or infect others. join us next week for the final episodes on fox. now, tonight, we're going to talk a little bit about history. this book was written by a friend of mine. we talked about it last week. trust me, if you are going to order it, order it at the beginning of the episode. it's already three weeks out of print. they're printing them as fast as they can. chris stewart is a guy who i read one of his other books on my last vacation, i think it was in january. i called him on vacation. i got yelled at by my wife. she said what are you doing? i said i have to talk to this guy. this is the best written history book i have ever read. he is a fantastic story teller. the stories that he tells in miracle of freedom, seven tippings points that saved the world, are the stories of how we got here. how we came this close to not being here. he left out the american revolution which i might argue with, he said at the end of the book, i won't spoil it for you. but i said at the end of the book i said there are more than seven tipping points but these are remarkable. defeat of syrians. a story i barely even knew. -- of the assyrans i barely new. victory of greek over the persians, right? yes. story of arrogance. constantine coming to rome. and uniting the empire. start with a baby found in the trash. defeat of islam in france. where we had no reason to win against islam in france. but they drew a line in the sand. the mon gulls in eastern europe. when i heard john kerry, do you remember when john kerry testified and he said this is reminiscent of genghis kahn. i said who says, "genghis" except for someone married to teresa. i knew kahn was a bad guy. i knew things later quoted as reminiscent of would be very bad. it had no idea. this guy made hitler look like a rookie. that and we'll tell you this story tonight. 1492. interesting story of no hope for the west. suddenly new hope. two days before the nina pinta and santa maria went out. does anybody know what happened in spain? two days before they set sail. pretty significant. they were looking for a bail-out? no. they weren't looking for a bail-out. >> did they purge the jews? >> glenn: yes. they urged the jews. i thought my gosh, what a dark period. then the next day, boat goes out to start a new period of real enlightenment. amazing. then 18940. a story of one man alone. everyone called him crazy. really it was a turning point. we saved the world because of one man in england. let me introduce you to chris stewart. chris, first of all, best written stories of history. co can't turn the pages fast enough. you bring it to life. thank you for writing it. >> you're overly kind, but thank you. >> glenn: tell me about the defeat of the assyrians. who were they? what happened? >> that is one of my favorite story in the book. people ask what is your favorite story. it's impossible to choose just one. think about this, in the history of the world, thousands of years we talk about we selected seven stories. each of them are so compelling and interesting and they're literally a tipping point. people say we'll start with this or why is this interesting? it's my favorite title. hard to choose. but before i answer the question let me back up a little bit. this book is a story of freedom. it answers the question as you were indicating where does freedom come from? it makes a point that freedom is extraordinarily rare. in the history of the human race, scientists estimate maybe 110 billion people lived to earth. maybe 125 billion. depending who you talk to. a typeny percentage of the people experienced anything we would consider free today. >> glenn: even china style freedom looks good under what most people experienced in the history of man kind. >> you indicated that here with the story of the child tha.they just didn't value human life. abject slavery and torture, the constant fear who will be our next leader. our idea of freedom is do i have enough gas to go to wal-mart to guy another x-box. these people think how do i survive this, another day? >> glenn: let's jump around. let's start with the baby in the trash. tell me about the baby in the trash. >> the roman empire was powerful. considered progressive and a mild empire in the sense of how they treated the people that were under their rule. they didn't value human life the way we do today. that is what we hope to illustrate. they just didn't understand what we took for granted. a roman soldier was about to give birth and he said if it's a son, keep him. if it's a daughter, throw it away. it's impossible for us to manage that. but it was common at that time. they preferred sons for obvious reason and didn't have value in the daughters. this was a brutal time. up until the modern day, when you have the explosion of freedom, the golden age of freedom we see around us now. >> glenn: the story starts out, the chapter starts out with a little boy going to search for food in a trash heap on the barge on the river, outside of rome. starts to go through the trash heap because he is a christian. christians at this point in rome are not popular. what is he living like? >> a christian jew. most of the early convert to christianity were jews. christians weren't treated well in the roman empire. >> glenn: especially the christian jews. >> right. they were doing what a lot of people did and rome was a fairly wealthy city. unfortunately today they threw out food to sustain people around the world. common for people to go through the garbage heap and look for food or anything of value. in doing so, he came across what was not that unusual, infant that was thrown away and survived a night. decided to take her home. >> he hears the cries of the baby. putting apple peel in the pocket and hears cries of a baby. picks them up. you realize that he is totally unique in the culture. the culture is set up where anybody else, roman citizen would have left the baby. not like you go to the police and say hey! he takes the baby and goes to his uncle, josephius. >> it's not the josephius. >> glenn: i thought it was. >> no, a character that would have lived some time after that. this is a turning point in the culture, the judeo christian idea that every person is value. including those who are not free. every person has a value. >> glenn: constantine comes and because hes so a cross in the sky. he says with this symbol you will become the crass sar. >> right. concur. different interpretations, literal translation from what he saw but that's it. under this sign, conquer. >> glenn: the amazing bat that happens. he comes -- now remember, think of rome as rome. a walled city. it has