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September 24, 2025 62 mins
On today’s episode we talk about one of the most ubiquitous human creations in the modern world: Concrete. What would the modern world look like without this grey material we all take for granted?
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history, It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a

(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited

(00:48):
Brad wagnan history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy to join us. Remember but if you'd like
to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube
and locals dot com. Join us as we discuss what
deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On
today's episode, we talk about one of the most ubiquitous

(01:08):
human creations in the modern world, concrete. What would the
modern world look like without this gray material we all
take for granted without further ado, let me introduce the
history guy.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
For more than a thousand years, modern humans have faced
a perplexing question from their ancient past. How is it
that ancient Romans were able to produce concrete that was
more durable and longer lasting than anything that modern science
could create. Well. In twenty twenty three, MIT News reported
that scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had finally

(01:49):
answered that question. And finding that answer from our past
immediately led to speculation that it might help us to
improve construction in our present that would presumably lacks well
into our future, and it raised the question of how
humans came to develop a material that can quite literally
be said to be the very foundation of human civilization.

(02:14):
In his twenty eighteen book History of Concrete, a very
Old and Modern material, structural engineer at Per Jaren explains
that somewhat mixed opinions can be found about what can
be regarded as the first concrete. That issue really is
the definition of the term. But for example, excavations at
a place in Lower Galilee in northern Israel called Yiffidel

(02:35):
found remnants of a concrete floora that was built some
nine thousand years ago. The floor was substantial, using what
he describes this about eight cubic meters of concrete, which
would have required some two tons of lime as a binder.
This large amount of lime, which would have required burning
limestone in an oven, then suggests that there was already
an industry in existence. Jeren quotes Chinese scholar Bao Ying

(02:57):
describing a process whereby natural cement might have been discovered
in Mesopotamia forty five hundred years ago as people dug
pits for their cooking fires and noticed that heat of
the fires had cracked the surface, creating a fine powder.
When this was moistened by the rain, it would harden
into lumps of stone, and this resulted in the production
of natural cement. More fancifully, Ying asserts that the Tower

(03:20):
of Babel was made from this material, and when the
raw material was exhausted, the workers thought that that was
a message from the gods, and so they decided to stop.
Despite the speculative nature, Jaren concludes that many authors believe
that the claim that concrete was first developed in Mesopotamia
is credible, as another building material definitely in family with
concrete is bricks or building blocks and bricks had their

(03:42):
origin there, so why not concrete whoever. Jaron notes several
other ancient vines, including a flora in Yugoslavia dating to
fifty six hundred BC, which is regarded by many as
the first concrete construction, and the use of lime mortar
in China. As early as five thousand years ago, lime
mortar was used in building the Great Wall there As
the seventh century BC, the Arabic Nabatians were using waterproof

(04:04):
concrete to create cisterns and channels to hold water and
allow trading across the desert, perhaps as early as seven
hundred BC. In addition, the use of lime based mortar
and concrete developed in Mesoamerica independently as early as eleven
hundred BC. However, while there is disagreement over where cement,
a binding agent using lime in clay and concrete cement

(04:25):
combined with sand and gravel to be used as a
building material were first used, the Romans used the compound
with cement poured inside or over timber frameworks on a
greater scale than ever before. Science Magazine rites the Romans
were not the first to invent concrete, but they were
the first to employ it on a mass scale. By
two hundred BC, concrete was used in the majority of

(04:46):
their construction projects. The website Concrete Contractor notes that this
substance was called puzzlin cement, referring to the use of
volcanic ash, and was used to construct the Appian Way,
the Colosseum and the pantheonis was the Point to Guard
in southern France. The Guardian writes that the most striking
surviving example of Roman concrete is the Pantheon, which the

(05:07):
painter Michelangel described as an angelic and not human design
and still looks strikingly modern today, and it remains the
largest non reinforced concrete dome in the world nineteen centuries
after it was built. Science Magazine notes that many Roman
structures made of cement built more than two thousand years
ago are still standing. The modern counterparts start to crumble

(05:28):
in as little as fifty years. The reason is that
Roman cement has an extraordinary property. It is self healing,
as water works through the cement through porous pumice stones
used in the mix. Complex chemical reactions occur with elements
in the cement to create new natural cement. The Associated
Press reports that the MIT research proposed that this power

(05:49):
comes from chunks of lime that are studded throughout the
Roman material instead of being mixed in evenly. Researchers used
to think that these chunks were assigned that the Romans
weren't mixing up their materials well enough, but instead, after
analyzing concrete samples, the scientists found that when cracks form,
water is able to seep into the concrete. That water
activates the leftover pockets of limes, sparking up new chemical

(06:10):
reactions that can fill in the damage sections. Similarly, Mayan
cement works have remained intact for one thousand years despite
the hot human environment. The Associated Press reports that researchers
have discovered that when organic compounds from local trees were
added to the concrete mixture, bits of organic material from
the tree juice got incorporated into the plaster's molecular structure,

(06:32):
and in this way that my impost was able to
mimic sturdy natural structures like seashells and sea urchin spines
and brow some of their toughness. It's no wonder that
we're still trying to understand ancient processes. The International Association
of Certified Home inspectors Or. Iacchi rights that during the
Middle Ages, concrete technology crept backwards. After the fall of

(06:53):
the Roman Empire in four seventy six AD, the techniques
for making puzzle and cement were lost, while there was
still some natural cements being used. Concrete Contractor writes that
the technique for making pozzland cement was lost and didn't
reappear until midway through the Middle Ages. In fourteen fourteen,
the manuscripts of the Roman Pulio Vitruvius, which contained information

(07:13):
about poseland cement, were discovered and thus revived the interests
in concrete. Fra Jcondo used poseland cement to build the
pier at Point de Notre Dame in Paris in fourteen
ninety nine, the first modern use of concrete. However, Giacondo's
bridge eventually had to be removed as it couldn't carry
the weight of the houses that were built on top
of it. Modern cement was developed over time. In seventeen

(07:37):
ninety three, the Iacchi explains, British civil engineer John Smeaton
discovered a more modern method for producing hydraulic lime for cement.
He used limestone containing clay that was fired until it
turned into clinker, which was then ground into powder. In
seventeen ninety six, Englishman James Parker patented what he called
Roman cement a misnomer, and that it was not similar

(07:57):
to Pozzlin cement. Rather, it was a type of natural
cement created when naturally forming nodules of clay containing both
clay minerals and calcium carbonate were burned and ground into
a fine powder. Such natural nodes, which became known as
cement stones, were found and used across Europe, but their
limited availability and inconsistent mix led others to try and
develop artificial alternatives the Iacchi rights have. Finally, in eighteen

