Tides of History

By Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Society & Culture History

What's Tides of History about?

Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we spend and how we earn it at work, what language we speak and how we raise our children. From Wondery, host Patrick Wyman, PhD (“Fall Of Rome”) helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is. New episodes come out Thursdays for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. Listen ad-free on Wondery+ or on Amazon Music with a Prime membership or Amazon Music Unlimited subscription.

4.7

4,926 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Persia Ascendant

09.21.2023

While Cyrus the Great built the Persian Empire from the ground up, his successors expanded it until the new state stretched from the Indus Valley of Pakistan to the Upper Nile, Kazakhstan to the Aegean, the Balkans to the Hindu ...

Tides of History episodes:

09.21.2023 Persia Ascendant While Cyrus the Great built the Persian Empire from the ground up, his successors expanded it until the new state stretched from the Indus Valley of Pakistan to the Upper Nile, Kazakhstan to the Aegean, the Balkans to the Hindu ...
09.14.2023 Midas, Croesus, and the Lost Kingdoms of Iron Age Anatolia The kingdoms of Iron Age Anatolia survive only as whispers in the archaeological and historical record; others exist through enigmatic references and legends in the writings of foreigners; and still others left behind relatively abundant records, allowing us to reconstruct ...
09.07.2023 The Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Judah: Interview with Professor Avraham Faust What was life like in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah? Few people are better qualified to answer that question than Professor Avraham Faust, who has excavated and written extensively about the archaeology of the ancient southern Levant, with ...
09.05.2023 Patrick is Hosting a New Show! Check out the "Pursuit of Dadliness" Now! Welcome to "The Pursuit of Dadliness." This is a podcast for folks who want to enjoy their passions and their hobbies, whatever those might be, and genuinely strive to get better at doing stuff and more knowledgeable about the world ...
08.31.2023 Cyrus the Great and the Rise of the Persian Empire The Persians were unlikely successors to the Assyrians and Babylonians, a fringe people of no particular importance, until Cyrus the Great became the most successful conqueror the world had ever seen. He built an empire stretching from Central Asia to ...
08.24.2023 Theocracy, Fragmentation, and the Kushite Kings: Egypt after the New Kingdom Egypt's New Kingdom, the peak of its monumental building and international power, ended in the aftermath of the Bronze Age Collapse. Once again, Egypt fragmented into multiple smaller states. Yet millions of people still lived and died under the rule ...
08.17.2023 The Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Destruction of Jerusalem Despite controlling a huge swathe of the Near East for the better part of a century, the Neo-Babylonian Empire is nearly forgotten today, aside from one key act: the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people of the ...
08.14.2023 Wondery Presents: Don’t Panic with Anthony Atamanuik Staying alive in the most ridiculous situations keeps comedian Anthony Atamanuik up at night. If you’re attacked by a swarm of killer bees, do you lay on the ground and play dead? Climb up a tree? Jump into the nearest ...
08.10.2023 The Rise of the Persian Empire: Professor Matt Waters on Ancient Empires and Cyrus the Great The Persian Empire followed in the footsteps of the Assyrians and Babylonians, but it was a much different entity than its predecessors, and its founder - Cyrus the Great - deserves to be mentioned among history's most accomplished conquerors. Professor ...
08.03.2023 Summer Book Club: Dr. Keith Pluymers on Indigenous America It's summertime, and I hope you're reading some great books. Dr. Keith Pluymers joins me once again to talk about one that you all might enjoy, by the historian Pekka Hamalainen - Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America. ...
07.27.2023 The Iron Fist of Empire and the Destruction of Israel and Judah Israel and Judah flourished for centuries as kingdoms on the margins of the Near East's great empires, but when the Assyrians turned their attention toward their smaller neighbors, disaster and destruction quickly followed. Patrick's book is now available! Get The ...
07.20.2023 The Roots of Israel and Judah The roots of ancient Judaism, and the Abrahamic religions, are to be found in the arid hills and fertile valleys of Canaan more than 3,000 years ago. That was where the kingdoms of Israel and Judah came into being, and ...
07.13.2023 Headhunting, Migration, and Ancient DNA in Iron Age Europe: Interview with Professor Ian Armit Professor Ian Armit has ranged both widely and deeply over the study of European prehistory, examining everything from headhunting practices among the ancient Celts to migration in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: ...
07.06.2023 Childhood, Motherhood, and the Body in Iron Age Europe: Interview with Professor Katharina Rebay-Salisbury Thanks to cutting-edge tools, archaeologists can study the lives of past people in ways that were never before possible. Professor Katharina Rebay-Salisbury applies those tools to children and mothers in Bronze and Iron Age Europe, shedding light on the experiences ...
06.29.2023 The Last Kings of Rome and the Foundation of the Roman Republic What really happened in the last years of the 6th century BC? The Romans believed that this was the time when they overthrew their last king, Tarquinius Superbus, and founded the Republic, but how much did they actually know about ...
06.22.2023 The Hallstatt Culture, the Celts, and the Rise of the European Iron Age The Hallstatt Culture defines the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in Continental Europe. It was a time of long-distance connections between rich and powerful elites, migration, trade, and the remaking of Europe's ethnic ...
06.15.2023 Burial Urns, Warrior Chiefs, and the Origins of the Celts While the Mediterranean world was experiencing its Bronze Age Collapse and the beginnings of the Iron Age, continental Europe north of the Alps was in the midst of its own fundamental transformation. A new way of burying the dead - ...
06.08.2023 The Urbanization of Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Francesca Fulminante How and why did so many people come to Rome in the Archaic Period, and how did it become a city? Dr. Francesca Fulminante is an expert on the archaeology of ancient Italy, particularly the process of urbanization that turned ...
06.01.2023 The Orientalizing Mediterranean Ideas, goods, and fashions bounced around from place to place in the Iron Age Mediterranean, the most recognizable of which was a particular style of art that we call "Orientalizing." But this distinctive and widespread artistic style, rooted in the ...
05.25.2023 Iron Age Iberia and the Lost Civilization of the Tartessians Iberia is the hinge between worlds: Europe and Africa, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. That was never more true than at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, when a new civilization - the ...
