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If so, then try my podcast, Calm History.

You'll learn all about famous explorers, inventions, civilizations,

ancient wonders, and even the Titanic. just search your podcast player for calm history.

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dot com. History. Syrian Tales episode 1,

I often think about the boundaries which separate humans from one another. Borders are not geographical, they are mental.

They're social, philosophical, and sometimes even emotional.

We all have borders in our minds and our hearts.

They are formed by our experience,

by what we see with our own eyes,

and what is reported to us in speech or video.

From those things we have emotional responses and those responses to other people, to situations,

to concepts, are what give us the borders we take for granted.

In ancient Syria borders were loose.

Beyond a city's physical walls, the borders of a territory were more about who was willing to obey you than by what lands you could call mine.

The result of this is that we pick our enemies and our friends depending on the situations in which we find ourselves.

The ones we trade with, communicate with and talk to on a day-to-day basis, we might consider them friends.

But when situations change, when circumstances are

upheaved or outsiders interfere in the situation,

those friends might very quickly become our enemies.

The Syrian tales that I am giving you in this series are my attempt to explore that concept within the ancient world.

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