(08:21):
twenty four, an Englishman named Joseph Asten invented Portland cement
by burning finely ground chalk and clay in a kiln
until the carbon dioxide was removed. It was named Portland
cement because it resembled the high quality building stones found
in Portland, England. Portland cement was the game changer, similar
to what Smeaton had developed the Iacchi rights that Aspden

(08:42):
refined his method by carefully proportioning limestone and clay, pulverizing them,
and then burning the mixture into clinker, which was then
ground into finished cement, most common cement used around the
world today as some version of Portland cement. Not only
did Portland cemit not require the natural nodes that mixed
clay and calcium carbonate, but unlike the nodes, the proportions
could be controlled, allowing consistent quality. Portland cement was exported

(09:06):
around the world using many types of projects, although its
usefulness further developed in the middle nineteenth century when French
engineer Francois Couigne developed iron reinforced concrete, adding iron bars
inside the concrete. This increased durability and flexibility and made
concrete more suitable for home construction. The eighteen seventy five
construction of the first reinforced concrete home in the United States,

(09:28):
built by mechanical engineer William E. Ward in port Chester,
New York, and made out of reinforced concrete because of
his wife's fear of fire. The Iaccha Wrights was the
start of what is today a thirty five billion dollar
industry that employs more than two million people in the
United States alone. By eighteen ninety seven, they write Sears
Roebuck was selling fifty gallon drums of imported Portland cement

(09:50):
for three dollars and forty cents each, while the uses
of concrete were increasing. The first concrete street in the
United States, in Bell Fountain, Ohio, was constructed in eighteen
nine one. Engineers in several places were developing stronger processes
for steel reinforced structures about the nineteen oh three construction
of the Ingles Building in Cincinnati and sixteen stories, the
world's first steel reinforced concrete skyscraper. Up to that point,

(10:15):
concrete generally had to be mixed at the job site,
but in nineteen oh three, German engineer Jergen Heinrich Meghen's
patented the idea of ready mixed concrete, which would be
mixed off site and transported to a job site ready
to poor. Although there is evidence that concrete mixed off
site was used even earlier, what is generally considered to
be first delivery of ready mixed concrete, and that is,

(10:36):
concrete pre mixed by a business and then sold to
a builder, occurred in Baltimore in nineteen thirteen. A process, however,
received a significant boost with the invention of the concrete
mixer truck. The earliest patent granted was to Kansas inventor
Eckert bikel in nineteen twenty, although there was an earlier
application for patent by Ohio inventor Stephen Stefanian. Today, as

(10:57):
much as three quarters of the concrete producer is ready mix,
with around two thousand ready mixed concrete manufacturing businesses in
the United States alone. Pre Cast concrete, pioneered by city
engineer John Alexander Brodie in Liverpool, United Kingdom, for the
making of prefabricated homes, uses reusable molds to cast concrete
pieces such as beams or wall panels, or even large

(11:19):
sections such as bridge spans. Pre Cast concrete can be
poured and cured in controlled conditions, offering some advantages of
reporing concrete on site. Precast concrete manufacturing was a seventeen
billion dollar industry in the United States in twenty twenty three.
Pre Stressed concrete uses tension of some sort to tighten
concrete before it hardens, helping to counteract the effects of

(11:40):
creep and relaxation that occurs within concrete. While there were
versions of prestressed concrete as early as the eighteen hundreds,
French engineer Eugene freisin A developed processes for pre stressing
called frasin a technology. Prestressed concrete has significally higher tensile
strength and is particularly useful in high stress structures such
as bridge Concrete played a significant role in both World Wars.

(12:04):
Shortage of steel compelled the US to build ships from
concrete during both wars, Although FUSAW Service four hundred and
thirty five thousand yards of concrete were used to build
the Pentagon in Washington in nineteen forty three, Hitler used
some seventeen million tons of concrete building defensive works for
his Atlantic Wall, which was partially defeated through the use
of concrete mulberry harbors. While structural still became more popular

(12:26):
in the early twentieth century for skyscrapers, concrete construction came
back into vogue in the later part of the century.
The magazine Construction Week explains that concrete buildings not only
offered designers flexibility in the shapes that are able to
form and designs are able to create, but they also
offer more uninterrupted and usable floor space than steel framed buildings.
Using the definition a building where the main vertical and

(12:49):
lateral structural elements and floor systems are constructed from concrete.
Ten of the forty world's tallest buildings are concrete, including
the ninth tallest building in the world, Chicago's ninetye forlor
Trump International Tower and Hotel. While it is excluded by
this definition, that tallest building the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa,
is a composite of concrete and structural steel. While around

(13:11):
forty five thousand qubit yards of concrete were used to
build Trump International Tower and Hotel in Chicago, that is
hardly a record. Nearly four and a half million yards
of concrete were used in the nineteen thirty five construction
of Hoover Dam, although that impressive number is dwarfed by
Washington's Grand Cooley Dam, whose twelve million yards of concrete
made it the largest concrete structure ever built until the

(13:32):
two thousand and three completion of China's Three Gorges Dam,
which used more than thirty five million qup yards of concrete.
Because it is abundantly and economically available, concrete has become
the most abundant manufactured material on Earth. Twice as much
concrete is used in construction worldwide than all other building
materials combined. The world uses some thirty billion tons of

(13:55):
concrete roughly sixty cubic feet per person on the planet
per year, making it the second most consumed material by
humanity behind water. There's an estimated eighteen point two billion
cubic yards of concrete on Earth, and the weight of
all the concrete rivals the Earth's biomass the weight of
all its living material. This massive use of concrete has

(14:19):
created environmental concerns. It's generally a low impact material that
is durable and weather resistant, but the creation of cement
requires burning materials in kilns, requiring significant energy, and the
decay of the calcium carbonate releases CO two. Industry representatives
insists that alternatives have even larger environmental impacts, and that
the impact of concrete is largely because of the huge

(14:41):
volume produced. Will industry and scientists are working on multiple
ideas to improve the efficiency of our production of concrete,
but part of the solution might come from our ancient past.
As scientists unlock the secrets for why Roman and Mine
concrete last so long, they are able to develop improvements
to the formula that might increase the longevity of modern concrete.
Now understand, Roman concrete could not bear the structural loads

(15:04):
that modern concrete requires. But by incorporating parts of the
formula that allowed it to last so long, scientists might
be able to develop concrete that lasts longer and is
self repairing and thus reduces the concrete that needs to
be replaced and thus overall demand. But still, the demand
for concrete is increasing it about five percent each year,
and that doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon.