05.18.2023 Building Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Andrea Brock What was Rome like before it became one of the biggest cities in the ancient world? How did its early inhabitants adapt to the threat of flooding, and change the landscape to suit their needs? Dr. Andrea Brock of the ...
05.11.2023 The Birth of Rome Rome eventually became the heart of one of the largest and most powerful empires the world has ever known, but in the beginning, it was just a collection of villages on the Tiber River. How those villages merged and became ...
05.04.2023 Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient Mediterranean: Interview with Professor Peter van Dommelen When we think of the ancient Mediterranean, our minds first turn to familiar names, such as the Greeks and Romans. Yet the ancient world was full of peoples, all of them living in sophisticated societies that were no less interesting ...
04.27.2023 The Emergence of the Etruscans The Etruscans are often called "mysterious," but we actually know quite a bit about them, from their unique language to their amazing metalwork and impressive cities. But where did the Etruscans come from, and how did they come into being? ...
04.20.2023 Greek Colonies and Networks in the Iron Age: Interview with Dr. Lieve Donnellan One of the best ways to understand how the ancient world functioned is to think in terms of networks and interactions between people and places. Dr. Lieve Donnellan of the University of Melbourne is an archaeologist who specializes in applying ...
04.13.2023 Iron Age Italy At the beginning of the Iron Age, around 950 BC, Italy was a land of farming villages; just a few centuries later, it was one of the wealthiest and most densely urbanized parts of the Mediterranean world. This dramatic change ...
04.06.2023 Competition, Tyranny, and the Birth of Ancient Greece Archaic Greece went through some of the most explosive and rapid transformations of any ancient society, but why? What stands out the most is the intense strand of competition running through every aspect of society, from athletics to the economy ...
03.30.2023 Sicily and the Making of the Greek Mediterranean In the space of just a few decades toward the end of the 8th century BC, Greek colonies sprang up across across southern Italy and Sicily. These new foundations would become the heart of the Greek world, just as Greek ...
03.23.2023 How Data Happened: Professors Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones on the History of Data Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones, authors of the new book How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms, join Patrick to discuss the history of data, why enumerating things isn't a neutral act, ...
03.16.2023 Who Were the Phoenicians? Interview with Professor Carolina Lopez-Ruiz Despite their obvious importance to understanding the Iron Age and Classical Mediterranean, the Phoenicians remain something of an enigma. Professor Carolina Lopez-Ruiz is one of the world's leading experts on the Phoenicians, and she joins Patrick to talk about trade, ...
03.09.2023 The Roots of Archaic Greece In the year 800 BC, Greece was an unremarkable corner of the Aegean. Over the next century, however, it underwent a remarkable transformation. Greece's population exploded, cities came into being, long-distance trade boomed, and the first overseas colonies - the ...
03.02.2023 The Phoenician Mediterranean Soon after 1000 BC, Phoenicians began to take ever-longer voyages away from their homeland. Within just a few decades, they were already present at the far end of the Mediterranean and even further, past the Straits of Gibraltar on the ...
02.23.2023 The Emergence of Phoenicia Few places weathered the Bronze Age Collapse better than the Levant, the strip of land bordering the eastern Mediterranean that runs from Syria to Egypt. One small part of that coastline, mostly in what's now Lebanon, became a launching pad ...
02.16.2023 How to Write Historical Fiction \| Interview with historian and author Dan Jones on his new novel Essex Dogs Every historian I know has a secret dream of writing historical fiction, but few ever do it. Dan Jones, a longtime friend of Tides of History and an outstanding historian, has actually done it: Essex Dogs, his fantastic debut novel ...
02.09.2023 Greece's Dark Age After the Bronze Age Collapse, Greece changed dramatically. The palaces were gone, long-distance trade declined, and crafts became much simpler. Most of all, there were fewer people living in Greece than there had been during the Mycenaean period. For all ...
02.08.2023 Wondery Presents: Stolen Hearts Sergeant Jill Evans is a small town cop in Wales with an impressive record in her job, and a less than impressive record in her love life. After three engagements, two divorces and one affair, she’s beginning to worry that ...
02.02.2023 The Global Mediterranean of the Iron Age: Interview with Professor Tamar Hodos The Iron Age Mediterranean's new density of connections between people and places was about more than the economy and trade; it also remade the culture of the whole region, bringing new ideas and practices - such as wine-drinking and the ...
01.26.2023 Greece after the Bronze Age Collapse: Interview with Professor Alex Knodell What happened after the Bronze Age Collapse and the end of the palaces that had defined Mycenaean Greece? It's easy to present this time as a "dark age," but is that really the best way to understand it? Professor Alex ...
01.19.2023 The Interconnected Mediterranean of the Iron Age Prior to the Iron Age, the Mediterranean had already been a highway moving around goods, people, and ideas for millennia. But as a new era dawned, the Mediterranean became something very different: an interconnected space, bringing together all of its ...
01.12.2023 The Fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire When the end came for the Assyrian Empire, it came quickly. Former enemies pounced on the weakened state, and brought home the violence that for so long had characterized Assyrian conquests abroad. Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: ...
01.11.2023 Introducing: History Daily On History Daily, we do history, daily. Every weekday, host Lindsay Graham (American Scandal, American History Tellers) takes you back in time to explore a momentous event that happened ‘on this day’ in history. Whether it’s to remember the tragedy ...
01.05.2023 The Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire: Interview with Professor Bleda During 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 ...
12.22.2022 The Rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire 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 ...
12.15.2022 Weavers, Scribes, and Kings in the Ancient Near East: Interview with Professor Amanda Podany 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 ...
12.08.2022 From a World of Iron to Classical Empires 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 ...
12.01.2022 Retrospective: Prehistory Season 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 ...
11.24.2022 Revisiting the Ancient Americas with Professor Shane Miller 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 ...
11.17.2022 What is "Collapse?" Interview with Professor Guy Middleton "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 ...
11.10.2022 The Battle of the Tollense Valley 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, ...
11.03.2022 Tutankhamun's Trumpet and the Long, Winding Past of Ancient Egypt: Interview with Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson 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 ...

