history
Ground Control: How Pepper Spiced Up World Trade – With Lydia Wilson
Once the most valuable spice in the world, pepper sparked global trade, conquest and empire-building. This episode of In Focus follows its journey from ancient India to European power struggles over “black gold.”
Coming Home To Roost
America’s role in war crimes in Colombia decades ago may shed light on how far the Trump administration could go to subvert U.S. and international laws pertaining to the use of military force against civilians at home.
Environmental Disaster and Hopeful Revival in Central Asia
The dried-up Aral Sea tells a story about decisions made in the past, but it is also the site of countless choices in our present: what kinds of economies we prioritize, what forms of nature we value and what we want our future to look like.
Haile Selassie’s Band of Armenian Orphans
Armenians the world over remember their close link with Ethiopia, symbolized by the royal adoption of 40 orphan musicians. The legacy of this act endures: Ethiopian music, exported around the world, still reflects this Armenian influence.
The Russian Ascetic Who Reached for Immortality
The driving force behind transhumanism — the idea that technological advancements will help us achieve immortality — may be the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley, but its genesis lies in the little hovel of a 19th-century Russian ascetic who had a new vision of eternity.
A Greek Island’s First Settlers Weren’t Human
New archaeological finds on the Greek island of Naxos bear the hallmarks of Neanderthal craftsmanship, suggesting that this enigmatic hominid reached the area at the same time as humans, or even before them, and toppling the assumption that our species alone had the navigational nous and curiosity to colonize islands.
Historicide in Gaza
Roman pots and Phoenician jewelry may be more glamorous than filing cabinets full of administrative papers, but the latter record the basic facts needed to understand a society. In Gaza, Israel has now destroyed these archives — the culmination of a long process curtailing the possibilities of Palestinian history.