Tides of History

Farming came into existence in the Fertile Crescent, but it didn't stay there. By 5000 BC, agriculture had spread east and west, reaching both Central Asia and the Atlantic Ocean. But how did this happen? Did indigenous hunter-gatherers adopt farming, or did the farmers themselves move and bring their way of life with them?If you'd like to see some visuals of the things we talk about in this episode, check out the accompanying post on Substack.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The domestication of animals has transformed the way that people eat, clothe themselves, and live over the past 10,000 or so years, but what in the world does "domestication" even mean? How did this happen, and why did people start doing this? I talk with Professor Greger Larson of Oxford University about the genetics of animal domestication and how cutting-edge science is helping us answer these age-old questions.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The domestication of plants and animals has remade the way that people feed themselves, organize their societies, and interact with the landscapes around them. But for most of the human past, this isn't how people subsisted. When, where, and how did people start farming? And most importantly, why?If you'd like to see some visuals of the things we talk about in this episode, check out the accompanying post on Substack.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For most of Homo sapiens' time out of Africa, we lived in a world defined by ice. But by around 20,000 years ago, the ice had begun to melt, the glaciers retreating back toward the poles and mountain ranges. This left behind a new world, a whole different series of environments, opportunities, and perils for the people who had made it through the Ice Age.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the world's best communicators on the deep human past and paleoanthropology, joins me to talk about archaic humans, genomics, and whether the concept of different human species even makes sense these days. Check out his blog, which is an amazing resource, and follow him on Twitter.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our understanding of the past is constantly in flux, and there's no field where that's clearer than with the early settlement of the Americas. I'm joined by Professor Jennifer Raff of the University of Kansas, an anthropological geneticist, to discuss the game-changing (or not?) recent work pushing back the date of first settlement to 30,000 years ago or more.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Americas were the last continents Homo sapiens reached. Why did it take so long for people to enter this vast and promising expanse of land? Who were they, and where had they come from? In today's episode, we explore the latest - just days old! - science of the First Americans, and discover the descendants they've left behind even today.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Twenty thousand years ago, the world was locked in ice. The glaciers advanced from the poles and mountain ranges, swallowing huge portions of the planet's surface and making the rest colder and drier, a more difficult place to live. Yet people nevertheless thrived, spreading out across the continents and creating some of the most incredible art in human history.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ancient DNA is the key that's unlocking the deep history of humanity, allowing us to answer questions about our collective past that we never dreamed of addressing even 20 years ago. Eske Willerslev is a pioneer in the field of extracting, sequencing, and analyzing the preserved DNA of people who lived thousands upon thousands of years ago; on top of that, he's a fascinating person with unique perspectives on how to understand the human past.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Until very recently, Homo sapiens - our species - was only one of several varieties of humans on this planet. As our ancestors spread outward from Africa in their great migration, they encountered those other species. The results of those encounters left us a genetic legacy that is still with us today.If you'd like to see some visuals of the things in this episode, check out this post on my Substack blog.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to a new season of Tides of History! Over the next year, we'll be traveling from the very origins of our species through the peopling of the planet, the Ice Age, and then to the beginnings of agriculture, cities, metalworking, and states. Today, we cover our deepest past, from the divergence from our closest ape relatives to the first appearance of anatomically modern humans.To see visuals of our earliest ancestors, and how-to videos for making ancient stone tools, check out Patrick's website.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do we tell when one period ends and another begins? What are the fundamental characteristics of the early modern period? My dear friend (and friend of the show!) Keith Pluymers, assistant professor of history at Illinois State University, returns to chat with me about periodization, the Great Divergence, and riots in the early modern period.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Around the year 1000, merchants, explorers, and missionaries linked the world together from Newfoundland to China. Trade goods, people, and above all ideas flowed across a rich assortment of routes, connecting previously distant places into a single unit. This was the first instance of what we can call globalization, according to Professor Valerie Hansen of Yale, who wrote a compelling new book on the topic: The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began. Get Professor Hansen's book here.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alaric was one of the most famous barbarians of antiquity, and yet we know little about him - or at least, we knew very little, until Douglas Boin's excellent new book came out. It's entitled Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome. In today's episode, I chat with Professor Boin about the book, the Goths, and how we should understand this period of Roman - and Gothic - history.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Maynard Keynes was one of the most important figures of the 20th century, creating the economic structures and ideas that defined the Second World War and its aftermath. I spoke with Zach Carter, author of the wonderful new Keynes biography The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, about Keynes's wild life and enduring legacies.Get Zach's book here.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We reach the epic conclusion of our series on the early modern period with the Great Siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For much of the 16th century, the Habsburgs of Spain and the Ottoman Empire waged an epic conflict for control over the Mediterranean. Follow along with two composite characters, a Barbary corsair and a Hospitaller knight, as they raid, pillage, and fight a holy war for decades on end.Listen ad-free on Wondery+ hereSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charles V controlled more of Europe than any ruler in centuries, with resources other monarchs could only dream of. But that was never enough to give the Holy Roman Emperor more than a momentary victory; there was always a new enemy, some unforeseen calamity, waiting around the corner.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