(15:26):
So I think we can safely say that, just as
with our ancient past, a great deal of our future
will be set in concrete.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now for the fun part, where I the History Guy
himself and longtime friend of the History Guy, Brad Wagden
discuss what the world might have looked like if concrete
had never been invented. Okay, so before we get started
talking about concrete today, I wanted to mention that this
is now our We've done a full year of counterfactual
podcasts and I think that that's pretty dang cool. And

(15:59):
we'll see how I think we're still going. I haven't
run out of ideas for what to talk about.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, absolutely, and you know we can always move to
another I mean we we we rebuilt once at one too,
But I mean we're having a great time. What did
we do? You know, what did we do here? What
was our first one?

Speaker 1 (16:13):
It was death of a president? So we did the
one on the close calls the quest Yeah for for
Franklin Pierce and FDR and Teddy Roosevelt.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Maybe Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, yeah, this is his carriage got squished. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's great. If you haven't, if I have watched it,
watch that episode. That's a great episode, I show you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
And so now we're we're we're moving on to talk
about concrete. Now, you know, we had talked the last
time about when we do these little specific ones that
like the like Churchill at Christmas, how how they seem
to turn out to like I don't know how big
a change it could have made. But this is back
to the other side, which is that without concrete, I
think the world would be an awful lot different.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
It would be a different right now. Concrete is second
only to water in terms of materials used by humans.
So yeah, it would be a very different world without
car But there's there's you know, there's there's various questions
to ask, but uh, and there's a fairly big movement
now to try to replace concrete with other options because

(17:11):
concrete requires cement. Cement requires burning, essentially, and that uses
a lot of energy and it puts a lot of
carbon into the atmosphere. So the question of a world
without concrete is a very real question right now, and
we're looking at all sorts of it. Was it hemp bricks?
They're going to make concrete out of hemp if that
house catches fire? I don't know exactly what.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
I did see an interesting, uh historical factoid that for
a while, Heineken Beer was making bottles that were brick shaped,
with the idea that you would take your you would
enjoy your Heineken, and then you would take the brick
and put it into you know, whatever building project you had.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
So that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
So yeah, I'm going to be alternative. Yeah, alternative building
materials are actually kind of a big thing. And then
obviously there's some parts of the world where you know
to put to put any kind of a building together,
you know, you might not have local resources, or you
might live in an unstable place where you know, then

(18:15):
the concrete truck is not going to deliver, So how
do you how do you put buildings to that are right.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
But on the other hand, there's one of the answers
for sustainable housing is a machine that extrudes cement that
can actually, you know, build a house automatically, very quickly.
And that's also one of the possible ideas of how
we would construct any sort of domicile on Mars. So,
I mean some in some ways, concrete is the big answer,
even in the Third World, because because it can shape

(18:43):
almost any way that you want to, and you can
generally make it out of more or less local materials
or you know.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
I mean it's in I think it's incredible how much
we've done with concrete, and it's it's I think, sometimes
surprising when you look around just how much stuff has
concrete and it I mean, I'm in a basement right now,
that's what Almost all the walls around me are made
of concrete.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
It would be difficult in most of America to have
a basement. It would be a dirty root seller. But
I mean when you really talk about because asphalt is
a type of concrete. So I mean all of our roads,
all of our bridges, are tallest buildings, and how much
of the world is made of concrete, which is really
what concrete is this buildable stone, and concrete is artificial stone.
And how much of the world is built of concrete.

(19:25):
It's a massive, massive amount. So certainly the infrastructure we have,
even with the alternatives that we've talked about or that
there are talking about, none of those could be replacing
on the scale of how we use concrete. And so
certainly a world if you know, if we suddenly had
a world without concrete, if we suddenly had you know,
I don't know, some bug that ate concrete or something

(19:45):
like that, then we would lose a lot. Even still,
girder bridges still depend really upon concrete for foundations and
et cetera. They're working on some wood buildings that can
get up to maybe fourteen floors, but certainly none, none
of the one hundred story skyscrapers that we had would
be possible without concrete. Even the ones that use structural
steel is still it is all encased in concrete. So,

(20:08):
you know, on the very simple sense, what if there
never was an invention of concrete, we probably don't modernize anywhere.
You know, we couldn't build the factories that we build,
We couldn't build the roads and infrastructure that we build.
And so we would we would never have developed to
the extent that we had if we didn't have concrete.
I mean that part's kind of simple.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
That you wonder the impact on something like the Industrial Revolution.
I think we don't necessarily realize how much of that
relied on concrete and just the absolute massive use of it.
Many of the buildings we build today, and not just
tall ones, but I mean like your local Walmart is
going to be built almost I mean large not just

(20:49):
the foundation, but large pieces of it.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Are most of your house. Virtually every house is i
mean used. There are some houses that have a stone
foundation or something like that, or we're just built onto
the ground, but almost every house built the States, it's
going to be built on a concrete foundation. That's how
we do things in some ways. Concrete was really the
key technology for the Industrial Revolution when they start industrially
making concrete that then can be used on site. So clearly,

(21:14):
I mean there's there's so much that we do that
requires a factory that requires concrete that the world would
be very different if it werenked for concrete. And there
were course points where I mean, steel is a much
more limited resource compared to concrete, in terms of how
much of it we have. So even to the extent
that we can replace concrete with steel, we don't have
nearly as much steel as we have concrete. So if

(21:37):
you imagine all the bridges that we have on interstate
highways and things like that, some of those are steel,
some of those are still beam, etc. But I mean
most of those are using quite a lot of concrete.
I mean, how many how many steel bridges do we
have the steel to make? I mean it would be
it would be very different.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, And even with this, and even with the steel bridge,
it's likely that you have concrete footings. Everything that leads
up to the bridge on the roadway is probably made
of concrete as well as if you're crossing a river,
concrete piers.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
And how much of our power, how much of the
way that the world was built on dams. The earthen
dams are much more limited than the concrete dams. All
the major dams in the world are all built using
stone concrete. And even when we're talking about the alternatives
to concrete or cemit in concrete, there's nothing that would
be would have the weight and the scale of concrete.

