@Patrick_Wyman

Pods: Past Lives. Tides of History. Book: "The Verge," on the world around 1500. Coming soon: "Lost Worlds," on prehistory. (5/6/26). pwymanusc at gmail.

 Phoenix, AZ
patreon.com/cw/PastLivesMedia
Joined May 2011
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Today's the big day, friends - my new book, Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age, is available for preorder! Smash that link and purchase from your retailer of choice, if that's the kind of thing you're into. harpercollins.com/products/l…

Lost Worlds

"Lost Worlds convinces us of the value of slowing down to recognize the tremendous diversity of the human past. But he presses hard against the conclus...

harpercollins.com
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Are we living through the sixth mass extinction on Earth, or something different - a great homogenization of life - that has never happened before? I talked with the fantastic Kyle Harper, one of the most rigorous, wide-ranging, and curious scholars working today, on Past Lives.
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Link here: pod.link/1852618120/episode/…

Interview: Professor Kyle Harper on Mass Extinction and the Future of Life

Listen to Interview: Professor Kyle Harper on Mass Extinction and the Future of Life from Past Lives wherever you get your podcasts!

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I went ahead and wrote up my assorted thoughts on the great new paper from Bethany Potter, Savannah Hay, Archana Singh, and Jennifer Raff covering all the available genomic evidence on the peopling of the Americas. We know a lot more now than we did!
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Link here: patreon.com/PastLivesMedia/p…

What We Know About the Peopling of the Americas in 2026 | Past Lives

When did humans first arrive in the Americas? It’s a deceptively simple question that has proven to be exceedingly difficult to answer, desp

patreon.com
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Book rec: Kazimierz Moczarski's "Conversations with an Executioner." Moczarski spent nine months in a cell with the SS general who oversaw the annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Jurgen Stroop, and spent that time asking him about who he was and why he did what he did. Incredible.
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It's full of really keen psychological insights about Stroop's obsession with order, his bone-deep belief in hierarchy of all kinds, and how that made him such an enthusiastic Nazi. The lessons are, unfortunately, widely applicable.
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It wasn't a given that print would ever really take off as a medium. I talked with the wonderful historian Andrew Pettegree about his new book, "The Bookshop," and how booksellers connected authors, printers, and readers, the missing link in a chain that changed the world.
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Link here: pod.link/1852618120/episode/…

Selling Books from the Dawn of Print to the Twenty-First Century: Interview with Professor Andrew...

Listen to Selling Books from the Dawn of Print to the Twenty-First Century: Interview with Professor Andrew Pettegree from Past Lives wherever you get your podcasts!

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Reading for the next episode of Past Lives, on the archaeology of a mass grave from the 1461 Battle of Towton. The guy on the cover got that scar on his jaw long before the battle that killed him.
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Patrick Wyman retweeted
Zachary D. Carter@zachdcarterOct 15
Thank you @Patrick_Wyman for this soothing distraction from today’s stressful headlines. patrickwyman.substack.com/p/…
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Lovely endorsement of my recent book "Lost Worlds" from Tyler Cowen! marginalrevolution.com/margi…

*Lost Worlds* - Marginal REVOLUTION

The author is Patrick Wyman, and the subtitle is How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World.  An excellent book, it is a survey of (mostly) pre-Sumerian times, what we know about them,...

marginalrevolution.com
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For beginners, start with the novels: 1) The first Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus 2) The Eisenhorn series 3) The Ciaphas Cain series
R Weaver@kingoflakemoorOct 6
Replying to @Patrick_Wyman
Where is a good place to start? Are the books any good for getting into lore?
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🚨 NEW EPISODE🚨 🌎 From the Indus Valley to the Oxus Civilisation, from Stonehenge to the Great Pyramid, @Patrick_Wyman uncovers the astonishing achievements of ancient people while dismantling some of history's biggest myths. Prepare to see the past in a completely different light. 🏺✨ 🎧 Listen now on all good podcast apps (Episode 337) #History #PatrickWyman #AncientHistory #Archaeology #Pyramids #Stonehenge #LostWorlds #HistoryPodcast
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Not sure I've ever talked about how much I love Warhammer 40k on here but yeah, it fucking rules
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Just talked with the fantastic archaeologist Neil Price about his new book on the Viking Age, "The Sea-King and the Sorceress," and can't recommend it highly enough to you all - extraordinary book written by a true master of the material, full of texture and detail and life.
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New Past Lives: Around 600 CE, a man died and was buried near the city of Verona in northern Italy. He had led an interesting life, including a migration from present-day Hungary. Most intriguing of all, his right hand had been amputated and replaced with a knife prosthesis.
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Listen here: pod.link/1852618120/episode/…

The Man with a Knife for a Hand (Lombard Italy, Late 6th Century)

Listen to The Man with a Knife for a Hand (Lombard Italy, Late 6th Century) from Past Lives wherever you get your podcasts!

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Never stops being hilarious to me that 99 percent of pseudoarchaeology and ancient alien conspiracy theories can be easily debunked by introducing the stunning concept of "wooden rollers for moving heavy things along the ground with less friction"
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Went ahead and did a whole podcast episode about this guy and the lion. How Do You Get Bitten by a Lion in Roman York? pod.link/1852618120/episode/…

How Do You Get Bitten by a Lion in Roman York?

Listen to How Do You Get Bitten by a Lion in Roman York? from Past Lives wherever you get your podcasts!

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Patrick Wyman@Patrick_WymanAug 29
It doesn't really sink in how insane the Roman Empire was until you write a sentence like "We have the skeleton of a man in York who was bitten by a lion."
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OUT NOW: we are joined by @Patrick_Wyman to talk about the craft, production and meaning of Kathryn Bigelow's Star-making film, THE HURT LOCKER. We also explore some... unconventional theories about it.
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