I am taking a MOOC – Superpowers of the Ancient World through Futurelearn (highly recommended):

This is one of my posts, and describes my view of conflict in world affairs, both historical and contemporary:

“The fight for control of land and other resources seems to be the basis for much of global history, and seems to me to be a large part of human nature. If you have more stuff, your group survives and does better and makes more history… Gaining the support of your group by defining the ‘others’ as something to be opposed is the universal way to garner enthusiasm and greed. It is a simple story that causes most of the horror in the stories and interest for what we read and study so avidly, and repeat so hideously.”

Seeing how current politics move to do the same things over and over again I am astounded that we have not progressed.