The Assyrian Empire had a well-deserved reputation for brutality, but brutality alone doesn't explain why it lasted for so long; its residents must have bought into the imperial system for some reason. Professor Bleda During, an expert on the archaeology of empires, shows how people outside the center of Assyria interacted with the empire, and what they got out of it. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook...
Jan 05, 2023•38 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast The Neo-Assyrian Empire has been almost forgotten in comparison to the other massive states of the ancient world, but at its peak, it stretched from the Nile to the Caspian Sea and central Turkey to the Persian Gulf. Assyria was a brutal and dominating force for centuries, and it pioneered the infrastructure and ideology of empire, laying the ground work for everything that came after. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World ...
Dec 22, 2022•43 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast The sheer amount of time separating the establishment of the first cities in the ancient Near East, and the invention of cuneiform writing, from the end of the period that they define is mind-boggling: almost 3,000 years, far longer than the span that separates us today from the end of that period. Professor Amanda Podany has written a fantastic book on this whole age, entitled Weavers, Scribes, and Kings , that looks at both kings and everyday people in a fascinating time and place. Patrick's b...
Dec 15, 2022•52 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to the Iron Age, and to a new season of Tides of History! The first millennium BC saw the emergence of two huge and enduring empires at either end of Eurasia - Rome and China - but it was also the time of Socrates, Confucius, the Buddha, and much more. Let's start getting settled in a brand-new world. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverg...
Dec 08, 2022•36 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast After two and a half years and 126 episodes, Season 4 of Tides is coming to an end. Patrick recaps what we've learned, how things have changed in a rapidly shifting field, and why the study of prehistory and the deep human past matters. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and t...
Dec 01, 2022•38 min•Ep 122•Transcript available on Metacast I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of great people during this season, and Professor Shane Miller of Mississippi State University has been incredibly generous with his time on multiple occasions. He and I catch up on the state of the debate about who came first to the Americas, what agriculture in the eastern United States looked like, and how to find really old dirt. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy...
Nov 24, 2022•1 hr•Ep 121•Transcript available on Metacast "Collapse" is an evocative and powerful term, but what does it really mean? And how can we use it to help us understand the actual processes and events through which ancient people lived? Professor Guy Middleton is both one of the world's leading experts on collapse as a concept and an accomplished archaeologist of the late Bronze Age Aegean, and we discuss the usefulness of ""collapse"" and how Bronze Age people experienced their famous time of troubles. Patrick's book is now available! Get The...
Nov 17, 2022•59 min•Ep 120•Transcript available on Metacast More than 3,000 years ago, two armies met in a titanic Bronze Age battle along a river in northern Germany. We don’t know why they fought or who won, but thanks to stunning archaeological discoveries, we know how they died, where they come from, and what their lives were like. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new episodes 1 ...
Nov 10, 2022•40 min•Ep 119•Transcript available on Metacast What ties the long history of ancient Egypt together into a meaningful whole? Professor Toby Wilkinson, one of the most renowned Egyptologists on the planet, visits to talk about the unity of ancient Egyptian history through the lens of the fascinating array of objects found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Check out his new book, Tutankhamun's Trumpet! 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 P...
Nov 03, 2022•40 min•Ep 118•Transcript available on Metacast As dramatic and transformative as collapses are, they're rarely a complete apocalypse. People survived the Bronze Age Collapse, and then they had to wake up in the morning, care for their children, tend their crops, make their tools, and go about creating a new world. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new episodes 1 week ear...
Oct 27, 2022•40 min•Ep 117•Transcript available on Metacast It's mailbag time! Patrick answers a variety of questions about topics covered (and not covered) in this season of Tides, ranging from Svante Pääbo's Nobel Prize in paleogenomics to Indo-European origins to changing sea levels. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to ...
Oct 20, 2022•50 min•Ep 116•Transcript available on Metacast What is an empire? It sounds straightforward enough, but figuring out what the term means - much less whether it really helps us understand past political units - is actually pretty complicated. Professor Claudia Glatz is an expert on the dynamics of empire in general and the Hittites in particular, and she walks us through how these ancient empires functioned - and often didn't. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in har...
Oct 13, 2022•48 min•Ep 115•Transcript available on Metacast When assigning blame for the Bronze Age Collapse, the most common culprits are said to be the Sea Peoples: nomadic raiders and sackers of cities who plied the sea-lanes of the late Bronze Age world and brought to an end centuries of flourishing trade and culture. Yet who were the Sea Peoples? And were they actually responsible for all of this devastation? Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audioboo...
Oct 06, 2022•45 min•Ep 114•Transcript available on Metacast Mycenaean Greece was one of the glittering jewels of the late Bronze Age world, but it fell to pieces in dramatic fashion: burned palaces, abandoned settlements, and the end of a centuries-old political tradition. Nor was Greece the only place in the Aegean to suffer: On the Asian side of the sea, a city we know as Troy was among those destroyed at this time. Was this the context that, centuries later, gave rise to Homer's famous tale of the Trojan War? Patrick's book is now available! Get The V...
Sep 29, 2022•47 min•Ep 113•Transcript available on Metacast We're often told that trade was central to the interconnected world of the late Bronze Age, but what were people really trading? Why did trade matter so much? And what happened when that trade disappeared? Professor Sarah Murray is an archaeologist and an expert on the economy of Mycenaean Greece - and how and why it fell apart. 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: h...
