When global supply chains were shut down in 2020 and messily rebooted after COVID lockdowns ceased, one island nation emerged as the most important player in getting critical components to factories around the world. That was Taiwan, which produces 90...
Aug 6
Writing Was Invented for Accounting and Scrawled on Baboon Bones
A three-inch baboon bone bearing twenty-nine deliberate incisions was pulled from a South African mountain range in 1970. It is approximately 43,000 years old, and microscopic analysis shows the notches were made over time with different cutting tools, meaning someone was trackin ... Show More
54m 26s
Aug 4
It Took Russia 300 Years To Destroy the Final Pieces of Genghis Khan’s Empire
Before Ivan was the Terrible, he was a young tsar who had tried and failed to destroy the last fragments of Genghis Khan’s Empire in the Volga River Valley. In October of 1552, the 22-year-old Ivan stood outside the walls of a city that had raided, humiliated, and enslaved Russia ... Show More
49m 51s
Jul 30
The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s
A ten-year-old boy gallops across the Russian steppe on a Kalmyk horse, collecting plants for his father while German settlers starve in earth dugouts along the Volga. Seven years later, that same boy is standing on the deck of Captain Cook's Resolution as it crosses the Antarcti ... Show More
43m 9s
Jan 2024
The race to secure semiconductor supply chains
Semiconductors hit the news during the Covid-19 pandemic, as issues with supply chains led to shortages of cars and soaring prices. Since then, geopolitical tensions have impacted the industry. 90% of the world's most advanced chips are made by TSMC in Taiwan. Now, countries all ... Show More
18m 21s
Sep 2022
Rising Tension in the Taiwan Strait
In this episode of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Qi Dongtao about U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan, China’s new Taiwan White Paper, the state and trajectory of cross-Strait relations, and the implications of shifts in U.S. policy, ... Show More
39m 19s