Books about the origins of humanity dominate bestseller lists, while national newspapers present breathless accounts of new archaeological findings and speculate about what those findings tell us about our earliest ancestors. We are obsessed with prehistory—and, in this respect, our current era is no different from any other in the last three hundred years. ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Today
Sophie Chao, "Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger" (Duke UP, 2025)
In Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (Duke UP, 2025), Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reco ... Show More
1h 2m
May 3
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Oct 2024
Why Are We Obsessed With Human Origins?
Stefanos Geroulanos, an eminent historian, tells the story of how we came to obsess over the origins of humanity ― and how, for three centuries, ideas of prehistory have been used to justify devastating violence against others. 🎟️ To learn more about our Oct. 10 event with Danie ... Show More
16m 2s
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
Dec 2021
DAWN OF EVERYTHING: The True History of Humanity
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 Hu ... Show More
1h 20m
Sep 2021
The Origins of Civilisation
<p>The world is constantly changing, and so has the perception of civilisation, but what exactly are the origins of this concept? Helping us answer this question from an anthropological and archaeological perspective, Professor Nam Kim joins Tristan once again on The Ancient ... Show More
58m 42s
Oct 2023
Time-Slip Artifacts: Modern Objects in the Ancient World - Volume 1
The story of the human race is a story of technology. One of our ancestors created fire and passed that knowledge along to the next generation. Then the invention of the wheel. Then agriculture, a writing system, mathematics, space travel. Within our story, empires rise and fall. ... Show More
43m 4s