Qajari Persia; the Origins of the Great Game Artwork

Hanging with History

The first season focuses on the origins of the Industrial Revolution or the Great Enrichment, we go deep into history to gain enough background knowledge to actually understand the various theories of the origins of the Great Enrichment. Eventually we learn that we also need to know how the miracle was consolidated, as the many other close approaches to the Industrial Revolution failed.A kwirky style, but intellectually ambitious with the goal of understanding history well enough to understand the miracle that happened that one time. It's gonna be a long series.

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Hanging with History

Qajari Persia; the Origins of the Great Game

February 11, 2026 • Harald Hansen • Season 1 • Episode 204

0:00 | 41:32

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A scientific expedition, led by Jean Bruguière and Guillaume Olivier. Now they truly were scientists, but they were also diplomats secretly working for France. Jean was an expert on molluscs, snails, shellfish and barnacles. He is credited with the discovery of 34 species of the same including a chiton named after Spinoza. Olivier, by contrast, was a brilliant spy and diplomat, credited with toppling several middle eastern governments. No, he was rather an expert on beetles, also a discoverer of new species, and a discoverer of new species of lizards as well.

So, of course, you would expect great interest from a warrior from the central Asian steppes, this warrior would be following the progress of invertebrate science very closely. Well, no, but what did the people of the middle east and the subcontinent and the far east know about Europe and the wider world? They were not travelers. They lived in almost impossible to understand (for us) ignorance about the wider world and their place in it.

For this 3 episode arc about the wider world in the Napoleonic Wars, the general fact of illiteracy and innumeracy, and lack of knowledge about the wider world will be an issue we run into again and again.