(22:28):
We couldn't build the Hoover Dam with any of the
alternatives that we're looking at today.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
So I mean, if we're if we're talking into counterfactions,
because I think first we're really seeing what the scale
of this would look like, because it depends on when.
If we say that the Romans discover concrete and are
making are making the Roman concrete, but that that just
never that's never rediscovered, then that's then that's kind of it.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
That's because there was a period maybe maybe from the
ninth of the twelfth century, well, we didn't have much
understanding of concrete. It was only a little use. There's
only some sort of natural concrete that was big used.
But we can certainly start back from that. And that's
the question, and I think it's a very relevant question
here is would the would the Roman Empire have been
what it was if it worked for Roman concrete? And

(23:13):
then you know what happens if the Roman Empire is
different because of it. So that's a that's a good
place to start as a counterfactual. How critical was concrete
to the Roman Empire? And the answer is, you know,
very the roads, the aqueducts, the major building projects.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, I think that when you look at the question
of how important concrete was to the Roman Empire, you
have to really just say that without the concrete, the
Roman Empire really isn't an empire. And what I'm basing
that on is that with the necessity to keep an

(23:50):
empire and large urban areas functional, you have to have
the infrastructure, so you have to have the delivery of water.
And then there are follow on effects. For instance, you
had people in the in the Roman legions who were
specifically engineers, and that was part of what made the

(24:14):
Roman military so effective, was that they had a high
level of specialization, and the legionnaires were largely the ones
who were building fortifications, roads and in some cases, you know,
contributing to the building of cities.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
You have a bunch of soldiers and they get bored.
Bad things happen. So everybody as soon as you stop
before they could get bored, they're like, hey, build a
coliseum right there, Go do it. You know, get us water.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
And something I think is hard to quantify but is
no less important is an empire also really depends on reputation.
And so when you're looking at construction projects such as
the Pantheon as well as again, you know, hundreds of
miles of acu ducks, if not thousands, and Roman roads

(25:04):
without concrete, you do not have the cachet, if you will,
of being a cutting edge technological society in the midst
of barbarians. And when I say barbarians, please throw the
air quotes in there, because you know, the ancient Celts, Germans, Scythians,

(25:25):
et cetera, et cetera, they all had very advanced civilizations
as well. They had lots of accomplishments in art and
you know, all of the other things that we would
consider civilization. But Rome was definitely the step above. And
the reason I think that we have the ongoing influence

(25:46):
of the Roman Empire in western in what we consider
the West is largely based on the fact that they
were the prema and empire for so long.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
I think that the very simply the conc was not
just allowed them to build these things, that allowed these
things to stay standing. And that was a big deal.
You know, when you start talking about the Middle Ages,
where we had this whole ancients knew so much we
need to learn from them kind of thing. One of
the reasons that's able to take hold is because there
was so much Roman architecture still in existence. And you know,

(26:20):
one of the specific things that during the Renaissance, Florence
had built a church, but they didn't have a dome
on it. And the guy who eventually built that dome,
Bruno Esqui, one of the things that he took his
inspiration from was directly like the Pantheon, which has this huge, huge,
unsupported dome that the Romans built, and he was able

(26:41):
to build that partially because of what he learned from
looking at these ancient Roman ruins essentially that were still standing.
And so you know, without that concrete, we have a
very different Roman legacy. Yeah, and I think that impacts
how much we go back to them, because I think
one of the reasons that so much Western civilization went
back and taught the Romans is because of how much

(27:01):
of a legacy they physically left behind. And I mean
that's not the only reason, of course that's true. I
think it mattered, you know, the fact that we saw
these the Colosseum, all of these things that were so
incredible and powerful.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
I mean much of Rome was would, but I mean
the parts of Rome that are there all depend upon concrete,
and so it's it's true we don't have that empire
to look at say this is our this is our
our legacy. So if you without concrete, I mean, the
empire is probably much smaller, probably much less able to
control armies over its great distances. And you know, Rome

(27:35):
is not the city that that everybody looks, and so.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Could it have been the city in the world when
it was without the concrete that it used to build
the system?

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Could any city really have been as large as Rome
without the concrete that it takes to build the large
structures and the and the water supply systems and everything
that I mean, it was all tied to concrete. And
if you don't have Rome, probably, but you don't get
any sort of single control of empire. You probably get
a lot of small states that continue to compete with

(28:07):
each other, which means you don't get any There's probably
no such thing as European culture. There might not be
anything in terms of a concept of Europe. I mean,
there's some ways some I actually saw some that were
arguing that Islam would have been wiped out early if
not for the Romans, that it was really the Romans
work weakening the Sassian empires and other things that allowed
Islam to thrive. So I mean, maybe you don't get

(28:29):
the caliphates, or maybe the caliphates are just able to
take over much easier if you don't have, especially the
Eastern Roman Empire.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
That impacts Christianity too, because one of the reasons that
Christianity is able to spread is because it it becomes
entrenched in the Roman Empire, which was so so powerful
over such a large distance that they were able to
really spread, I mean, spread that religion all over Europe
and North Africa and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Absolutely, Christianity becomes a religion no one ever heard of.
I mean, it's just a small thing that never goes
anywhere if it's not for an empire. So culturally very different,
scientifically very different. Much of the scientific a bandsmen of
Rome was dependent upon being able to build things, and
in terms of control power. No Roman Empire, then you

(29:14):
probably get a number of competing empires compete for a
very long time. You know, it might be that Europe
ends up looking a lot more like say North America was,
you know when Columbus showed up, which you really have
is you know, more more disparate, growing boring bands. It's
it's not that.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
An empire couldn't exist, of course, because I mean there
were non concrete empires that the Inca didn't have any
real kind of concrete.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
But they, I mean the ass take on the Mayans
had versions of hadgi. Yeah, in Europe operator at least
for a few hundred years without notable use of concrete.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
The ancient Persians, you know, in the time of like
of Alexander, before Alexander still had those roads, and I
mean there was still stuff. There was still stuff standing
from even further back than that, you know, that probably
didn't use too much concrete, like the ziggurats and stuff
like that, but it's those empires still had had things
that they don't think Rome would have been able to copy.

