Thinking Class #055 - Prof. Alan MacFarlane - How English Individualism Created The Modern World
Professor Alan McFarlane is a renowned anthropologist, historian, and Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. Author or editor of 20 books and countless articles, Alan has spent his career exploring the origins and nature of the modern world. Alan is also the creator of the YouTube channel @ayabaya.
In this episode, we Alan and I discuss England’s unique national character and its influence on politics, language, law, economics, and literature, the origins of English individualism and how it shaped the modern world, why England was capitalist long before the Industrial Revolution, how England’s history of mobility and lack of clan structures set it apart for over 1,500 years, women’s legal rights emerging earlier than often thought, contractual nature of English society, the errors of the anthropological worldview of Karl Marx and Max Weber, why modernity is more than just technological progress, and whether the English and British are becoming a landless peasantry today, and much, much more.
Enjoy the show classmates. And don't forget to subscribe.
You can find Alan's work here:
- Youtube - Professor Alan MacFarlane - Ayabaya
- Published books
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