Great Western people; English Queens

A few additional early points about this blog, Learning Western Civilization. 

Hello.

We now have a   Twitter account for this blog here, https://twitter.com/learningwestciv.

Caesar

Newton

1. Western Civilization: people. There are personalities that dominate the study of Western Civilization like great giant statues amidst lead toy soldiers. We will study the individuals and the times they shaped and were shaped by. There are military men: some of the greatest are Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. There are philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are three of the greats. There are theologians, who may have also philosophized, such Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. There are scientists who changed our understanding of the physical world: Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo come to mind. There are great kings and emperors like Charlemagne, Augustus, and Louis XIV. There are many others to speak of. Of course men don't always fit into such neat categories. There were theologians who were philosophers, there are kings who were philosophers and jurists. There were scientists who were philosophers and even theologians. We will try to explain these personalities in a fulsome enough manner that includes their secondary interests.

Summa Theologica

2. All the people on the aforementioned list are men. So they are. If a woman had conquered much of the known world with a small group of Companions and hoplites, or had used a telescope to figure out that the moon has holes (craters) thus upending long-held beliefs, or had written a book Summa Theologica of 1.5 million words, then she would make the aforementioned list, without a second glance. As we mentioned earlier, we will be discussing matters that I consider important, meaningful or interesting in the study of Western Civilization. That will probably include some women, such as Queen Victoria who ruled the British Empire for sixty four years during which the empire dominated the globe. Elizabeth I, also from England, is another fascinating personality who will have to be studied. Elizabeth II who presides (scarcely rules) over the United Kingdom today is another subject of study, but for an entirely different reason. However little power she has, she must be faulted for presiding over the empire and kingdom during the greatest weakening and enfeeblement it has ever known. Indeed, the downward trajectory of the country is one that is perhaps unrivaled in the annals of history. We will study it with great interest, and with a measure sadness. That some of the downward movement could have easily been avoided makes it all the more disconcerting. In the final analysis we will learn about Western Civilization and that will require studying the people who I feel impacted it in ways that require study. I may attempt to make some guidelines about who gets in and out, but it is and will be subjective. If you, the reader, want to see more women included, then you will have to write your own blog.