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
Sep 15
Tom Hulme, "Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life Before Gay Liberation" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Professor Tom Hulme's second book reconstructs the erotic and romantic lives of queer men in Belfast across roughly seventy years, from the recriminalisation of sex between men in the 1880s to the emergence of a mainstream public debate about homosexuality in the 1950s. It follow ... Show More
48m 1s
Sep 12
John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian, "Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)
In John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian’s Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the authors put forward a comprehensive new theoretical approach to understanding laughter and the humour we use to inspire it. ... Show More
1h 7m
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