a river. you are not fighting. you're not going to fight rome at the wall. he marms his army up to the wall. tem the rest of the story. >> two men who wanted to be the ultimate ruler o rome. had he laid siege to rome it would have been a bloody battle to last for months or longer. the other emper por felt no question he would win the battle. >> arrogance. >> he sent forces out to destroy constantine. he maneuvered in aboutty call way. he mentioned the army drown and rest was defeated. >> glenn: he comes out of the wall city and crosses the river and says, you're not going to destroy us. constantine backs the army up and fall in the river. slaughtered. they drown in the river. >> fell off the bridge and drowned in the river. >> amazing story. >> glenn: that was that turning point. we could argue that constantine -- i think he was interesting. we can argue if he was good or bad. a turning point from christians being hunted depending on who the emperor was, being persecuted to all of a sudden, wait a minute. we are now somebody. the turning point for europe. >> constantine was in late middle age at the time in his 40s. spent his life as a pa gan there was a conversion process that tooked place several years. >> glenn: he didn't get baptized until on his death bed, as emperor. my favorite quote. i am butchering it. he says something like as emperor, there are things i have to do. baptize me. he wanted forgiveness for all the stuff he had to do. >> covering your bases. whether he was truly converted or the process, instantly or over the years or what was in his heart, it doesn't matter. >> glenn: it started the ball rolling. >> right. for the first time, the romans accepted christianity instead of persecuting them. a large percentage of the roman empire became christian. >> glenn: i was struck again by the point of the book, at least that i got, there is no way man should be free. no way we're free today. all of these things, these are the ones that you point out, none of these things should have happened. shouldn't have fallen that way but they dd. at that point and also no place, maybe somalia, some place in the middle east. they know what horror shows are. but very few really understand what real horror shows are. >> yeah. outside of the normal experience. even things we read or see on television. >> glenn: but that was the norm. >> yeah. >> glenn: right? >> probably in the last few generations. interesting numbers, there are only 22 nations that experienced democracy today for greater than 50 years. we talk about 110 billion people living on this earth. only 5 billion of them experienceed what we consider freedom. $3 billion of them are alive today. the idea of knee dom, we look around and say this is the way things are and have always been. it's not true. a mod earn experience. a modern, you know, if you have been to soviet union or communist china, they don't experience what we take for granted all the time. >> glenn: when we come back, i want to talk to you a little about genghis kahnn. >> which one? >> glenn: jen-gis. if he had modern technology, worse than mao and hitler and stalin? >> yeah. >> glenn: horrible. >> you can read, we can talk about that. yeah, there was -- >> glenn: yeah. when we come back, things that i don't think people, we haven't seen before. my daughter and i, we had a -- funny. we had, i guess a horror in history. just the other day i finished reading and i said do you know about genghis khan? i started telling her. she said vlad the impaler did "x," "y," "z." i said no, listen to. this she's like dad, how about this guy? a strange, sick, sad family. we'll be back in a second. . [ applause ] >> glenn: we're back with chris stewart, the author of "the seven tipping points that saved the world." it is a fantastic book on history. one that i think every american should read. one that you should own and read. because it gives you some concept of how odd our life really is unless i was a futile lord i would haven't had this. things haven't been homogenized by disney. genghis khan, tell the story of what he used to do to walled cities, how he used to get in. >> a couple ways to breach a barrier, build a catapult or a ramp or do what he did, take slaves or captured citizen, kill them and pile their bodies up. he found out that was a nifty way to breach a body as well. pile up people you captured and killed. >> glenn: if you have a wall, he would take the captives pond start piling their bodies up until he made a ramp. he would march the army up the ramp of dead bodies. we talk now, you are using children as human shields. this guy did it and didn't care what anybody. >> he took it to another level. there is a scene where they are attacking an empire. the council of kingdom. as the horses are riding toward them, they put rags around their feet to muscle the sound of the approach. it makes it disoperating for the soldiers because they don't know what direction all of them are coming. they look through the dust. you can see something before them, as they are driving the horses forward. they realize the archers are about to attack and they're driving chirp from other cities from the capital. they would use children as you said, human shields. sometimes they would tie them to saddles and hold them in front of them. so the archers, what do you do then if you have the children up there in the middle of the saddle that has been driven in, you know, before the mongels. do you fire your arrow or hold back? the confusion and hesitation it would cause, a evil but probably in effect -- >> glenn: genghis khan went up, i mean, the mongels swept everywhere. give us an idea how big it turned into. >> it is, that is a great point. he controlled more territory, twice as much territory as any other single man in 25 years, the mongels captured and control more territory than romans did in 400 years. they reach from india and cambodia, on the east through central and southwestern asia through the middle east. reaching to eastern europe. >> glenn: the mongels went in and killed -- was it i can kiev? >> yeah. >> glenn: killed everybody. a few years later. >> a few years later nothing but a village of few hundred people. that is one thing he did with long-lasting, 700, 800 years of impact. there are entire cultures we don't know about because there is nothing left. virtually everyone was killed. >> glenn: i wish i would have brought it to the set today. i didn't realize we'd go on this conversation. i was sent a book today on moses. i showed it to you. >> yep. >> glenn: this is the most beautiful book i've seen on moses. a few words at the bottom of each page. but beautiful pieces of art on each page that tells the story of mow says. what is interesting it was printed in berlin in 1925. all in german. has a name on the cover and trying to find who owned the book and the story of the book. given to me with a note that said, "very few remain." that is exactly what hitler tried to do. in those days, genghis khan did it. just erased entire towns, populations. killed every man, woman and child. to scare the next town. >> there is a great story of kiev where the mayor, genghis khan was going to get him pay a tithe. 