Medieval Merchants

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 diffe ...  Show more

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 la ...  Show more

Growing from a few North German towns in the late 12th century, the Hanseatic League — a powerful network of merchant guilds and market towns — dominated trade across almost 200 settlements in seven modern-day countries. But how did it functi ...

What does archaeology tell us about how regions in the Mediterranean built their wealth between the 10th and 12th centuries? How did economies grow in Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, the Byzantine empire, Islamic Spain and Portugal, and north-central Italy? And what were their tr ...

It's the mid-1800s and a young wholesaler called Levi Strauss is looking to cash in on the California Gold Rush.

But when a wandering tailor approaches Strauss with a revolutionary idea, his business takes an unexpected turn into the world of workwear — and it will ...

Millions immigrated to the United States after its founding, entranced with the promise of a better life. But the country they found was rough and tumble, less developed than the land they left, and had some serious issues. Last week we looked at slavery, and today we'll go in ...