How nomads changed the world

You may think of King Arthur as a chivalrous ruler, surrounded by noble knights, living in splendour in Camelot and setting out on amazing quests. However, that story originates from a late medieval account. Much more interesting is an earlier telling of the story, which is both ...  Show more

Which battlefield victory did Napoleon rank as his most brilliant? How did Julius Caesar squeeze that extra one per cent commitment out of his soldiers? And what cunning ruse did George Washington implement to outfox the British at Yorktown? In this episode, Iain MacGregor talks ...  Show more

The roots of the word ‘Nomad’ dates back to an extremely early Indo-European word, ‘nomos’. After towns and cities are built and more people settle, ‘Nomad’ comes to describe people who live without walls and beyond boundaries. Now, the word is used by settled people - for som ...

How can you condense the history of the world into a book? Well-celebrated historian Simon Sebag Montefiore does just that in his new epic. He takes Dan on an exhilarating journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mug ...

We think of history as a neat chain of predictable events; but what if the truth is far wilder than that? Today, we're talking about the pivotal forces of randomness and chance, and how tiny moments can change the course of our human story.

Dan is joined by Brian Kla ...