Beyond Paleo: A Culinary History of Humanity ~ Daniel Lieberman
“What do you think of the paleo diet?” To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer. Yes, the idea ma...
24 Aug 1h 2min
When Did Globalisation Really Begin? ~ Valerie Hansen
We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life.S...
25 Juli 47min
The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part II: Lessons from Prehistory ~ Douglas P. Fry
How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down? In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the lo...
21 Juni 41min
The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry
History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we lear...
19 Juni 47min
The Big Picture: Measuring the Origins of the Modern World ~ Bishnupriya Gupta & Stephen Broadberry (Great Divergence #5)
Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators t...
14 Maj 46min
A View From the East: China, Japan, and the Other Paths to Prosperity ~ Debin Ma (Great Divergence #4)
The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In th...
7 Maj 46min
Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain? ~ Robert Allen (Great Divergence #3)
Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industr...
29 Apr 58min
Why Did So Many Inventions Come from Europe? ~ Joel Mokyr (Great Divergence #2)
Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many of these? Joel Mokyr, ...
22 Apr 48min
