Stefanos Geroulanos, "The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins" (Liveright, 2024)

Stefanos Geroulanos, "The Invention of Prehis...

Up next

Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)

After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ...  Show more

Sophie Chao, "Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger" (Duke UP, 2025)

In Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (Duke UP, 2025), Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reco ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Why Are We Obsessed With Human Origins?
The Next Big Idea Daily

Stefanos Geroulanos, an eminent historian, tells the story of how we came to obsess over the origins of humanity ― and how, for three centuries, ideas of prehistory have been used to justify devastating violence against others. 🎟️ To learn more about our Oct. 10 event with Danie ...  Show more

237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
The Michael Shermer Show

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike — either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. D ...  Show more

DAWN OF EVERYTHING: The True History of Humanity
The Next Big Idea

What if everything we think we know about the history of our species is wrong? That’s the provocative question at the heart of a new book by today’s guest, David Wengrow. Hailed as fascinating, brilliant, and potentially revolutionary, “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Hu ...  Show more

The Origins of Civilisation
The Ancients

The world is constantly changing, and so has the perception of civilisation, but what exactly are the origins of this concept? Helping us answer this question from an anthropological and archaeological perspective, Professor Nam Kim joins Tristan once again on The Ancient ...

  Show more