Belgium: The Potato Famine in Flanders
Why did the potato blight begin in Belgium before it reached Ireland — and why has the Flemish famine of 1845, which killed tens of thousands and stunted a generation, been almost entirely forgotten w...
7 Jul 22min
Egypt: The Sacred Onion
Why did a Greek historian standing at the foot of the Great Pyramid in 450 BC record that its builders were fed on onions, garlic, and radishes — and what does the archaeology say about whether he was...
2 Jul 27min
Cape Verde: The Grogue Trail
Why did a Portuguese colonial sugar ban inadvertently create Cape Verde's national spirit — and what does it reveal about how cultures find ways through every door that's closed to them? How did ten u...
2 Jul 30min
Bosnia & Herzegovina: The Soul of a Plum
Why do Bosnian Muslims make and celebrate a plum brandy that Islamic law technically forbids — and what does their answer to that question reveal about four centuries of Ottoman rule, Balkan identity,...
2 Jul 26min
Sweden: The Swede Who Named the Natural World
Why did a restless boy from a rural Swedish parsonage end up giving a name to every living thing on Earth — and how did he build a system so durable that it still runs as the operating system of moder...
30 Jun 33min
Japan: The Emperor's Sacred Paddy
Why does the Emperor of Japan — head of state of one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth — wade into a rice paddy every year to plant seedlings by hand, and harvest them in autumn by...
30 Jun 28min
Iraq: How Irrigation Destroyed the Civilization That Invented It
Why did the civilisation that invented writing, cities, and law destroy the very soil that made it possible — and why are sixty to seventy percent of those same fields still poisoned by salt today? Ho...
30 Jun 29min
Paraguay: The Yerba Mate Jesuit Empire
Why did a Jesuit republic of 140,000 people in the subtropical forests of South America — with its own armed militia, its own printing presses, its own Baroque composers, and the only successful mate ...
25 Jun 29min
