perfect for someone like me.
Scott:As Scott writes in his foreword quoting Sir Isaac Newton, if I have
Scott:seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Scott:If you want a book that will inspire you by learning about the light bulb
Scott:moments of history, I highly encourage you to check out Scott's book,
Scott:light bulb moments in human history.
Scott:yOu can find Scott's book.
Scott:book, Pretty Much Anywhere, and for those listening, thank you for
Scott:listening to the Talk With History podcast, and please reach out to
Scott:us at our website, TalkWithHistory.
Scott:com.
Scott:But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this
Scott:podcast, especially if you think they'd be interested in this book,
Scott:please share this episode with them.
Scott:We rely on you, our community, to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.
Scott:We'll talk to you next time.
Scott:Thank you.