DISCLAIMER: If you do not think that this pandemic is a big deal; if you do not want to hear our personal political views; if you don’t care about present-day politics; if you think that this will somehow offend you; then please don't listen to this episode.Author and history podcaster extraordinaire Mike Duncan joins me to talk about pandemics, social instability, and present-day politics.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charles V was the most powerful European ruler since Charlemagne: king of Spain and Naples, Holy Roman Emperor, and ruler of a whole bunch else besides. How did all of these vast territories, and the central political role that went along with them, come into his possession? The answer wasn't ability or merit; it was inheritance.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

All of us are dealing with the ongoing pandemic in different ways, and I decided to wedge myself into my closet to record an informal talk with you all about pandemics throughout history and what, if anything, they might help us understand about what we're dealing with today. Economic effects, political upheavals, and disease all play together, so let's try to figure out the connections.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Genetics has radically transformed our understanding of prehistory over the past two decades, revealing everything from the existence of brand-new, unknown species to interbreeding between Neanderthals and our human ancestors. I talked to geneticists Spencer Wells and Razib Khan, two of the world's most knowledgable communicators on genetics and prehistory, to get a sense for how things have changed. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In light of current events, we are re-posting one of my favorite episodes (from December, 2017) on natural disasters and the fall of the Roman Empire.Justinian was the last great Roman emperor, but his reign was plagued by disasters beyond his control: volcanic eruptions, a changing climate, and a plague of epic proportions. Those disasters created a turning point that we can, with good reason, call the end of the Roman Empire.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Few books have influenced my view of American history and politics more than Colin Woodard's American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. We've been divided since the beginning, Woodard argues, and this has influenced every aspect of American history, not to mention its future. He has a new book coming out in May, Union, which expands this thesis further.Get American Nations here.And get Colin's new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, here. Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In light of current events, we are re-posting one of my favorite episodes (from June, 2018) on the Black Death.Between 1346 and 1351, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people - at least half the population - in Europe and the Middle East. This great mortality, one of the worst disasters of any era, fundamentally reshaped European society and set the stage for the world that followed.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent was the high point of the Ottoman Empire, but for centuries, it has also been pegged as the beginning of the empire's long, slow decline into irrelevance. Is this true? Was Suleiman's reign simultaneously the best of times and the beginning of the end?Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Suleiman the Magnificent ruled the Ottoman Empire for forty-six years. During that time, his armies fought everywhere from Iran to Vienna. His navies touched Indonesia and the Straits of Gibraltar. Under his reign, the Ottoman Empire reached its glorious peak.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leah returns to chat with Patrick about one of their favorite topics - pirates. It wouldn't be a Leah episode if we didn't range widely, so we also chat about essays and Laura Ingalls Wilder.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Muslim world was a vast and diverse place, home to a variety of traditions and schools of thought. The Safavids began as a brotherhood of Sufi mystics, but soon transformed themselves from a religious order to the seeds of a powerful extremist state in Iran under the leadership of a teenaged prodigy, Shah Ismail I. A clash with the Ottomans and Selim the Grim was inevitable.Support us by supporting our sponsors:See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While the Ottoman Empire spent most of its early history expanding into Christian Europe, it also faced east, toward the vast, wealthy, and dynamic Muslim world. As the Ottomans grew in prestige and power, a clash with the Mamluks of Egypt for supremacy became inevitable.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Pilgrims and the Puritans dominate our understanding not just of early New England, but also early America and the entire future course of American history. Yet their success and long-term influence weren't foreordained, and they weren't inevitable. Peter Mancall, Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford and Mellon Professor of the Humanities at USC, joins us to talk about his new book, The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England.Get Professor Mancall's new book here.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople for the Ottoman Empire in 1453 and ended the thousand-year reign of the Byzantine Empire after an epic siege, but he was far from done. For the next three decades, Mehmet led Ottoman armies against Serbs, Hungarians, Venetians, Wallachians, and Turkoman tribesmen, expanding his empire and drenching two continents in blood and war.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What was it like to be on the cutting edge of the Age of Exploration, and what made these enormous leaps possible? To answer those questions, we follow the life of a composite character, a Portuguese sailor named Pedro, on his journeys to the coast of Africa and then India beyond.