THIS is the Way to Learn History

As a high school student, I didn't "get" history; it seemed largely irrelevant. I took some history classes as an undergrad, and found them much easier than I expected, and a bit interesting, but still largely irrelevant. As a grad student, I started to see, via history of science, how very relevant history really is to, well, pretty much everything. And of course, the last nine years have been a real-life immersion course in the importance of history. I still feel pretty ignorant of the subject generally, but at least I've learned to pay attention and learn what I can.

All that is a long-winded preface to pointing out a flash animation of the rise and fall of empires over the last 6000 years in the "middle east." I put the name in quotes, because the map animation zooms and pans to cover much of the Old World during its course. Very Cool! Hat Tip to blogger buddy Pygalgia.