(30:11):
One of the reasons I think the Persian Empire was
able to work like that is because it was a
very contiguous land mass that they were controlling and Rome.
You know, Rome didn't have that advantage. They had coastlines,
they had mountain ranges and stuff that would have made
it more difficult.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
It is.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
You know, I do think that we would have at
the very least more powers like that, because Rome wouldn't
be able to project as far as it was able
to and impress at the level that it was able
to the ability to say we are Romans, look at
you know, look at our look at our achievements. Was
that was a significant piece, and that had at least
a large part to do with concrete.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Imagine British history and how much British history changes if
the Roman Empire simply doesn't expand to Britain. Yeah, which
could without concrete, without the piers and the navy and
all the things. I mean, the thing about Roman concrete
is that can cure underwater, right, which is extraordinary, And
that's one of the things we had to still relearn
how that worked, because it would because these these this
Roman concrete was lasting longer than modern concrete. But I mean,

(31:10):
that was a huge part of Rom's ability to expand.
Was it's it's its fleet. It's that. I mean, the
Mediterranean was our sea, right, the Roman Sea, and so
much of that, so much of the infrastructure needed to
have ports and safe ports and moving supplies and stuff
like that requires that you have peers, which require that
you have concrete. Wherever you find Rome, you find concrete.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, I'm yeah, I'm trying to think who would be
the primary who would be the primary cultural influences with
Rome not not being the eternal city. So instead of
a million person seated the empire, maybe it's one hundred
thousand people because at that point, without the infrastructure, how
are you going to support the huge population of Rome.

(31:56):
So yeah, you definitely end up with a more tribal. Look,
the Roman Empire really is Western civilization. It is the
It is that first step of the stairway, that is.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Can the power like Carthage replace Rome in a world
if Rome never invented concrete? And it's interesting because you know,
you don't really see the conflict between Rome and Carthage
as being a one of concrete. But I mean, you know,
if Rome can't be the size that it is, then
can Carthage replace Rome? And you know, can Carthage operate

(32:30):
if they never invented concrete?

Speaker 3 (32:33):
As we saw from one of our previous episodes, Hannibal
made a pretty good play to take out Rome. He
had the military forces, they had the navy, and so
without the crucial infrastructure and the ability to raise legions
at a crucial time, does Carthage win? Does Rome get

(32:54):
wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by
a greater Carthaginian Empire, and.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
How different are we if that happens. So, I mean
there's other you know, there's other players there, but those
all depend upon things developing the way that they developed.
I mean, if you don't have Rome to those other
players have a rise to the status that they do.
And so it's it's hard to say, but I mean
the real foundation that goes to do we ever, I mean,
does anything ever unify like the Roman Empire? Did this

(33:23):
area of land that then creates this whole concept of Europe?
And maybe, you know, maybe it doesn't. And then how
different is.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Hard to even imagine in some ways, And we're talking about,
you know, the modern world, what it looks like without
a Rome, I will.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Go way out of the live here and say that
we do not have the technology.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
That we have now.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
In fact, I would say that we would probably be
stuck without concrete, We would be stuck at a Renaissance,
pre industrial European talk level of technology. Yeah, I really
don't think.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, so much of what we have. How we ever
build their planes if we can't build you know, a factory.
So yeah, it's it's kind of hard to see I mean,
I don't know if anybody's played SIV five work. I
don't even know if concrete's on the tree, but it
sure should be right on a technology tree because it's
it's so fundamental to a number of different things. So
I mean, if you that's a that's a place to start.
If there's never this invention of concrete in Rome, or

(34:25):
if concrete is evitted by somebody else, then you certainly
you certainly get a different world. Now, there's probably some
people that would say, oh, it's great if we never
had a roam, we never had Western civilization, and you know,
we're Western civilization is kind of seen as a villain
sometimes out there. But I mean, how, you know, how
does that affect the rest of the world. How's how
is Africa affected if there's no Rome, and you know

(34:47):
what happens over the long run, and in North America
and South America and in South America they actually had
some types of concrete that they were using, or China.
I mean, are those continents completely different if there's if
there's no or are they completely different if one of
their empires had figured out concrete.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
When it makes you wonder if that concrete first first
in Rome and then later you know, the Industrial Revolution
and when we get to Portland, cevent and stuff like that.
If that could argue for that, it's part of why
colonialism was the way it was, and that certainly the
control and power of having concrete for some of those
empires probably was a significant advantage. And I'm not necessarily

(35:26):
saying that, you know, if it was China Africa that
got that, that it would just be the same thing,
just the other direction. But it's certainly it's certainly possible
that the ability to because all of those places had,
you know, had empires, had groups of people who were
trying to expand and grow and things like that, and
you wonder what that what that might what kind of

(35:46):
power that might give them if they were the only
ones or the ones who had mastered it to you
know that extent. Certainly, I mean, I think it has
allowed it allowed Rome to do something that was fairly
unique in history. It's very important to history as we
know it, and so you think that it would do
something similar somewhere else, even if it wasn't the identical

(36:08):
kind of series of events.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
So to have Roman cement one of the things that
you really need is volcanic ash. So obviously Rome is
well positioned because there are so many there's so many
active volcanoes. You know, where else in the world do
you have a large number of active volcanoes, a lot
of volcanic ash that you can easily scoop up.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
That taftra actually is really critical to Roman semount. The
reason that roman cement is self repairing had to do
with the use of the volcanic ash. That's a fair point.
Is that the other civilizations might not have had the
position to be able to take advantage of concrete in
the way that Rome was, because they're natural resources, another
resource that when you play civilization sort of games. I

(36:52):
don't think they ever mentioned volcanic ash for use in concrete.
Probably probably should. Yeah that hats and potatoes those aren't
in those games, but without them, we don't. That's what
we've learned it, so we don't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, So what if you have, say, in the future
Japanese area era, someone figures out, hey, we have active volcanoes.
Hey there's this ash lying around, let's try to make
artificial rocks and build buildings out of it. And so
what happens if you have a greater Japanese empire that
pops up.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
It's true. I mean they certainly in various periods were expansionistic.
So that's that's an interesting question because that is a place,
You're right, that is a place that has the same
sort of raw materials that rom does. So could could
Japan have created an empire that was as big as
the Roman Empire?