Older episodes

Tides of History

What's Tides of History about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Tides of History episodes:

Persia Ascendant

Midas, Croesus, and the Lost Kingdoms of Iron Age Anatolia

The Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Judah: Interview with Professor Avraham Faust

Patrick is Hosting a New Show! Check out the "Pursuit of Dadliness" Now!

Cyrus the Great and the Rise of the Persian Empire

Theocracy, Fragmentation, and the Kushite Kings: Egypt after the New Kingdom

The Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Destruction of Jerusalem

Wondery Presents: Don’t Panic with Anthony Atamanuik

The Rise of the Persian Empire: Professor Matt Waters on Ancient Empires and Cyrus the Great

Summer Book Club: Dr. Keith Pluymers on Indigenous America

The Iron Fist of Empire and the Destruction of Israel and Judah

The Roots of Israel and Judah

Headhunting, Migration, and Ancient DNA in Iron Age Europe: Interview with Professor Ian Armit

Childhood, Motherhood, and the Body in Iron Age Europe: Interview with Professor Katharina Rebay-Salisbury

The Last Kings of Rome and the Foundation of the Roman Republic

The Hallstatt Culture, the Celts, and the Rise of the European Iron Age

Burial Urns, Warrior Chiefs, and the Origins of the Celts

The Urbanization of Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Francesca Fulminante

The Orientalizing Mediterranean

Iron Age Iberia and the Lost Civilization of the Tartessians

Building Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Andrea Brock

The Birth of Rome

Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient Mediterranean: Interview with Professor Peter van Dommelen

The Emergence of the Etruscans

Greek Colonies and Networks in the Iron Age: Interview with Dr. Lieve Donnellan

Iron Age Italy

Competition, Tyranny, and the Birth of Ancient Greece

Sicily and the Making of the Greek Mediterranean

How Data Happened: Professors Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones on the History of Data

Who Were the Phoenicians? Interview with Professor Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

The Roots of Archaic Greece

The Phoenician Mediterranean

The Emergence of Phoenicia

How to Write Historical Fiction | Interview with historian and author Dan Jones on his new novel Essex Dogs

Greece's Dark Age

Wondery Presents: Stolen Hearts

The Global Mediterranean of the Iron Age: Interview with Professor Tamar Hodos

Greece after the Bronze Age Collapse: Interview with Professor Alex Knodell

The Interconnected Mediterranean of the Iron Age

The Fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Introducing: History Daily

The Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire: Interview with Professor Bleda During

The Rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Weavers, Scribes, and Kings in the Ancient Near East: Interview with Professor Amanda Podany

From a World of Iron to Classical Empires

Retrospective: Prehistory Season

Revisiting the Ancient Americas with Professor Shane Miller

What is "Collapse?" Interview with Professor Guy Middleton

The Battle of the Tollense Valley

Tutankhamun's Trumpet and the Long, Winding Past of Ancient Egypt: Interview with Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson

Other shows like Tides of History: