Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

Major League Baseball’s postseason is just a few weeks away, and here on Throughline we know the power of a good walk-up song. But how did baseball become such a musical sport? And where did the idea for walk up-music come from? Guests:John Thorn, author and Official Baseball His ...  Show more

Calling someone a "Luddite" is usually an insult – shorthand for someone who is behind the times. But the real Luddites weren't just afraid of change; they were a labor movement fighting to save their jobs from being replaced by machines. Today, with the rise of AI, many feel the ...  Show more

Twenty years since the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban have once again seized power of the country. In the months leading up to the fall of the nation’s capital, National Geographic photographer Kiana Hayeri and writer Jason Motlagh heard the storie ...  Show more

After the calamitous retreat from Kabul left thousands of British dead, the East India Company wants revenge. They will call upon the Army of Retribution which will leave Afghanistan, once the Crossroads of Civilisation, a desolate wasteland. But once the last sepoy has descended ...  Show more

Afghanistan: The lives of Afghans in Britain today and the role of corruption in the return of the Taliban. Laurie Taylor talks to Nichola Khan, Reader in Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Brighton, about her monumental study of Afghan migrants in Sussex, England, ...  Show more

Situated north of the Hindu Kush and south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) River, the history of the ancient region of Bactria is rich and diverse. From the Oxus Civilisation that flourished in the Bronze Age to the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, the Greco-Bactrians and the Kush ...