logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2021
1h 20m

DAWN OF EVERYTHING: The True History of ...

Next Big Idea Club
About this episode

What if everything we think we know about the history of our species is wrong? That’s the provocative question at the heart of a new book by today’s guest, David Wengrow. Hailed as fascinating, brilliant, and potentially revolutionary, “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” debuted at no. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Drawing on the latest research in archeology and anthropology, it suggests that the lives of our ancient ancestors were not nasty, brutish, and short. On the contrary, they were playful, collaborative, and improvisational—and there's a lot they can teach us about how to improve the world as we know it.

Up next
Today
The Future Is Going to Be Great
Dave Blundin has co-founded 23 companies, co-hosts the Moonshots podcast, runs the VC firm Link Ventures, teaches at MIT, and has been building neural networks since the 1980s. His take: “[AI is] under-hyped. It's absolutely going to change the world in the next couple of years m ... Show More
1h 33m
Oct 2
PRIMAL INTELLIGENCE: You’re Smarter Than You Realize
Angus Fletcher has a PhD in literature from Yale and teaches English at Ohio State. He’s passionate about Shakespeare. He probably owns a tweed jacket. In other words, he’s the last person you’d expect to receive the Army’s fourth-highest civilian honor. But when he’s not parsing ... Show More
1h 5m
Sep 25
STEVEN PINKER: How Common Knowledge and Rationality Make the World Go Round
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker shares five key insights from his brand new book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. He reveals how “common knowledge” — the hidden force of knowing what others know — shapes everything from financial bubbles and political revolutions to w ... Show More
1h 11m
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2021
237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike — either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. D ... Show More
1h 33m
Oct 2023
#68 — Reality and the Imagination
Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference b ... Show More
1h 12m
Sep 2023
#68 — Reality and the Imagination
Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference b ... Show More
38m 47s
Jul 2022
A new understanding of human history and the roots of inequality | David Wengrow
What if the commonly accepted narratives about the foundation of civilization are all wrong? Drawing on groundbreaking research, archaeologist David Wengrow challenges traditional thinking about the social evolution of humanity -- from the invention of agriculture to the formatio ... Show More
17m 57s
Jun 2023
848: Yuval Noah Harari | Peering into the Future of Humanity
Yuval Noah Harari (@harari_yuval) is a historian and the bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. His latest book, Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World, is out now ... Show More
1h 11m
May 2022
The Origins of Homo Sapiens
What do we know about the earliest hominins to exist? With a story spanning one million years and counting, we're discovering more about how we came to be every day. In this episode of The Ancients, we're on location in the Natural History Museum in London as Tristan covers a hug ... Show More
42m 58s
Feb 2022
How did humans get here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari is thrilled to tell you
Historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote a book back in 2015 that looked at the entirety of human history; from hunter-gatherers to space exploration. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind packs all of this into a mere 400 pages. Harari noted to NPR's Arun Rath that humans have done a g ... Show More
6m 37s
Mar 2023
The First Humans
Where do humans come from? Or, perhaps more interestingly, who did humans evolve from? A question once posed by the likes of Charles Darwin and other early naturalists, the answer has changed throughout history. But now, thanks to advancements in archaeology and developments in g ... Show More
40m 39s
Jan 2023
How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
We have long been taught that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New', when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. But, in a groundbreaking new book, Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows that for tens of thousands of Aztecs, May ... Show More
44m 10s
Jul 2022
A Humorous History of Genetics
What makes you... well, you? It's a question humanity has wrestled with since the dawn of recorded history all the way to the modern day. In today's special episode in partnership with 23andMe, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the history of genetic research from its ancient predecess ... Show More
49m 32s