Speaker 1 (37:40):
And when we talk about the fact that it was
how one of the reasons Rome was able to control
the Mediterranean because of their ability to build ports. I mean,
that's that could be really useful to the Japanese. Absolutely,
it's a different, different kind of ocean, but there's a
lot there that if they were able to build a
fleet that could dominate those I mean, that's that's significance,

(38:03):
and it's interesting to think on you know, I mean,
there's a lot of cultures over there. I mean that
already were at various times at odds with the Japanese,
and so it makes you it does make you wonder
what that might look like if you have a huge
unifying cultural force the way Rome was to Europe, you know,
in East Asia.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
You know, back to my previous point on the follow up,
the intellectual the intellectual development that occurs around concrete. You
also have to realize that, you know, there are specialized
positions within the Roman bureaucracy that are specifically dedicated to
the maintenance of infrastructure. So that is another legacy from
the Roman Empire, where a bureaucracy looks at infrastructure, and

(38:51):
the scientific experimentation and the scientific application of math as
well as chemical engineer. These are obviously areas that have
a huge impact on the intellectual development of Western Europe
and also the setting of the direction.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
So it's it's it's extremely I think we understand that,
you know that any any culture that had found, you know,
the technology of concrete, it could have significantly impacted that culture.
If Rome had not, then we don't have that unified Rome,
which means that we might have a very different world
in a number of different ways. And Rome was uniquely
able to exploit that. But I mean, you can you know,

(39:31):
you can move that through time too. We were talking
about the industrial revolution. Can we have the Industrial revolution
if we don't have concrete? So or I mean, what
if we don't lose the lesson of Roman concrete? What
if you know, we don't forget it for a couple
hundred years, and we continue to use concrete after the
fall of Rome. I mean, do we do we accelerate
things like the Industrial Revolution? Do we have the Dark Ages?

(39:52):
Because we still had Rome, we wouldn't have the Dark Ages?
But if we still had concrete, might we have not had? Though?
I especially Brad here might you know, argue that there's
no such thing as Dark Ages? And it's not really
fair for us to say that.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
But but I mean it's clearly a misnomer, I think,
but it does there is, you know, I mean, there's
there's a clear slump there after the fall of Rome
in terms of a lot of a lot of various
But I wonder what happens to architecture. You know that
a lot of the stuff that was built in the
I mean between the once we're kind of through the

(40:24):
early Middle Ages and we start building some monumental stuff again,
I mean, it's incredible what we were able to build
essentially without concrete. You know, most of the stuff we
were building, I don't know what kinds of like mortar
and stuff we were using. But when when we were
building some of like Gothic architecture and stuff, I mean
there's some incredible stuff we were doing there that was
certainly not based on concrete the way that you know,

(40:47):
our modern architecture is. And so it's it's interesting that,
you know, we could still build incredible things, but what
what does that In some ways concrete has seriously impacted
what our architecture looks like. Oh yeah, and I think
some people would say not all in good ways.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
I mean, yeah, we have some big concrete it's quaer
concrete buildings, but I mean we have a lot of
beautiful buildings too that use a lot of concrete. I
mean it's hard to do building molding, which is you know,
one of the architectural elements about concrete. Quite a number
of our statues and cultural I mean, you know, the
Christ the Redeemer there in Brazil that's all concrete.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, we do have a We do actually have some
historic examples of what architecture looks like without concrete, especially
without Roman concrete. And interestingly enough, it's in Italy, many
of the northern Italian city states. For a while, we're
competing with one another in various ways besides just militarily,
but culturally, architecturally, artistically, and many of the buildings. There

(41:46):
was a period where they were trying to do essentially
stone skyscrapers, and if my recollection is correct, you can
get to about fourteen stories and then the stone just
becomes a limiting factors, so there's no way to get
past a certain height before the weight of the stone

(42:11):
wall pressing on the stone beneath it begins to cause
structural issues.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, I'm thinking of the towers when they were all
building those towers as tall as they could in those
Italian in those Italian states. Most of those don't stand anymore,
and part of that was because, you know, they might
have stood better with concrete, which would have been something
incredible to see. But it is amazing to think, you
know that that masonry could have gotten this that far,
and I'm sure we would have pushed if we didn't

(42:38):
have concrete, We would have pushed masonry to its limit.
But the truth is, you know what is that limit?
And how far could we have pushed it without something
like concrete? And that's the INCA did incredible things with
their ashlar masonry where their rocks fit all perfectly. But
I mean, could we imagine building a fourteen story building
out of rocks like that, and I don't know that

(43:00):
they I don't know they would have supported each other.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Mache Peach is pretty impressive, but you're right, I mean,
we couldn't have built you know, as tall as as
we have. That's certainly true. And you know that there's
certainly a point when that you know, that dramatically impacts culture.
I mean there's there's a significant point in Europe where
people are still living in Roman ruins and having no
idea how those were built. And essentially what they're building
inside of Roman ruins is grass huts that are that

(43:25):
are than using the walls of Roman ruins. So it
is uh, I mean, we we certainly are much limited
if it wasn't for the use of the concrete that
Roman used to build what it was building. Any when
you go to places like kerle Owne where they had
you know, Roman stuff, I mean even their they're barracks
and stuff like that had concrete founding.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
I mean, it's incredible how much the Romans came to
rely on it. And that's really why we've come to
rely on it too for many of the same reasons.
And I do in terms of positive if we're if
we're looking for positive sides. We might have had a
more eclectic architecture just because if there was no clear

(44:05):
leader to concrete, then you might use more materials.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
It's true, and that might and I mean that still
might be true today if we if we're trying to
move away from concrete for various reasons, then we might
start to see a kind of a flowering in different
types of construction techniques that have really been limited because
because of the simplicity, you know, the ease of producing
with concrete. So it's true that if we start to
move into a post concrete world, was there some discussion

(44:31):
of that that that we might actually have you know,
we might be using wood in ways that we never
use wood before, and et cetera. And you know, there
are structures that you stood the test of time. There's
no there's no concrete in the U in the Pyramids,
so there's structures who stood the test of time, you know,
without concrete. But presumably many of these other alternatives that
we're talking about to concrete wouldn't wouldn't be as persistent.

(44:54):
I mean, one of the things about concrete is that
it lasts, and so we might not have I mean,
we might have had great monuments, but those monuments, you know,
would rock.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
I was looking I was looking into old buildings at
some point, and one of the one of the interesting
pieces was that, you know, so much that was built
in Asia was not built with stone and concrete, and
so they there are in some parts of Asia, there's
I mean, there are fewer really old buildings purely because
of the material they were made of. It just didn't

(45:23):
it didn't last as long.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
I mean, there are lots of exceptions to that, you know,
anchor watt and stuff like that, but it's certainly I mean,
you know, that's that does impact how long things last.
And that's one of the advantages of concrete is I mean,
that's one of the reasons we build our roads out
of them, is because compared to many, many different kinds
of substances, you know, concrete holds up pretty well to

(45:48):
driving multi ton vehicles over it every single day, you know,
hundreds or thousands or millions of times.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
I think that one of the ways of which the
landscape is much different is is that three every hundred
miles or so, you would have a quarry of some
sort where people are trying to cut stone to make
stone buildings and use for a relatively permanent structure.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Just so hard to move otherwise. Anchor Wat is one
of those, one of those examples. I mean it's there's
no concrete in anchor Watt, right, it's all you know,
just using devetails and stuff like we do with wood
to be able to build. But how much of that
can can we build? I mean does that flower more?
Do we just have a lot more stone buildings if
we never get concrete, Probably we'd get more stone buildings, Yeah,