10%. he said take it once we're dead. he said okay. he destroyed the city. a few years later only a few hundred people that live there. it's taken generations for some areas of the world to recover from that. in some ways, some haven't. sense of sub six in some location. >> glenn: you make a point some parts in russia, the reason why they have been with czars and stalin. they still go back. because of genghis khan and the mongols. >> the russian christian church said, you know, if we're faced with the destruction or allowing ourselves to subject to you, we'll do that. they encouraged people to be subjects to genghis khan. as a result of that, they worked in concert with him to some level. whit did they submit themselves to the czar? many historians trace it back. i am struck by freedom and how rare it is, but also really struck in each story by wow, this peoples like tipping point. >> i don't know how we can't be. if you look at the clash of cultures around the world, the public discourse that we see. we can talk about a lot of things. there are policies that can destroy the nation. if you look to political and culture issues. it seems like a tipping point. >> glenn: when we come back, i want to start here. progressives believe, no judgment here. but the progressive ideology is based in man progresses and gets better. we learn, and we evolve. and this is tie to evolution. we evolve and we get better. our founders believe that the natural man is an enemy to god and freedom. gets a little bit of power. he will just run. i want to start there on just what does history tell us on which one is right. do we progress? or is the natural man enemy of god? back in a second. . ú[z-úwúw@t i'm patti ann browne. the house send sends strong message to president obama refusing to authorize operations in libya. the white house said it was disappointed. the house stopped short of cutting off funding for the libya operation. more tears today in trial of casey anthony. her brother lee anthony wept on the stand as he recalled not being told of his sister's pregnancy. mob boss james whitey bulger is back in boston after 16 years on the run. when he appeared in court, prosecutors objected to the request for a public defender. read more about bulger on foxmuse.com. glenn beck returns in a moment but first chris wallace previews "special report." >> coming up, look at the human toll of the conflict in libya. the next step in debt talks and can america spend its way to prosperity. "special report" at 6:00 eastern. now back to glenn beck. ♪ ♪ >> glenn: back with chris stewart, author of "7 tipping points that saved the world." it's the best-written history book. i shouldn't say that. you are going to get so much crap from everybody. it's horrible. if you are a pointy-egg-headed freak at a university. i'm -- i have written all these books that nobody has read. there is a reason for that. really well written. you learn history through the weaving of a great, great story. "seven tipping points for freedom." when we went in the break, what i set up was which one is right? progressives who believe that men learn and get better, and we progress, or i think what is common sense, man never learns a damn thing as a group. we keep repeating the same mistakes. you have to shackle men as much as you can. in positions of power. bad guys will always grow. which is right? >> history seems to indicate we're not good at policing ourselves. men come to power and once they have power as we talked about so many times here, tyranny rules. that's why the democracy, the republic, the united states that is a recent phenomenon, this is a miracle. for the first time we broke the mold. >> glenn: jim? your question? >> this started with your 40 day and 40 night challenge. it started to read the bible on everyday basis. i grew questions in book of sol lom we're told you can't put your faith in man to rule. he becomes corrupt in daniel it tells you that eventually god will destroy all the kingdoms on earth and establish his own kingdom and government. can we as man rule ourselves or do you believe in american exceptionalism if it says in the bible that we can't? >> glenn, no no, no. man can rule himself. men? no. that is what the founders knew. the founders knew that man, i put my faith -- somebody said to me. i had lunch with somebody today and they said glenn, you're so pessimistic on the american people. what makes you think that? i believe in the american people every time. i'll put my faith in you and you. i'll put my faith in you every time. huge giant corporations or giant global governments? no, not so much. no. i won't. because they want to rule over. i want to rule myself. you rule yourself. that is difference. can we create a system that gives you the maximum power to rule yourself? and the maximum limitation of someone who wants to rule over you? only, only god can set up a kingdom that is truly just. i love this stuff about social justice. garbage about social justice no such thing. there can be equal justice. strive for it here but only one great pow they're will even everything out. mora, you question? >> i think we're at a tipping point. with israel. i don't think the current administration reflect what is the will of the people is. i wonder how do we stop them from betraying our friend in israel? how do we let them know we do stand with them? >> glenn: i personally have an answer. i want you to go to the defeat of syrians in a second. my answer again, man must rule himself. you have to make the perm choice to stand and be seen standing. let people in israel know. if enough people stand up with israel, government will fail us. they always have. why are we looking at them saying we should change their mind? forget about them. stand up. in the end, you won't have the excuse, the government did it. i was obeying orders. it doesn't matter. i doesn't matter. it's the individual that makes the difference. this gives me real hope. this gives me. >> let me make a comment about the previous concept. one idea