History from a New Perspective

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The ancient Polynesians stand among history’s greatest seafarers. By around 1100 BC, they had already crossed vast expanses of the Pacific, settling remote islands such as Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. In the centuries that followed, they pushed even farther, reaching places like Easter Island, Vanuatu, New Zealand and off the coast of Africa in Madagascar. This was known as the Austronesian expansion. Joseph Keen explains how they went about achieving this.

Episode also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyeW51X-N70

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EXPLAINER: Recent tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran have once again drawn global attention to a region with a long and complex past. But today’s events are only the latest chapter in a much deeper story. To understand Iran’s place in the world, we need to look back thousands of years—through the rise of ancient Persian empires, periods of conquest and the foundations laid during the middle ages that continue to shape the region today. Joseph Keen explains the history from the Sasanian empire to the Safavids.

Episode also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JaYmzUwcNCE

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In the long stretch of prehistory, humans weren’t alone. One of the groups they shared the world and sometimes their lives with were the Neanderthals. Now, a new DNA study suggests those encounters followed a pattern and most often, it was Neanderthal men and human women who got together and interbred. This left a genetic signature that is still found in then DNA of many of us today. It provides a clue as to how our species evolved, how cultures may have collided, and how even the most intimate moments of the distant past shaped who we are now. I have been speaking to Dr Alexander Platt, a senior research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and an author of the research.

Link to the study 'Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was strongly sex biased': https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea6774

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gM-XDB9tDEw

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In October 2025, the city of El Fasher in North Darfur fell to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary organisation which has been engaged in a vicious civil war against the Sudanese armed forces. The United Nations says thousands have fled El Fasher since the RSF takeover. Over the course of the war the BBC says more than 150,000 people have died and about 12 million have fled their homes since the conflict broke out in April 2023. So how did we get here? The northeast African country gained its independence from Britain and Egypt on the 1st of January 1956 and has faced a series of upheavals since. To find out more about this history, Joseph Keen has been speaking to Dr Aida Abbashar who specialises in Sudanese political history. 

Aida’s study ”Decolonising Security, Epistemic Disobedience, and Revolutionary Change in Sudan”: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2024.2432176

Episode also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zic0mcQDG38

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As part of UK Black History Month, History from a New Perspective has been exploring London's historic relationship with the Transatlantic slave trade. This is a short episode which explains how the city's wealth grew as a result of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas. The episode also explores how Britain later abolished the slave trade and slavery. Joseph Keen visited the 'London, Sugar and Slavery: 1600-present' exhibition at the London Museum Docklands.

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AW_-EAwdYTQ

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Buried deep beneath coconut groves in South India’s Tamil Nadu state lies Keeladi, an ancient settlement whose 2,500-year-old remains are igniting a fierce debate over India’s history. Archaeologists, politicians and linguists have clashed over what Keeladi means — for identity, heritage and the story we tell about the past.  India’s first major civilisation, the Indus Valley, thrived between 3300 and 1300 BCE in the north and central regions. After its decline, the Vedic period arose lasting until the 6th century BCE. This era saw the emergence of cities, kingdoms and Vedic culture, laying the foundations for Hinduism. Urbanisation in ancient India is often framed as a northern phenomenon, with the narrative of northern Aryans bringing “civilisation” to the Dravidian south. Could these new discoveries challenge that narrative? Joseph Keen has been speaking to Sowmiya Ashok, a journalist and writer working on an upcoming book called “The Dig.” 

Sowmiya’s book: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0F996VNVC

Sowmiya's Instagram for updates on The Dig: https://www.instagram.com/sowmiyashok.writes/?hl=en

Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNKxfFpEKV8

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The US FBI recently returned a 500-year-old stolen document to Mexico. The manuscript was penned by Hernán Cortés, a man who helped pave the way for Spanish colonisation of the Americas and bring about the end of the Aztec Empire. The Aztec empire lasted until the 16th century in what is now Mexico with Spain’s conquest leading to its collapse in 1521. The civilisation has often been linked to the practice of human sacrifice. Scholars have traditionally relied on European sources to document their history, but how did the Aztecs see their history from their own perspective? The book “Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs” uses indigenous sources to tell their story. Joseph Keen has been speaking to the book’s author, Professor Camilla Townsend who is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Camilla's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fifth-Sun-New-History-Aztecs/dp/0190673060

Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxbwyoY2G04

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Archaeologists have used high-resolution scans to produce images of tattoos found on an ancient woman in an ice cave. This woman was part of the Pazyryk people, a nomadic Scythian culture (documented by the Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus) which existed between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC in the area of modern day Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and North Western China. The “Ice mummies” were found in the Altai mountains of Central Asia in the 19th century. Joseph Keen has been speaking to Dr Gino Caspari, archaeologist, entrepreneur and explorer from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Bern. He was the lead author of the research.

Link to the study: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/highresolution-nearinfrared-data-reveal-pazyryk-tattooing-methods/74D1A37DF0F0920F3BFCA82EA19DDF5B

Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVeX9DNi1R8

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In 1830, French forces invaded Algeria leading to over a century of colonial rule. The North African nation was even treated as an integral part of France known as “Algerie Francaise.” By 1 November 1954, Algeria’s National Liberation Front or FLN began a major war of decolonization from France, which eventually led to the deaths of somewhere between 400,000 to 1.5 million people. The struggle was famously depicted in the 1966 film “Battle of Algiers.”  By 5 July 1962, the country had achieved its independence. Joseph Keen spoke to Natalya Benkhaled-Vince, historian of the French empire, decolonisation and post-colonial histories at the University of Oxford. She is author of “The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution.”

Natalya’s book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Algerian-War-Revolution/dp/3030542637

Episode also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QblYoBWte6c&t=135s

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Want to learn more about the history of the African continent? From the ancient Nubian kingdoms of Sudan and Egypt to Mansa Musa's medieval Mali, to modern-day Ghana, we'll explore the rise and fall of civilizations and the lasting legacies they left behind. Joseph Keen spoke to Luke Pepera is a writer, broadcast, anthropologist, historian and author of "Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity."

Luke's Book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/motherland/luke-pepera/9781398707368?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAae55gwwm-v4MizfxqZtUUHqgT73moOwqgvHARmuJ9Rx6px2lNy_WO5FNzIxBg_aem_gSGEsTuK5NUzVBbGk1X6tQ

YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCwQvtmlnvY&t=56s

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