AMSEcast

In this episode Mr. Lowe and Mr. Olson focus their discussion on Olson’s book, Mapping Human History, Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins. Their conversation ranges broadly over the intersection of genetics and the story of human history. Olson’s work shows how historians can benefit from marshalling the tools of genetics, and how in turn geneticists can at times better analyze their findings with a sound knowledge of history. We begin to understand how the complexity of human history and human biology can literally be mapped to common origins.

Tore Olsson_SoH

Dr. Earnest Freeberg

Dr. Daniel Vivian

A professor in Behavioral Ecology at University College London, Seirian Sumner focuses her research on social insects, and is especially passionate about the world of wasps.  She talks with us about her book, Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps.

The construction and legacy of the Manhattan Project is discussed

Kai Bird is the executive director and distinguished lecturer at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Leon Levy Center for Biography.  The author of best-selling books such as The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames and The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Kai spoke with us about the Pulitzer Prize winning book he co-authored with the late Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.