Writing Real History with the Help of Google's Ngram Viewer [podcast #50]

Watch the video on YouTube

Using Google’s Ngram Viewer, it’s possible to paint a more accurate picture of our history. Did you know, for example, that the push for a “scientific worldview” coincided perfectly with the Apollo Space Program? Or that hardly anyone wrote of shared “Judeo-Christian” values until after the Second World War?

In this video, I process seemingly random terms that, taken together, explain our true history, at least for the past 500 years. Referring to the English-speaking world of the West, I identify four ages:

• 1450-1600 AD: Age of Quiet Beginnings (Plato, Hermetics, etc.)

• 1600-1750 AD: Age of Religion, Christianity, growth

• 1750-1900 AD: Age of Civilization, colonialism, reflection

• 1900-2050 AD: Age of the Middle Class, science fiction, wealth, and decline