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What brought the son of a German shoemaker to a blood-soaked English field in June, 1487? In today's episode, we follow the life of a composite character, Hans, an artisan-turned mercenary, on his journey from Augsburg to Stoke Field and try to understand how the currents of the late Middle Ages made his life possible.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leah declared mutiny and there was a small defenestration from the 8th Floor Wondery Studio as she took full creative control of Tides of History. Well, not quite, but she did control the interview. Patrick Wyman guests today to talk about his upcoming book, The Crunch!Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What was it like to be a regular person in the late Middle Ages? We follow the life of a composite character, a brewer in London named Margaret, through her family, work, and marriage. She was a product of her time, everything from the Black Death to shifting expectations of work and gender, and she's a great window onto a period of upheaval and change.Support our show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leah is back on the show today to discuss The King on Netflix starring Timothee Chalamet as King Henry V, our favorite Sadboi King, as he becomes the greatest king England's ever seen. Overall, we liked it! And if you need something that everyone in your family can agree on, it's that Robert Pattinson is doing something, we aren't sure what, but a definite thing as the Dauphin.Watch it here.Thank you so much for listening to Tides, we are thankful for you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Popular historian Roger Crowley returns to the show to discuss his new book, The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades, which covers the last great siege of the Crusades at the city of Acre. It's a really fun read, I highly recommend it, and you can get it here.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Was history destined to happen as it did? That's what counterfactuals - alternative scenarios of how things might have gone - are useful for answering. In this episode, we apply them to the Protestant Reformation, one of the key processes of the past millennium.Tides is supported by our friends at Parcast. If you love myths as much as we do, you'll love their series Mythology. Check it out. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The medieval economy underwent a profound transformation, becoming ever more commercialized and monetized. Merchants helped drive that change, moving goods from place to place and profiting on the returns. Today, we meet some of them: an Italian named Francesco Datini, one of the richest men in Europe, and the Cely family of English wool merchants.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Religious freedom is a core value of the modern West, but how did it emerge, and why does it matter? Economic historian Mark Koyama, of George Mason University, joins me to discuss his recent book (co-authored with Noel Johnson), Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom.Check out the book here, and follow Professor Koyama on Twitter @MarkKoyama.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The roots of the modern economy, based on markets, money, and exchange, lie deep in the Middle Ages. The Commercial Revolution remade the European economy, paving the way for the explosive growth that followed centuries later.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Venice was a commercial hub, the hinge of the medieval economy, but it was also the center of a remarkable empire that spanned the sea lanes and trade routes of the Mediterranean. The Venetian Empire was an odd beast, beset on all sides by more powerful neighbors, but it survived for centuries thanks to Venice's unique combination of wealth and stability.Support our show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here's the rest of our conversation with historian and bestselling author Dan Jones. In Part 1, which you should absolutely listen to if you haven't already, we covered the Crusades in general; this time out, we discuss some of Dan's favorite crusaders, the most fascinating figures from four centuries of holy war.You can support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alone among the world's regions, western Europe only had one major, long-lived imperial experience: that of Rome. When it fell, nothing like it ever returned again. According to Stanford's Professor Walter Scheidel, that fact had enormous consequences for the long-term development of Europe, and was a necessary precursor to the rise of modernity.Check out Professor Scheidel's new book, Escape From Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, which comes out October 15th.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When it comes to medieval and early modern economic history it is important to understand guilds, how they functioned, and their effects on society. Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie joins me to talk about guilds and her most recent book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis.Find Professor Ogilvie’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/European-Guilds-Economic-Analysis-Princeton/dp/0691137544See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Crusades defined the Middle Ages and left a long legacy behind them. We chat with Dan Jones, author of the upcoming book Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Land, about why this long series of conflicts mattered so much to medieval people and why they're still important today.Get Dan's book here.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s an interesting history when it comes to books, printing, and the Reformation, all tied together through new technology and business. Professor Andrew Pettegree joins me to talk about all of this and more, as well as his new book, The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age.Support this show by supporting our sponsors!Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A swampy lagoon on the Adriatic coast of Italy was not a promising place for a city, but Venice grew from a collection of huts on spits of land to a glittering center of commerce and the heart of a maritime empire. Today, we explore the beginnings and rise of this fascinating city from late antiquity to the Black Death.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Boxing has a long past, one deeply connected to race, labor, and broader developments in American history. Professor Louis Moore joins me to talk about those topics and about his outstanding book, I Fight For a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915.Find Professor Moore's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Living-Manhood-1880-1915-Society/dp/0252082877Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.