What I've Learned From Tides of History
Tides of History
Audible / Patrick Wyman
4.7 • 6.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does history repeat itself? Not really, but that's not the reason it's worth studying: Our past is nothing more or less than the collective record of our species' achievements and failures, and it contains a variety of lessons, few of them easy and straightforward. In this episode, we explore how history helps us in the present, and how it doesn't.
Patrick has a brand-new history show! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA
Patrick's new book - Lost Worlds: The Rise and Fall of Human Societies from the Ice Age to the Bronze Age - is now available for preorder, and will be released on May 5th! Preorder in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWLostWorlds.
And don't forget, you can still Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Tides of History ad-free right now. |
| 0:05.2 | Join Audible today by downloading the Audible ad... |
| 0:12.7 | The mud hit Sukulgir in the back of the head. |
| 0:16.2 | It was slightly gooey with moisture left over from the Euphrates flood, |
| 0:20.0 | and the bulk of it landed |
| 0:20.9 | directly on the man's bald spot, where it stuck for a moment before sliding off. |
| 0:26.1 | On its way back to the ground, the mud left a streak along the farmer's already stained woolen |
| 0:30.6 | skirt. The garment had been white at the beginning of the day, but digging a new irrigation |
| 0:35.5 | ditch was dirty work. The farmer spun |
| 0:38.6 | around and glared at his daughter. She smiled back at Suckelgear, and his glare melted away. |
| 0:44.3 | He couldn't stay mad at her, no matter how much mud she flung on him. Lala was his joy. That was what |
| 0:50.2 | her name meant in their Sumerian language, but it was true in a literal sense as well. |
| 0:55.3 | He lived for her, his only daughter. |
| 0:58.2 | And at least she was digging. |
| 1:00.6 | That smile reminded Sukhulgir of Lala's mother, dead of a fever two years ago, and he turned |
| 1:05.5 | away from the girl before she could see his face twist with the pain of the memory. |
| 1:10.1 | It wasn't her fault that she looked so much |
| 1:11.6 | like Ninkala, far more so than her two younger brothers. The boys were farther down the ditch, |
| 1:18.2 | playing with their wooden spades more than doing any actual digging. Sukulgear couldn't blame them. |
| 1:23.6 | He'd been the same way before he was 10 years old, no matter how many times his father had clouded him on the ear and told him to get to work. |
| 1:30.9 | Sukulgear barked at the boys to set to digging, but there was no malice in it. |
| 1:35.0 | He'd certainly never lay a hand on them, unlike his father. |
... |
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