Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we spend and how we earn it at work, what language we speak and how we raise our children. From Wondery, host Patrick Wyman, PhD (“Fall Of Rome”) helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is.
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Latest episodes
Showing 20 · updated from the feed
Listen Now: My Mom’s Murder
Lauren Malloy was a baby when her mother, Lori, was murdered in East Providence, Rhode Island. For thirty years, no one told her. Everyone said Lori died of natural cause
Sep 28 5 min
Listen Now: Audible True Crime
Introducing Audible True Crime, a dedicated podcast feed where we bring you the best podcasts in true crime, with episodes dropping every single week. Find your next bing
Aug 24 6 min
The End
At long last, we've reached the end of Tides of History, and I can't thank you all enough for coming along on this long journey. We end with a series of vignettes set thr
Apr 30 36 min
Lewis and Clark, the Corps of Discovery, and Writing Collective History: Interview with Author Craig Fehrman
Author Craig Fehrman's new book on Lewis and Clark, This Vast Enterprise, is one of the best things I've read in years. We discuss the richness of our understanding of th
Apr 23 44 min
Lost Worlds Audiobook Chapter: "The World As It Was"
Patrick's new book Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World comes out May 5th! Check out a free preview of the first chapter of the audiobook
Apr 16 50 min
What I've Learned From Tides of History
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' achieve
Apr 9 33 min
Gladiators and the Roman Psyche: Interview with Dr. Harry Sidebottom
Gladiators are one of the most instantly recognizable yet alien aspects of Roman society, and Dr. Harry Sidebottom's new book - Those Who Are About to Die - offers a cutt
Apr 2 44 min
Babylon, a City for the Ages: Interview with Professor Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones
The city of Babylon has appeared in our episodes time and again over the past several years: as the center of empires, a victim of vicious conquest, a wealthy center of e
Mar 26 38 min
Popular History and Academic History
Academic history and popular history are very different things, but what is their purpose? And how should we, as people who like and consume history, understand and use t
Mar 19 33 min
Migration in Human History
If we want to understand how and why the human story has unfolded in the way it has, then we have to understand migration: large numbers of people moving long distances.
Mar 12 35 min
The Last Mailbag!
It's time for one last mailbag! I cover everything from which historical figure would be the best Poster on social media to how ancient authors collected their letters fo
Mar 5 50 min
Ancient DNA and the Future of the Past
The ability to recover ancient DNA from archaeological remains is one of the greatest scientific innovations of our time, but how has it impacted archaeology and ancient
Feb 26 35 min
A Voyage Through the Mediterranean at the Fall of Carthage
What did the Mediterranean look like at the moment of Rome's triumph in 146 BC? Join me as we go on one final trip around the wine-dark sea, checking in with each major r
Feb 19 33 min
What is the Atlantic World? Interview with Professor Keith Pluymers
he Atlantic World is one of the major concepts in academic history, a way of linking together all the various places around the fringes of the great ocean during a time o
Feb 12 51 min
The Life of Publius Afer (Rome, 200 BC)
The best way to understand the impact slavery had on a person's life is to follow their journey through the institution, but the ancient world provides few examples that
Feb 5 30 min
Ancient Slaveries
Slavery was foundational to ancient societies, but it was never a single thing: The experiences of the enslaved varied dramatically depending on when and where they lived
Jan 29 35 min
Past Lives: Saint Patrick, Slavery, and the Fall of the Roman Empire
Check out Patrick's new show, Past Lives! You can listen on your platform of choice through the links here, and be sure to subscribe to the Patreon for tons of bonus cont
Jan 26 26 min
Mailbag!
It's been quite a while since I've answered listener questions, so here are a bunch on everything from the best depictions of siege warfare in movies to the pre-Indo-Euro
Jan 22 47 min
Recent Discoveries in the Ancient Americas: Professor Shane Miller Returns
Every year, new archaeological discoveries claim to rewrite what we think we knew about the ancient Americas, but how much can we trust the initial reports we see? Profes
Jan 15 52 min
Doing Business in Mid-Republican Rome
The rise of the Roman Republic was built on conquest and war, but also on the massively expanding economy of Italy as a whole and Rome in particular. What was it like to
Jan 8 33 min
Chart trend
Position in the History chart (US), last 90 days.
#1#74#147JulAugSepOct
#34
all-time peak
13
days in the top 50 since Nov 2024
Chart positions
Where Tides of History ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Oct 7, 2026).
A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.
I love this show so much! The writing, sound design and Professor Wyman’s skill as an historian and storyteller are all blended together to make each episode an absolute masterpiece. I love history because without it we can’t understand our present circumstances and without this understanding we fail to understand what’s really happening and we take the wrong action. The study of history is absolutely crucial to our ability to create a better future. I have tremendous appreciation for all the effort that Professor Wyman and his crew put into making this podcast!
L’excentrique · Mar 2026
I’ve tried a couple but this is Hands down my favorite history podcast. Wide range of topics, I recommend this to anyone that likes history, so in depth yet very accessible and interesting. His enthusiasm for the matter is apparent. And his interview episodes are great too. Read two books about the history of ancient Peru and was astounded how well he summed up the themes and ideas in an hour.
Pryan55 · Dec 2025
If you're interested in ancient, medieval, and early modern history, and in learning more about the history of poeples across wide scope of space and time, then you will be hooked. I have been filling in my Roman and ancient history more when I found Patrick's original podcast on the fall of western Rome, which was fantastic and really informative. The Tides of History podcast covers ancient bronze age civilizations, the history of China, the European Middle Ages, the Reformation and Early Modern always presenting great vignettes to get a sense of what life was like for people of the time, and fascinating commentary that brings in current scholarship. This podcast is one of my favorites, strong recommend if you're interested in history.
no_one_of_any_note · Sep 2025
Every episode is great, I learn so much and Patrick does a great job weaving together the archaeological and textual evidence and telling stories from across history.
Cousi2344 · Aug 2025
The narrator is more preoccupied with sounding smart than he is with telling the story.
In his “interview” episodes, he rarely asks any questions, instead taking the opportunity to share his own thoughts and ideas with his guests. His “mini-episodes” consist of interviews with HIMSELF. In these mini-sodes, he has a colleague ask him very basic questions about a topic, and then gets to sound smart by giving what are clearly prepared answers as if they were off the cuff.
His ostentatious over-pronunciation of foreign names and places is pretentious and distracting. He spends an entire episode giving a negative review to another historian’s book, even though the book had nothing to do with the time period he was covering. It’s his show and he can review any book he wants of course, but it still was a bit surprising; most history podcasters use their platforms to promote the work of others in the field, not to snipe at their work for no apparent reason.
The episodes are also littered with repetitive, dramatic, crescendo music which is really distracting, to the point I needed to rewind multiple times. About a third of the episodes are only available if you purchase a monthly subscription. And finally, he frequently engages in little creative writing experiments about the weather and scenery which add very little and consist mostly of him squeezing as many adjectives as he can into a sentence.
It’s too bad, because there is some decent content here. But the awful host makes it unlistenable.
GuyofSpoleto · Apr 2026
We strive to present a balanced view by showing a diverse range of reviews from Apple Podcasts.
Here you find the Apple Podcasts chart positions of Tides of History, its latest episodes to listen to directly, and reviews from listeners. