On Humans
by Ilari Mäkelä
Latest episode
What About the Middle East? From Ottoman Might to Western…
What About the Middle East? From Ottoman Might to Western…
About this podcast
Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we?
On Humans offers conversations with leading scientists, historians, and philosophers, making new research about the human story more accessible to everyone — and more relevant to the big questions about who we are.
In addition to regular episodes, the show now includes longer series on some of the greatest arcs in the journey of our species, covering everything from the evolution of apes to the making of the modern economy.
https://onhumans.substack.com/about
Episodes
The newest 50 of 113 episodes
- What About the Middle East? From Ottoman Might to Western Interventions ~ Şevket Pamuk · 1 h 5 minThe very term “Middle East” evokes ideas of contested borders and chronic conflicts. How did this come to be? The modern Middle East was born in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire…
- How Do Humans Fit into the Story of Life? ~ Jonathan Loh · 1 h 17 min · Season 5 Episode 10“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal. No moment in my teaching career has left a deeper impression on…
- Beyond Paleo: A Culinary History of Humanity ~ Daniel Lieberman · 1 h 2 min · Season 5 Episode 9“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…
- When Did Globalisation Really Begin? ~ Valerie Hansen · 48 min · Season 5 Episode 8We 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…
- The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part II: Lessons from Prehistory ~ Douglas P. Fry · 42 minHow 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…
- The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry · 48 min · Season 5 Episode 6History 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…
- The Big Picture: Measuring the Origins of the Modern World ~ Bishnupriya Gupta & Stephen Broadberry (Great Divergence #5) · 47 min · Season 5 Episode 5Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other…
- A View From the East: China, Japan, and the Other Paths to Prosperity ~ Debin Ma (Great Divergence #4) · 47 min · Season 5 Episode 4The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic…
- Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain? ~ Robert Allen (Great Divergence #3) · 59 min · Season 5 Episode 3Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe”…
- Why Did So Many Inventions Come from Europe? ~ Joel Mokyr (Great Divergence #2) · 48 min · Season 5 Episode 2Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many…
- Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and Lessons from China ~ Kenneth Pomeranz (Great Divergence #1) · 54 min · Season 5 Episode 1Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what…
- Encore: Walking Towards the Human Condition (with Jeremy De Silva) · 1 h 22 minSomething big is coming soon. Stay tuned! Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives. A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of…
- Where Did Humans Evolve? Gazing at the Changing Nature of the Garden of Eden ~ Denise Su · 54 min · Season 4 Episode 18Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like? To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance…
- The Original Affluent Society? Lessons from 60-Years of "Man the Hunter" Research ~ Richard B. Lee · 59 min · Season 4 Episode 17What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable?…
- What Can Shamans Teach Us About Religion? | Many Minds with Manvir Singh · 1 h 19 minThe world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have…
- The Origins of Humankind: Where Do We Really Come From? · 28 minHappy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long…
- Why Do We Laugh? Philosophers on Jokes, Humor, and the Human Condition ~ Mira Magdalena Sickinger · 1 h 2 min · Season 4 Episode 16“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.” This listener…
- Restless Humanity: The Epic Migrations Into the Americas, Polynesia, and... Beyond? ~ Andrés Moreno-Estrada · 26 min · Season 4 Episode 15We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth. This is an episode about those epic migrations, with a…
- Beyond Race: A New Outlook on the Shape of Humanity ~ Diyendo Massilani · 15 min · Season 4 Episode 14European thinkers once divided humanity into distinct "races". The idea stuck, even if the science moved on. The shape of humanity, it turned out, is far messier than the old…
- The Neanderthal Mirror: Latest Findings About the Lines Between Us ~ David Gokhman · 22 min · Season 4 Episode 13Genetics is rewriting the human story. This week, On Humans takes you behind the scenes of this rapidly evolving frontier via three live-recordings, captured at the Salk…
- Can We Tell a (True) Story of Human Origins? Live from UC San Diego · 42 minThe science of human origins keeps producing new theories. But are we any closer to telling a true story of human origins? Or are we simply drowning in data? Earlier this…
- Epilogue: Is the Brain Free to Choose? ~ Tim Coulson · 16 minYou decided to start reading this. But could you have chosen otherwise? In this short epilogue to this fall's brain science -series, Oxford biologist Tim Coulson gives his…
- Can the Brain Understand Itself? The Glories and the Limits of Neuroscience ~ Matthew Cobb · 1 h 0 min · Season 4 Episode 12Science has learned much about the brain. But how well do we understand this organ of the mind? Are we even close to cracking the neural code? Is a groundbreaking theory of…
- From Alcohol to Antidepressants: What Drugs Teach Us About Brain Chemistry ~ Judy Grisel · 58 min · Season 4 Episode 11Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. We have all heard these terms. And these are not just scientific curiosities. Few are those who have never wondered if their brain chemicals are…
- Inside the Brain: A Journey Through the Halls and the Songs of Consciousness ~ Pria Anand · 55 min · Season 4 Episode 10Our brains can feel remote and abstract. Hidden behind Latin names and textbook diagrams, they rarely feel as personal to us as our hearts and stomachs. In this episode…
- Not So Simple After All? Apes, Einstein, and the Many Mysteries of the Human Brain ~ Dean Falk · 31 min · Season 4 Episode 9Here is a simple story about the origins of the human brain: All primate brains are dense with neurons—they are the supercomputers of the animal world. What's more, the human…
- Prologue: The (Very Simple) Story of the Human Brain ~ Suzana Herculano-Houzel · 50 minI'm excited to announce that On Humans is launching a new series this fall! This one will explore the wonders of the human brain. The new episodes will drop throughout September…
- The Great Question of History: India, Britain, and the Fates of Nations | Live at the British Academy · 26 minWhy did the great powers of Asia stagnate whilst Europe was rising? This question—often called the Great Divergence—is one of the most defining questions of modern history. Few…
- Encore | Why Agriculture? Climate Change and the Origins of Farming ~ Andrea Matranga · 58 minClimate. Weathers. History. Here's an encore episode to wrap up the mini-series on these themes! This episode on the puzzling origins of farming is one of my all-time favourites…
- Climate, Water, and the Origins of Colonialism ~ Tirthankar Roy · 56 min · Season 4 Episode 8Before they built empires, the Europeans built ports. Across Africa and Asia, European sailors arrived as merchants. They traded and negotiated. They defended their…
- How Climate Crafted Humanity (Or Did It?) ~ Jessica Thompson · 1 h 6 min · Season 4 Episode 7On Humans is back from the break! To mark the summer heat, here is a two-part series on how climate has shaped the human story. In next week's episodes, we will explore the role…
- An Essential Difference? Males, Females, and the Spaces In Between ~ Augustín Fuentes · 1 h 1 min · Season 4 Episode 6Binary thinking is out of fashion. But what about biological sex? Whatever we might say about diversity and fluidity, the ideas of “male” and “female” seem essential in biology…
- The Rest is History: From the Origins of Farming to the Dawn of Modernity ~ Johannes Krause · 1 h 3 min · Season 4 Episode 5And so it ends! In the final episode of The Origins of Humankind, we explore the aftermath of the story so far—the story of how one peculiar species, Homo sapiens, evolved…
- A Human Like No Other: The Rise of Homo Sapiens ~ Johannes Krause · 1 h 10 min · Season 4 Episode 4The time has come: This is where our story truly begins. In Episode 4 of The Origins of Humankind, we finally turn the spotlight on Homo sapiens. Guiding us through this journey…
- Why Humans? The New Science of the Genus Homo ~ Chris Stringer · 1 h 6 min · Season 4 Episode 3Things are about to get personal... In episode 3 of The Origins of Humankind, we zoom into the birth and spread of humanity itself. Our guide is the iconic Chris Stringer, one of…
- An Unusual Ape: The Deep Origins of Our Human Oddities ~ Dean Falk · 50 min · Season 4 Episode 2The story continues! In part 2 of the Origins of Humankind, we trace the first steps of our ancestors after they left the chimpanzee lineage. To get humanity going, our ancestors…
- The Big Picture: From the Origin of Life to the Rise of Humans ~ Tim Coulson · 1 h 4 min · Season 4 Episode 1Welcome to the first episode of the Origins of Humankind! In this sweeping pilot, we cover the entire planetary backstory of human existence – from the origins of life to the…
- What About India? Part II: Success and Stagnation In the World’s Largest Democracy ~ Bishnupriya Gupta · 30 min · Season 3 Episode 13India’s history isn’t just the story of one nation—it’s the story of one-sixth of humanity. It’s also a lens for understanding how colonialism, democracy, and globalization…
- What About India? Part I: Mughals, British, and the Causes of Poverty ~ Bishnupriya Gupta · 1 h 7 min · Season 3 Episode 12Following the success of last year’s What About China -trilogy, I’m delighted to introduce a two-part series on the economic history of India. This series examines the origins…
- Why Patriarchy? Foragers, Farmers, and the Origins of Gender Inequality ~ Angarika Deb · 55 min · Season 3 Episode 11Why are history books so full of men? Why have so many societies treated women as property? In short, why is patriarchy so pervasive? A casual thinker might find an easy answer…
- Bonus | Evolution Beyond the Selfish Gene (with Eva Jablonka) · 20 min“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” - Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene In 1976, Richard Dawkins…
- Bonus | The Real Lessons From The World Happiness Report (with Lara Aknin) · 16 minEach year, the World Happiness Report ranks countries based on their citizen's life satisfaction. My home country, Finland, tends to come at the top. Sure. But lessons can we…
- Bonus | Some Myths About Human Mating (with Katie Starkweather) · 12 minMany traditional societies accept polygyny (one man, many wives). Monogamy, too, is practised across the globe. But what about polyandry — one woman, many husbands? Is this a…
- Encore | The Mindbending Conversation That Topped 2024 (with Donald Hoffman) · 1 h 28 minHappy New Year 2025! To celebrate, here is an encore of what proved to be the most popular episode of 2024. This rerun combines episodes 30 and 31 into one epic journey towards…
- Live from London | Yasheng Huang on the Origins of Modern China · 1 h 25 minThis was fun! Last Wednesday saw the first-ever live recording of On Humans. The event was held at the London Business School, courtesy of the LBS's China Club. My guest was MIT…
- A New Theory on the Broadest Patterns of History ~ Ideen Ali Riahi · 1 h 8 min · Season 3 Episode 10Persians. Romans. Chinese. Guptas. Abbasids. Mongols. British. The list of the world’s largest empires is a list of different peoples of Eurasia. With the sole exception of…
- Is War Inevitable? Lessons from East Asia ~ David C. Kang · 51 min · Season 3 Episode 9Why do wars begin? How can we avoid them? Do countries wage wars whenever it suits their own goals? Or are wars a product of failed understanding and military madmen? These are…
- Is War Natural After All? Revisiting the Debate ~ Luke Glowacki · 1 h 6 min · Season 3 Episode 8Our ancestors did not wage war. Warfare emerged only when humans started settling down and storing food. Indeed, some modern hunter-gatherers still enjoy the peaceful existence…
- Nobel-Prize Special | Daron Acemoglu on Why We Should Celebrate Humanity · 21 minDaron Acemoglu has been awarded the 2024 Nobel-prize for Economic Science. This is a great testament to his impressive career. But the award was given for his early work on…
- This Might Be The Nicest Thing About Human Nature ~ Lara Aknin · 55 min · Season 3 Episode 7You are given 20 dollars in cash. You can use it as you wish, but with one condition: you have to use it to treat yourself. Now imagine getting another 20 dollars next week. This…
