Western Civ
Adam Walsh
A fast-moving history of the western world from the ancient world to the present day. Examine how the emergence of the western world as a global dominant power was not something that should ever have been taken for granted. This podcast traces the development of western civilization starting in the ancient Near East, through Greece and Rome, past the collapse of the Western Roman Empire into the Dark Ages, and then follows European and, ultimately, American history as the western world moved into a dominant world position.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 27, 2026 • 39min
Episode 529: We Hold These Truths
After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the Confederacy slowly fades. Despite Lee's efforts, Grant grinds his army down through murderous battles such as the Wilderness and Cold Harbor. Ultimately, the resouces of the Union are simply too much. But even as America ultimately wins its civil war, its greatest president falls to an assassin's bullet. Western Civ 2.0
Mar 24, 2026 • 20min
Episode 528: Gettysburg
In three days in Pennsylvania in 1863, the American Civil War turns forever. Western Civ 2.0
Mar 20, 2026 • 33min
Episode 527: The War Goes North
The Battle of Antietam drives President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. But Robert Lee wins two dramatic victories in this aftermath at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Western Civ 2.0
Mar 18, 2026 • 24min
Episode 526: The Seven Days Battles
Two ironclads face off to change the shape of naval warfare while Robert E. Lee emerges from the Seven Days Battles as the lead Confederate commander.Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial
Mar 16, 2026 • 18min
Episode 525: Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh starts as an apparent Confederate victory, but the loss of General Johnston and the resulting chaos dooms the South. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the Anaconda Plan takes hold.Western Civ. 2.0 Free Trial
Mar 15, 2026 • 19min
Episode 524: Bull Run
When the American Civil War begins, everyone expects a picnic. The Battle of Bull Run erases those false expectations.Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial
Mar 13, 2026 • 40min
Episode 523: A House Divided
From Nat Turner's Rebellion to the Compromise of 1850, Americans did everything they could to avoid the Civil War.... and failed. Western Civ Podcast 2.0 Free Trial
Mar 6, 2026 • 29min
Episode 522: The Sun Never Sets
In the 19th Century, Europeans carved up the globe with devastating consequences.Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial
Mar 3, 2026 • 42min
Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity
In the United States today, there is no faith more dominant than Christianity. In Chosen Land, historian Matthew Avery Sutton chronicles Christians’ five-hundred-year endeavor to turn North America into their version of the kingdom of God, revealing the fruitful and dynamic entanglement between the history of America and the history of American Christianity.In the centuries after Christianity first arrived on American shores, colonizers and colonized from New England to Spanish California practiced many varieties of the faith. After the founding of the United States, the nation’s lack of a state religion forced new and evolving strains of Christianity to battle for potential adherents, as they still do to this day. As American Christianity has bent, fractured, and adapted to changing times, Christian belief has shaped everything from the promise of Manifest Destiny to Ronald Reagan’s approach to the Cold War, the rise of the Southern Lost Cause narrative to the triumphs of the civil rights movement.Buy the book HERE.Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial
Feb 27, 2026 • 19min
Episode 521: The Irish Potato Famine
When the potato crop failed in 1845 in Ireland, no one at the time knew just how momentous it was. By the close of 1847, Ireland's population, through death and emigration, had fallen by nearly three million souls. It still has not recovered. Western Civ 2.0 Free Trial
