Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and Lessons from China ~ Kenneth Pomeranz (Great Divergence #1)

“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal.

“What do you think of the paleo diet?” To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer. Yes, the idea makes a lot of sense: humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, so our bodies should do well when we eat like hunter-gatherers. But what exactly do hunter-gatherers eat? Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman wanted to find out. After reviewing the evidence we have on the diets of hunter-gatherers, he came to a surprising conclusion. “Not a single one of them eats the paleo diet”, he says. Some hunter-gatherers eat more meat than the paleo diet prescribes; most eat much less. Plenty of them eat legumes and cereals, both of which are banned by paleo cookbooks. “There is no one paleo diet,” Lieberman concludes. “The unique thing about humans is that we evolved to eat almost everything.” Instead of fixating on a single “true” diet, Lieberman’s new book, Fed Up, offers a tour of the dietary history of humanity, discussing what lessons we can learn along the way. In this episode, we cover the sweeping story of food and cooking, from the first chefs who processed food with stone tools to the explosion of ultra-processed foods during Lieberman’s own lifetime. Along the way, Lieberman offers insightful comparisons between humans and chimpanzees and discusses the many ways in which farming has — and has not — affected the human condition. He also explains why humans have always been “a very fat ape”, and what his experience of racing against horses tells us about the quirks of human evolution. Towards the end of the episode, we also evaluate the pros and the cons of the modern food system. We finish with Lieberman’s deeply compassionate advice to all who would like to find a healthier lifestyle amidst the many challenges of industrial modernity. Enjoy!

We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life. Since when has this been the case? There is a modern story about globalisation — a story about telecommunications and aeroplanes and such — but this is the climax of a long process, not its beginning. To find the deeper roots of globalisation, we should turn our gaze to the medieval world, and specifically to events around the year 1000. Or so argues historian Valerie Hansen. In this episode, we discuss the various curious developments around the year 1000 that began to connect the world into an interconnected web. From Viking explorers to the Silk Roads in Africa, Hansen offers many fascinating windows into the surprising connections that were already beginning to link the medieval world together. We also discuss the spread of inventions and world religions, as well as the deeper forces that Hansen thinks have long been driving world history. Enjoy!

How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down? In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running debate about the origins of war. Fry revisits his argument that aggression is ancient, but war is not. I put that claim to the test, raising some of the strongest objections from archaeology and the study of modern hunter-gatherers. We discuss Jebel Sahaba, nomadic and settled foragers, food storage, marine resources, population growth, and the archaeological sequences through which warfare seems to emerge in different parts of the world. Is war an ancient adaptation—or a more recent cultural development? And is the answer relevant to our modern quest for a more peaceful world? Enjoy!

History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we learn if we change the angle from wars to non-wars? What lessons emerge from a study of all the periods and regions where war did not take place? My guest in this two-part mini-series is Douglas P. Fry, an anthropologist who has spent decades studying these questions. He is also a returning guest, and one of the first scholars ever to appear on this podcast. In Part II of our conversation, we will return to the topic of our episode from years back: the origins of war in prehistory. In this first part, however, we take a very different approach. We discuss lessons from modernity, with our topics ranging from the quest for peace after WWII to the societies in the Brazilian Amazon and Indigenous North America. What makes former enemies trust one another? What roles are played by equality, trade, or a new shared enemy? And how can cycles of fear, retaliation, and revenge be reversed without simply surrendering to aggression? At a time when war once again dominates the news, these questions could hardly be more urgent. But they also point towards a part of the human story that is too easily forgotten: our capacity not only to make war, but to understand it—and to build peace that lasts. Enjoy!