History from a New Perspective

Polynesian Navigators: The Greatest Seafarers in History?

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/fan_mail/new] 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 Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/support]

A History of Iran: From Ancient Empires to the Medieval World

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/fan_mail/new] 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 Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/support]

Did Neanderthal Men Prefer Human Women? New DNA Study Reveals Ancient Secrets

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/fan_mail/new] 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 Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/support]

The history behind the War in Sudan

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/fan_mail/new] 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 Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/support]

London, Slavery and the Slave Trade

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/fan_mail/new] 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 Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2512339/support]