Tides of History

Slavery was foundational to ancient societies, but it was never a single thing: The experiences of the enslaved varied dramatically depending on when and where they lived, who owned them, and most of all, the jobs they had to do. Slavery was never good, but there were better and worse versions, and in this episode, we'll explore some of the variation that shaped the lives of enslaved people.

Patrick launched a brand-new his...

Check out Patrick's new show, Past Lives! You can listen on your platform of choice through the links here, and be sure to subscribe to the Patreon for tons of bonus content - Q and As, interviews with fantastic historians, and much more.

Saint Patrick is one of the most famous individuals who lived in the late Roman Empire, but long before he became the apostle of the Irish, he was a Romano-British teenager who was abducte...

It's been quite a while since I've answered listener questions, so here are a bunch on everything from the best depictions of siege warfare in movies to the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe.

Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA

And don't forget, you can still Get The Verge: Reform...

Every year, new archaeological discoveries claim to rewrite what we think we knew about the ancient Americas, but how much can we trust the initial reports we see? Professor Shane Miller, now of the University of Alabama, joins me again to place the White Sands footprints and other key sites in their proper context.

Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a r...

The rise of the Roman Republic was built on conquest and war, but also on the massively expanding economy of Italy as a whole and Rome in particular. What was it like to live through that, and what did an expanding economy actually mean?

Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA

And don't f...

Runic writing carries connotations of magic and fantasy, but it was a widespread, useful, and long-lasting system of writing. Professor Tom Birkett has written a fantastic overview of runic writing that returns it to the real time and place in which it existed - Runes: A Concise History.

Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the p...

Let's imagine a Macedonian soldier during the time of Alexander the Great. How did this man, whom we'll call Red Cleitus, spend the vast amounts of coin he plundered and earned as he and his comrades fought their way across Asia?

Patrick launched a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA

And don't forget, y...

Patrick's new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World, launches May 5th, 2026! Check out this audiobook preview chapter on two murders around 5,300 years ago, hear about everything we can learn from Otzi the Iceman in the Alps and Gebelein Man in Egypt, and be sure to preorder the book in your medium of choice through the link here: https://bit.ly/PWLostWorlds.

Patrick launched a brand-ne...

Check out a scripted episode of Patrick's new show, Past Lives!

Nearly 2,700 years ago, a woman and her daughter were ripped away from their homes in what is now Iran by the soldiers of the Assyrian Empire. Nanaya'ila'i was one of thousands upon thousands of people to experience the violence that accompanied conquest, but she's one of the very few whose name we know and life we can reconstruct.

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We've talked about how rich classical Athens was, but what did that mean for an average person living at the time? In this episode, we follow the life of a composite character, an Athenian citizen farmer named Megakles, to see how the economic developments of the classical age shaped daily life in Athens.

Patrick launched a brand-new history show on December 3rd! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life o...

Like many of you, I first fell in love with history through the movies. Dr. Jason Herbert hosted a podcast called Historians at the Movies, now retitled Reckoning with Jason Herbert, that focuses on films depicting the past and what historians think about them. We have a delightful conversation about some of our favorite history movies, what makes them good or bad, and what we can learn from them.

Patrick is launching a...

Patrick has a new history podcast, Past Lives! It's all about the experiences of real, everyday people throughout the human past, people just like you. Listen to the first full episode, "On Historical Storytelling," right here, and then go subscribe to the Past Lives feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice.

Past Lives is an independent production supported through Patreon, where you can subscribe...

Ancient Greece was rich compared to other ancient societies, and Athens was the richest place of all within ancient Greece. But why? The answer lies not just in the silver lodes of Attica or access to the sea; it was about democracy, law, and institutions, which made people feel safe doing business in Athens.

Patrick is launching a brand-new history show on December 3rd! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores th...

From Patrick Wyman (host of Fall of Rome and Tides of History) comes Past Lives, a brand new podcast! Every week, we’ll focus on the lived experiences of real people from the past, bringing their stories to life.

The first season of Past Lives is available December 3rd! Be sure to subscribe to the feed now (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/past-lives/id1852618120) so you get our first three episodes delivered straight ...

The Hundred Years War was the defining conflict of the Middle Ages, but today's guest - Professor Michael Livingston of the Citadel - argues that it actually lasted for 200 years. That's just one problem with the way we've learned about the Hundred Years War, and Livingston's new book, entitled Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War, is a fantastic corrective.

Patrick is launching a brand-new history show...

As the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, the economy of the Mediterranean shifted dramatically. It expanded to encompass the entire sea for the first time, everywhere from the Levant to Iberia, and laid the foundations for what would eventually become the Roman Empire.

Patrick's new book - Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age - is now available for preorder, and will be rel...

Professor Eric Cline, author of the outstanding book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, returns to the show to discuss his new book: Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed. We talk about the dynamics of Bronze Age states, how such an extraordinary treasure trove of texts was discovered and translated, and what we can know about a long-past world.

Patri...

Millions of people called ancient Egypt home, and the vast majority of them weren't kings or high priests; they were humble farmers and laborers making their living from the rich black soil surrounding the Nile. That extraordinary land produced so much surplus grain that thousands upon thousands of people could be spared from agricultural labor and put to work building some of the most stunning monuments in the ancient wor...

Carbon dioxide is central to the story of Earth from its beginning more than 4 billion years ago all the way up to the present. Peter Brannen joins me to discuss his new book - The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World - an extraordinarily long-term view of the planet's past and future, and why our current path is so unprecedented.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Refo...