(46:33):
because we didn't have the choice. But I mean would
we be able to build a society that we have today?
And of course if we can't build all of our
massive structures, civilization doesn't grow as much, and that creates
a planet that is much more amenable to Sasquatch. Yes,
that's the and so maybe maybe Sasquatch is still roaming
all of North America if it's not for the concrete

(46:55):
that allows us to build our broads.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
The real question, buildings is what if SaaS Squatch mastered
concrete before everyone else squat concrete. We wander into the
woods and we find like big concrete trees or something.
We find the great concrete constructions of the Sasquatch.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
I would imagine that the Sasquatch would be would be
mighty workers that they you know, imagine something that strong,
that powerful, that actually had the use of something like concrete,
that that.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Could be pretty impressive. Maybe they live, maybe they live
on the ground wharves and they are using concretes and
they've built great. That's what we can't They've got they've
got secret little concrete tunnels where they walk out just
to see, you know, give us their their little picture
of them, like half walking through the woods, and then
they disappear.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Oh, people, take your pants off quick.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
So what we're saying is that Sasquatch would have delved
into the mountains, into the rocky mountains and created the
mines of Moriah scenario.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yes, yes, exactly what except if they would have been
the opposite of eight foot tall dwarfs would be a
very different world.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
But they dig and dig and dig until they wake up,
you know, with the ball rocks, and then curse their creed.
But of course that's the that's another question. How did
the dwarves build such incredible underground things in in the

(48:24):
Tolkien without the use of concrete.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
How do you how do you get Minus Tiras without
without concrete? Actually a good question. There's a lot in
Tolkien that you wonder how they do that.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
The version we see in in you know, Peter Jackson's trilogy.
Certainly I imagine that whatever set they built probably used
some concrete that foam.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, Helm's deep too. And then there's there's major structures
in Lord of the Rings that seem to be things
that would be difficult to build.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
So if we look at art and architecture from the
era in which there was the secret of Roman concre
have been lost. Obviously, there are quite a few stone buildings,
and then you get hybrid building materials, so wood, plaster, stone,
stone foundations especially. So I would say that the world

(49:16):
without Roman concrete is going to look very much in
the West. It's probably going to look something like the
old cities of Europe, where you have a lot of
folk thck.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
It does, and where you assume that they're going to
burn down every ten years and everything just rebuild. I mean,
we you know, we don't have the sort of lasting
stuff that we have today, So how do we build
modern sewer systems? You know, without without concrete. I mean,
you can't you can't necessarily just build that out of stone,
and so we couldn't have been the data.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I mean, you know, they did build that stuff sometimes
with like wood, but it just I mean it was
nothing like what we what we have. I can't imagine
it handling.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
And they fired clay and stuff like that, and some
of the pipes and stuff like that. But you know,
like the way that you plumb the city like London,
I mean, that's that's going to require concrete. So obviously
cities can never grantized to the size that they are
if we don't have something with concrete. I mean, we
built some pretty massive cities out of wood, you know,
and again those cities were very much susceptible to fire,

(50:14):
but they still had major buildings that that required concrete.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
New York City, you know, you could fairly call a
city made of concrete, and almost any modern city that
I can't imagine a city like that.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
In New York's a swamp and it never really comes
out of the swamp. It's not for concrete. I mean,
we don't have it. It's hard to imagine anything growing
in North America because it kind of came later that
isn't growing to an extent with concrete. Even if you say,
even if you don't invent Portland concrete, because we were
still in the you know, in the in the Middle Ages,
we were using some forms of natural cement and et cetera.
But I mean, just the readily available, the much more

(50:47):
available Portland concrete, I mean just dramatically changes what you're
able to accomplish and how much you're able to accomplish,
and so everything in size is limited and it is
I mean, how let's just say that we forgot like
we did with romans. How different is the First World
War the Second World War without concrete. I mean, those
were wars that were fought with huge, ridiculous amounts of country.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
It's interesting to think about, you know, because because it determines,
I mean, how we built fortifications. But you wonder too,
I mean the impact it had on how do you
build an arsenal?

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (51:17):
And you know, you're how we're making some of our
bigger and bigger cannons. I mean, how much of that
relied on being able to build a foundry out of concrete?
You know, how big a how big a gun can
we build? And how does that affect you know, what
kind of what kind of defenses we can build?

Speaker 2 (51:32):
I mean that's and we actually ended up developing our
munitions around concrete. I mean much of the munitions that
were developing in the war is how do we defeat concrete?
But could the Germans ever have been as successful as
they were in either of those wars if it weren't
for concrete? How would they have defended fortress? Yeah? I
mean there's there's always this argument that that that that
they you know, they invested a whole lot in concrete

(51:53):
and a lot of that they didn't get much out
of that investment. But I mean how, I mean, how
does how does Germany even begin to hold anything if
they can't believe the fortifications? I mean, because they don't
clearly have the manpower to be able to try to
defend well.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah, trying trying to imagine a concrete less Atlantic wall,
you know.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Well, yeah, it's not all you know, And just a
few years earlier, what does the French don't have concrete
when they're thinking about imagine no law.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah, so you don't have ver done, you don't have
the First World War. You know, if you don't have
the I mean, so much of the First World War
was I mean, and that's much of you know, much
of modern warfare in the twentieth century was trying to
figure out artillery or munition is powerful enough to knock
down masonry fortifications where that was the competition between the two.
Could you build a fortification that could withstand the artillery?

(52:40):
Could you build artillery that could destroy the fortification? And
there was so I mean doing shifting ideas and how
do we build, Like you said, how do we build
the guns big enough to do anything about that?

Speaker 1 (52:48):
If we can, does that mean does that mean we're
able to build Does that mean the fortifications win out
of it? Or does that mean a goes the other
way and instead, you know, the fortifications don't win, and
you have a warfare definan by I don't know, more mobility.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Maybe yeah, of course that's if you only had if
you only had dirt trenches, then the First World's a
very different war.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Well, yeah, not just that. I don't even think that
you have honestly nation states developed.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Could we have modernized to the point that we could
fight the First World War?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
No?

