Welcome to the Natal Better Show. I'm your host Paul Vogelzeng and this is episode number 255.

As part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living Interview Series, today's guest is historian,

author John Previs, who along with Forbes magazine editor-in-chief Steve Forbes will present

Blueprints of Empire, ancient Rome and America. We'll talk about their

presentation among other things and answer questions like do

empires come and go have their moments and then disappear from history stage

history is nothing more than a stage and upon that stage it is only the actors who change

never the scenes. This was Marcus Aurelius the philosopher emperor of Rome in the third century AD, sitting in his tent

along the banks of the Danube River, his army arrayed along the South Bank to keep the barbarians the impending

invasion from happening.

The Emperor reflected on the challenges facing room, and as much as it pained him, he was compelled to acknowledge that this once great empire was coming to its end.

The philosopher in him found Empire was the

coming to its end. The philosopher in him found consolation in his belief that what was

happening to Rome was the result of the inevitable course of history.

Empires rise and they fall.

The same had happened to Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Carthage, and what happened to those empires yet to be born.

Was Marcus Aurelius right?

Is history simply a stage upon which empires and their leaders are little more than players who are allowed

their brief moment before they exit and disappear and most importantly for us has history condemned America to follow the same pattern of decline

and destruction as Rome.

That of course is our guest today, John Previs, who will be presenting, along with Steve Forbes

Thursday, September 6, 2018 at the National Museum of Natural History about Ancient

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