Spies in the Ancient World, Part 1: How a Bronze-Age Tribe Infiltrated Jericho

Spies in the Ancient World, Part 1: How a Bronze-Age Tribe Infiltrated Jericho

Spycraft is as old as civilization and just as essential to running a government as taxes, roads, armies, or schools. Sun Tzu devoted an entire chapter to spy craft in his 2,600-year-old treatise The Art of War and understood that critical intelligence was impossible to gather without espionage.

This episode is the first in a two-part series on spy craft in the ancient world. We will explore the origins of spies, the ways they were used, and similarities and differences between—say—Greek or Roman spies and their 21st century counterparts. We will also look at the Old Testament narrative of the Israelite spites who scouted out Jericho and the promised land in the thirteenth century BCE. While many scholars doubt this story ever really happened in the way it was described in the Pentateuch, the story was compelling enough for the CIA to use in the 1970s as a case study of effective intelligence gathering.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jaksot(1075)

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

How Two California Wines Shattered Centuries of French Supremacy in a Blind Taste Test

In 1976, nine French wine judges did the unthinkable: they blindly selected two California wines over France's most elite vintages in what became known as the Judgment of Paris. This shocking upset se...

12 Maalis 36min

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

Throughout the 16th century, one man stood between the Ottoman Empire and European domination, yet his name has been largely forgotten. Gabriele Tadino was an Italian military engineer whose genius tr...

10 Maalis 43min

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

Why America's Military Never Became a Threat to Democracy

America's Founding Fathers feared a standing army would inevitably threaten civilian governance. Yet 250 years later, the U.S. military remains a strange outlier among nearly every nation that has eve...

5 Maalis 51min

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

How Christianity Shaped America's 500-Year Mission to Become a Holy Land

Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists famously described the First Amendment as building a "wall of separation between church and State." This line has been the gold standard for thos...

3 Maalis 52min

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

Every Communication Breakthrough—From Cave Art to AI Video—Exists to Tell Stories

There’s an argument to be made that every technology advance in communication – from cave paintings to fake AI movie trailers – is at its root an attempt to tell stories. Our first night-fires created...

26 Helmi 58min

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice

During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries c...

24 Helmi 44min

The Chemistry of Conquest: Behind the USSR’s State-Sponsored (and Steroid-Powered) Olympic Glory

The Chemistry of Conquest: Behind the USSR’s State-Sponsored (and Steroid-Powered) Olympic Glory

Since the era of Joseph Stalin, Moscow’s rulers have sent Russian athletes into the Summer and Winter Olympics with one command: you must win. These competitors operated under a "win-at-all-costs" doc...

19 Helmi 1h 3min

Daniel Boone’s Life as a Frontiersman and Adopted Son of a Shawnee Chief

Daniel Boone’s Life as a Frontiersman and Adopted Son of a Shawnee Chief

Daniel Boone is considered one of the United States' first folk heroes for his exploration beyond the thirteen colonies into Kentucky. His exploits are rightfully legendary. He famously rescued his da...

17 Helmi 42min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
sita
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
kaksi-aitia
i-dont-like-mondays
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
uutiscast
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
rss-nikotellen
mamma-mia
kolme-kaannekohtaa
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
rss-murhan-anatomia
meidan-pitais-puhua
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
rss-haudattu
naakkavalta
mystista