Speaker 3 (53:19):
I think that what happens is is that you've got
a very good argument that what happens minus the ability
to create this lasting legacy that is the Roman Empire
that essentially Europe and pretty much everywhere else in the world,
everything stays at a regional level, So you don't have

(53:41):
modern nation states. You just don't have the infrastructure that
you can build that way.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
It's a good question how big an empire can you have.
I guess you can talk about like say the Mongols,
but their empire was very different and much more diffuse
than the Romans, was ultimately broke into you know, lots
of different kanates and power groups, and so it's you
could definitely argue it had a different impact. It didn't

(54:08):
have the Roman cultural level impact because they didn't leave
behind what Rome left behind.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Yeah, I think that you've got a world where China
is remembered as the ascendant empire and the apex of
mankind's accomplishments, because I.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Think that's probably true.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Yeah, the Chinese, even without concrete. Now, they of course
were also very very clever. So for instance, a Great
Wall of China is built in sections largely of stone,
but there are also entire sections hundreds of miles that
are built of nothing but ramed earth, because these are
the parts that run essentially through or near the Gobi Desert,

(54:48):
and you just really don't have a good.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Source of rock. But they had something that a lot
of you know, a lot of other places didn't, and
that was honestly sheer numbers. It's interesting to think that,
you know that if we if those remain warring groups,
that China did essentially build these empires without without concrete,
and they might have been the ascendant empire.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
But I mean, how big an empire, how big an
empire could China or anybody be without you know, eventually
being able to build roads and bridges.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
And I can't imagine that that that China would become
today's China if they never never got concrete. Look at
how much concrete, you know, modern China uses.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
I actually tried the huge amounts concrete there was. There
was a period where China it was building every three year.
Actually I think still every three years. They used more
concrete than the United States the whole Western world did
in the twentieth century.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah, they just built one of the largest dams in
the world that used just a ridiculous volume of concrete.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Yeah, and the Hoover Dam in America comparatively is very
small compared to the three gorgeous dam Yeah, it's an
incredible thought. Trying to reach back to my life and
knowledge of Chinese history, I would say that the Chinese
have a unique They have a unique set of circumstances
that allows them to be a contiguous empire and what

(56:11):
I will in my very amateur way, called a deep empire,
one that has a more or less unified culture, language,
with obviously regional variations. However, Europe does not have that advantage.
There are so many different ethnic and linguistic groups in
Europe at the time that it's really hard to see

(56:34):
one of those coalescing into something as great as the
Roman Empire.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Yeah right, I mean that's the you can look at
the I mean that even the cultural makeup of Europe today,
and how much more crazy it might have been if
we're talking a world where you know, Rome didn't subsume
so many different cultures and ultimately you know, absorb.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
And yeah, well, and who knows what might have been
innovative if we innovated if we didn't have Rome, I mean,
if we had a bunch of smaller you know, principalities
or whatever. That we're surviving. Then you know, maybe we
would have a more diverse culture and maybe we would
have innovated a lot more in the competition with them.
Maybe we would be far more technologically advanced if it

(57:16):
weren't for Rome and Roman concrete. Yeah, because because of
the competition. But it's you know, it's hard. It's still
hard to see, you know, how we're ever gonna We're
not going to build a spaceport if we don't make concrete, right,
So it's hard to imagine them running ahead, you know
too very much. That carries forward to a relevant question too,
and that does to say, I mean, if there's there's
some argument that we should stop using concrete because it's

(57:36):
energy intensive, there's some argument that we're running low on
sand that is that is used for concrete, it's kind
of hard to imagine the world running out of sand,
but there's only so much sand that's suitable for concrete.
What if we I mean, what if we had concrete
all the way to this point in history? But what
if today we lost the ability to uh, you know,
make more concrete. You know, how would that limit us today?

(57:59):
And I think you would say it would even with
the alternatives that we're talking about. It would greatly omit
us today. Yeah, he said that.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
I mean, we're in a place now where we could
we you know, we could exploit alternatives, maybe more than
ever before in history. But could we replace enough concrete
to build some of the stuff we're building? What does
you know, what does an airport, runway, an interstate that
runs you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles, what do
those look like without concrete.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Or without concrete to repair them? How do you ever
build the energy infrastructure because I mean you're not You
can't you can't stand a wind turbine if it isn't
sunk into the ground. With concrete, you can't build a
you know, a power plant or a nuclear power plants
or whatever if you don't have concrete. So how do
we even you know, provide energy to society? It would
seem like we would start very much backtracking in population

(58:48):
and in technology if if suddenly we couldn't be using
you know, if suddenly there was simply not concrete in
the world anymore. Yeah, and that gives you an idea
of you know how different things. But we would probably
innovate other solutions. So I mean, we might we might
not be innovating solutions because we have abundant concrete.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
That's also possible.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Yeah, I do think that in a world where concrete
production begins to taper off for either the carbon emissions
or for the shortage of suitable sand, we do have
technologies that will work. Bricks obviously are not going anywhere,
and if you have to replace every concrete basement with

(59:29):
bricks or you build them with bricks versus versus concrete,
houses become more expensive. But you know, certainly brick sellers
and basements are you know that they are common enough
and then you know, hit them with a coat of
resin to make them more water resistant. So yeah, there's

(59:50):
ways ways to do it. But I think that you know,
building infrastructure, the building infrastructures of modern civilization, it becomes
more expensive. And that's more expensive, you get less of it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Could you build a cobblestone road it goes across the
country with it, You know that that would be that
would be very difficult. Could you build fired Yeah, we
have we have roads that are made out of brick.
We had roads that are made out of fired clay brick.
How very much can we lay That's A. That's a
tough question.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Ultimately, I think what we're really looking at here is
that this is a foundational invention.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
I see what you did there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, it's very much. I mean, this is this is
something that we experience, we deal with every day, and
that we perhaps don't appreciate as much as we could
to understand what it has given us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
I was joking about games, but I mean, why is
it not? I mean when we when when you talk
about those civilization building games sort of things, they don't
tend to say, you know, concrete as been a key technology,
and clearly it is, so maybe we just don't appreciate
how much how much it was as a piece of
our history.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Yeah, and again all of the science that went into
the creation concrete and then the application of the things
that you could do with concrete as well as trade, military,
any sort of transport. How does that look when the
world if that slows down.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Thank you for listening to this episode of The History
Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of counterfactual history,
and if you did, you can find lots more history
if you follow the History Guy on YouTube. You can
also find us at the historyguid dot com, Facebook, Patreon,
and locals. If you want to hear more counterfactuals and
stay tuned, we release podcasts every two weeks, ating badly
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