Tides of History

Latest Episodes:

The Complicated World of the Bronze Age Near East: Interview with Aaron Burke Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

The reality of the Bronze Age Near East was much messier and harder to understand than a straightforward story of city-states, empires, and kings. Different ethnolinguistic groups, lifestyles, dynasties of would-be rulers, migrating mercenaries, and ephemeral states were all essential pieces of the fabric of that world. Professor Aaron Burke of UCLA joins us to talk about mobility, migration, and the formation of identities in the ancient Near East.

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The Dawn of History in China Jan 20, 2022

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China’s written history goes back more than 3,000 years, stretching deep into the Bronze Age. But just how far back does it go, and how reliable are those first legendary texts when discussing a world that had already been lost for centuries? They speak of powerful kings and capital cities, and a dynasty called the Xia, but can we find them in the rich archaeological record?

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Encore: How Latin Became the Romance Languages Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

How did Latin splinter into the Romance languages? In this episode, we explore how Latin transformed from a single, widely dispersed language into a series - French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and so on - of related but no longer mutually intelligible tongues.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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The Rise and Fall of China’s First States Jan 06, 2022

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China’s late Neolithic period saw the emergence of increasingly powerful groups of elites who buried themselves in lavishly decorated tombs and built palaces and public buildings at the hearts of their fortified settlements. From these political centers, the elites built and ruled a patchwork of small, competing states. But by around 2000 BC, all of these early states had fallen apart, destroyed by changing climatic conditions, social upheaval, and interstate conflict.

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Li Liu on the Rise of States in China Dec 30, 2021

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States have defined China from the very beginning of its recorded history more than 3,000 years ago, but how did they come into being? Professor Li Liu of Stanford University is one of the world’s leading experts on the prehistoric archaeology of China, and she returns to Tides for the second time to tell us about states, elites, and why they’re so central to the story of the Chinese past.

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Hittites, Trojans, and the Late Bronze Age World: Interview with Professor Trevor Bryce Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

The late Bronze Age world of the Near East was an incredibly rich and complex place, full of long-distance trade, the exchange of ideas, bickering kings, and empires rising and falling. Among those empires, one of the most powerful and enigmatic was that of the Hittites, whose ruling dynasty survived more than five centuries of intrigue and war to build a state stretching across the region. Professor Trevor Bryce literally wrote the books on the Hittites, and I ask him about the Hittites, the people of Troy, and the world they inhabited.

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The Rise of the Late Bronze Age Empires: The Hittites, Mittani, and Assyrians Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

Viewed from the perspective of international trade, political complexity, and written culture, the late Bronze Age world of the Aegean and Near East marked a high point before the fall. But how did this world come into existence? The empires of the Hittites, Mittani, and Assyrians - along with Egypt’s New Kingdom - marked the beginning of something new, an age of intense war and political competition on a scale larger than ever before.

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Hammurabi’s World - The Near East in the Age of Fragmentation Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

If we know the name of an ancient Near Eastern ruler, it’s probably that of Hammurabi, thanks to his famous Code. But Hammurabi was just one ruler in a time of conflict throughout the region, and the state he built in his lifetime didn’t last beyond his death. This was an age of fragmentation that lasted for centuries, where ambitious would-be conquerors fought one another in endless rounds of warfare and bloodshed.

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Mike Parker Pearson on Stonehenge and British Prehistory Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

Archaeology has come a long way since the first crude excavations at Stonehenge more than a century ago. Our guest, Mike Parker Pearson, spent the better part of a decade excavating in the vicinity of Stonehenge, offering new interpretations of the monument that form the backbone of current understanding. And Stonehenge is just one of Professor Parker Pearson’s areas of interest over the course of a long career that has redefined our understanding of British prehistory.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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Stonehenge Nov 25, 2021

Show notes

The societies of the European Bronze Age lacked writing, but their illiteracy shouldn’t fool us: These were rich and sophisticated civilizations that existed in a time of deep and fundamental transformations, when new technologies, ways of understanding the world, and forms of power reshaped Europe and its people.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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