Sep 22, 2022•57 min•Ep 112•Transcript available on Metacast The term "Bronze Age Collapse" is by now common, but what do we actually mean when we talk about "collapse?" Is it a matter of political reorganization or something rather more drastic? In the case of the Bronze Age, we have a copious material and written record to help us understand what actually happened around 1200 BC, and how it affected the people who lived through it - and didn't. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World...
Sep 15, 2022•41 min•Ep 111•Transcript available on Metacast The late Bronze Age was a time of powerful empires and intense competition between them. Never before had true states covered such a large area, or had such resources to devote to politicking and fighting with one another. The result was war on a scale never before seen in human history. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new ...
Sep 08, 2022•43 min•Ep 110•Transcript available on Metacast What was it like to be a regular person in ancient Egypt? What did people do when they got sick or injured? Professor Anne Austin is an Egyptologist and bioarchaeologist who studies health and disease using both texts and human remains, allowing us to answer questions about the bodily experience of ancient life in ways we never thought possible. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (r...
Sep 01, 2022•48 min•Ep 109•Transcript available on Metacast We know the late Bronze Age world eventually collapsed, but what made it a world in the first place? The answer lies in the intense connections - trade, politics, and culture - that tied together a vast area of the ancient world, from Mycenaean Greece to Elamite Iran and the Caucasus Mountains to the Upper Nile in Nubia. 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: https://b...
Aug 25, 2022•41 min•Ep 108•Transcript available on Metacast When we think about ancient Egypt, the vast majority of our attention goes to its elite: pharaohs, queens, priests, and nobles. But the elite made up only the tiniest portion of the population. What about the people who built the pyramids, royal tombs, great temples, and palaces? What can we know about them? A great deal, as it turns out. 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 Patric...
Aug 18, 2022•43 min•Ep 107•Transcript available on Metacast If we know one thing about the Bronze Age world, we know that it collapsed. But what made it a world? And why did it fall apart? There's nobody better to ask than Professor Eric Cline, who literally wrote the book - 1177 BC - on the end of the Bronze Age. 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: https://bit.ly/PWverge Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclus...
Aug 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 106•Transcript available on Metacast Kings are one of the constants of ancient Egypt's long history. But what, exactly, were kings supposed to do, and how did ancient Egyptians understand the role of their king? Professor Laurel Bestock is one of the world's leading experts on the institution of kingship in ancient Egypt, as well as an experienced archaeologist, and she brings several fascinating viewpoints to help us understand the central role of the pharaoh. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissanc...
Aug 04, 2022•51 min•Ep 105•Transcript available on Metacast Egypt's New Kingdom lasted for more than 400 years. In that time, Egypt changed dramatically, weathering ups, downs, and turmoil of all kinds. Much of that turmoil centered around a religious visionary who also happened to be pharaoh: Akhenaten, father of the famous Tutankhamun, whose incredible tomb and less-than-impressive reign was a reflection of those unsettled times. Please support us by supporting our sponsors! Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and ...
Jul 28, 2022•43 min•Ep 104•Transcript available on Metacast Most of what we think we know about ancient Egypt is actually things we know about the New Kingdom, the last of Egypt's three classical golden ages: an empire stretching into the Near East and Nubia, warrior kings leading armies of chariots, the lavish tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and the well-preserved faces of royal mummies. 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...
Jul 21, 2022•40 min•Ep 103•Transcript available on Metacast Sea levels rise, hills erode, and rivers change course over decades and centuries, dramatically affecting how people choose to live in their landscapes. Professor Mike Carson is an expert in the study of archaeological landscapes in the ancient Pacific, and his work has provided incredible insights into how the ancient speakers of the Austronesian languages saw and lived in their world. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Sho...
Jul 14, 2022•57 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast When we think of the Middle Ages, the first thing that comes to mind is usually knights in shining armor. Chivalry - the ideal of behavior that guided knights - was a major force in medieval life. Honor and piety, bravery and reputation: these were core values for the secular elite. We explore what they actually meant to medieval 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...
Jul 07, 2022•52 min•Ep 101•Transcript available on Metacast Star Carr, located in the Yorkshire region of northern England, is one of the world's richest archaeological sites, a waterlogged window onto the European Mesolithic more than 11,000 years ago. Professor Chantal Conneller spent more than a decade excavating at Star Carr, and she joins me to talk about this enigmatic and little-known but incredibly fascinating period of human history. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in...
Jun 30, 2022•43 min•Ep 100•Transcript available on Metacast Of all the Austronesian-speaking peoples, none have gone further than the Polynesians. Professor Patrick Vinton Kirch of the University of Hawaii is one of the world's leading experts on the Polynesian voyages and colonization of the Pacific, and we discuss how, why, and with what impact the Polynesians spread out over half of the planet. 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 Patric...
Jun 23, 2022•47 min•Ep 99•Transcript available on Metacast The first wave of migration out of Taiwan brought speakers of Austronesian to the northern reaches of the Philippines, the homeland of the Malayo-Polynesians. From there, they spread out over a vast swathe of Southeast Asia and Oceania, eventually moving to the distant reaches of Indonesia and the previously uninhabited spaces of Remote Oceania. 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...
Jun 16, 2022•43 min•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast More than 4,000 years ago, a remarkable migration - one of the great journeys in human history - began in Taiwan. Within just a thousand years, people speaking the Austronesian languages spread out everywhere from the Philippines to Borneo to the previously uninhabited islands of Vanuatu and Fiji in Remote Oceania. 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: https://bit.ly/...
Jun 09, 2022•38 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast 
