Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and Lessons from China ~ Kenneth Pomeranz (Great Divergence #1)
Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval ...
16 Apr 54min
Encore: Walking Towards the Human Condition (with Jeremy De Silva)
Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned!Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives.A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human...
4 Apr 1h 22min
Where Did Humans Evolve? Gazing at the Changing Nature of the Garden of Eden ~ Denise Su
Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like? To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions ma...
7 Mars 54min
The Original Affluent Society? Lessons from 60-Years of "Man the Hunter" Research ~ Richard B. Lee
What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable?In the lack of a time ...
10 Feb 58min
What Can Shamans Teach Us About Religion? | Many Minds with Manvir Singh
The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told.Or so argues a...
21 Jan 1h 19min
The Origins of Humankind: Where Do We Really Come From?
Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind"...
10 Jan 28min
Why Do We Laugh? Philosophers on Jokes, Humor, and the Human Condition ~ Mira Magdalena Sickinger
“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.”This listener feedback was easy to agree w...
24 Dec 20251h 2min
Restless Humanity: The Epic Migrations Into the Americas, Polynesia, and... Beyond? ~ Andrés Moreno-Estrada
We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth. This is an episode about those epic migrations, with a focus on the two furt...
5 Dec 202525min
