Tides of History

At long last, we've reached the end of Tides of History, and I can't thank you all enough for coming along on this long journey. We end with a series of vignettes set throughout the long ages we've covered, from the Paleolithic up to early modernity. If you want to stay in touch, be sure to follow my new podcast, Past Lives, and read my new book, Lost Worlds. Be well, friends! Patrick has a brand-...

Author Craig Fehrman's new book on Lewis and Clark, This Vast Enterprise, is one of the best things I've read in years. We discuss the richness of our understanding of the expedition and how that allows us to understand it, and the world of the early 19th century, from many different points of view. Buy the book: bit.ly/tvecfb Patrick has a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every...

Patrick's new book Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World comes out May 5th! Check out a free preview of the first chapter of the audiobook, "The World As It Was," and learn about the Clovis people and reindeer hunters in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age. Preorder in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWLostWorlds . Patrick has...

Does history repeat itself? Not really, but that's not the reason it's worth studying: Our past is nothing more or less than the collective record of our species' achievements and failures, and it contains a variety of lessons, few of them easy and straightforward. In this episode, we explore how history helps us in the present, and how it doesn't.   Patrick has a brand-new history show! It’s...

Gladiators are one of the most instantly recognizable yet alien aspects of Roman society, and Dr. Harry Sidebottom's new book - Those Who Are About to Die - offers a cutting-edge view of these fascinating entertainers based on the most recent research. We discuss what recent research has revealed about their lives, why the Romans were so intrigued by them, and why they matter today. Patrick has a...

The city of Babylon has appeared in our episodes time and again over the past several years: as the center of empires, a victim of vicious conquest, a wealthy center of economic innovation, and even the place where Alexander the Great drew his last breath. Professor Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones joins me to discuss his new, comprehensive, and fascinating new book on Babylon's long and engaging history. Pat...

Academic history and popular history are very different things, but what is their purpose? And how should we, as people who like and consume history, understand and use them? Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA And don't forget, you can still Get The Verge:...

If we want to understand how and why the human story has unfolded in the way it has, then we have to understand migration: large numbers of people moving long distances. It's a surprisingly difficult topic to understand, but in the past couple of decades, we've developed better ideas and more tools for making sense of migration, past and present. Follow along for an overview of the topic, how it's...

It's time for one last mailbag! I cover everything from which historical figure would be the best Poster on social media to how ancient authors collected their letters for publication to how making Tides has shaped my interests in the past. Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: h...

The ability to recover ancient DNA from archaeological remains is one of the greatest scientific innovations of our time, but how has it impacted archaeology and ancient history? And where is the study of ancient DNA going? We explore in this week's episode. Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past...

What did the Mediterranean look like at the moment of Rome's triumph in 146 BC? Join me as we go on one final trip around the wine-dark sea, checking in with each major region and seeing how they changed as Roman armies triumphed everywhere from Iberia to Anatolia. Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in t...

he Atlantic World is one of the major concepts in academic history, a way of linking together all the various places around the fringes of the great ocean during a time of extraordinary change, the early modern period. Professor Keith Pluymers joins me once more to discuss the Atlantic World and how the concept is useful to us in trying to make sense of a massively important time in human history....

The best way to understand the impact slavery had on a person's life is to follow their journey through the institution, but the ancient world provides few examples that we can use. Instead, we have to assemble a composite character from bits and pieces. We'll call him Publius, and watch him as he's abducted, enslaved, and lives out his life in a new, Roman, world. Patrick launched a brand-new his...

Slavery was foundational to ancient societies, but it was never a single thing: The experiences of the enslaved varied dramatically depending on when and where they lived, who owned them, and most of all, the jobs they had to do. Slavery was never good, but there were better and worse versions, and in this episode, we'll explore some of the variation that shaped the lives of enslaved people. Patri...

Check out Patrick's new show, Past Lives ! You can listen on your platform of choice through the links here , and be sure to subscribe to the Patreon for tons of bonus content - Q and As, interviews with fantastic historians, and much more. Saint Patrick is one of the most famous individuals who lived in the late Roman Empire, but long before he became the apostle of the Irish, he was a Romano-Bri...

It's been quite a while since I've answered listener questions, so here are a bunch on everything from the best depictions of siege warfare in movies to the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe. Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA And don't forget, you can...

Every year, new archaeological discoveries claim to rewrite what we think we knew about the ancient Americas, but how much can we trust the initial reports we see? Professor Shane Miller, now of the University of Alabama, joins me again to place the White Sands footprints and other key sites in their proper context. Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episo...

The rise of the Roman Republic was built on conquest and war, but also on the massively expanding economy of Italy as a whole and Rome in particular. What was it like to live through that, and what did an expanding economy actually mean? Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: http...

Runic writing carries connotations of magic and fantasy, but it was a widespread, useful, and long-lasting system of writing. Professor Tom Birkett has written a fantastic overview of runic writing that returns it to the real time and place in which it existed - Runes: A Concise History . Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a re...

Let's imagine a Macedonian soldier during the time of Alexander the Great. How did this man, whom we'll call Red Cleitus, spend the vast amounts of coin he plundered and earned as he and his comrades fought their way across Asia? Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit....

Patrick's new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World, launches May 5th, 2026! Check out this audiobook preview chapter on two murders around 5,300 years ago, hear about everything we can learn from Otzi the Iceman in the Alps and Gebelein Man in Egypt, and be sure to preorder the book in your medium of choice through the link here: https://bit.ly/PWLostWorlds....

Check out a scripted episode of Patrick's new show, Past Lives ! Nearly 2,700 years ago, a woman and her daughter were ripped away from their homes in what is now Iran by the soldiers of the Assyrian Empire. Nanaya'ila'i was one of thousands upon thousands of people to experience the violence that accompanied conquest, but she's one of the very few whose name we know and life we can reconstruct. S...

We've talked about how rich classical Athens was, but what did that mean for an average person living at the time? In this episode, we follow the life of a composite character, an Athenian citizen farmer named Megakles, to see how the economic developments of the classical age shaped daily life in Athens. Patrick launched a brand-new history show on December 3rd! It’s called Past Lives, and every...

Like many of you, I first fell in love with history through the movies. Dr. Jason Herbert hosted a podcast called Historians at the Movies , now retitled Reckoning with Jason Herbert , that focuses on films depicting the past and what historians think about them. We have a delightful conversation about some of our favorite history movies, what makes them good or bad, and what we can learn from the...

Patrick has a new history podcast, Past Lives ! It's all about the experiences of real, everyday people throughout the human past, people just like you. Listen to the first full episode, "On Historical Storytelling," right here, and then go subscribe to the Past Lives feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice. Past Lives is an independent production supported through Patr...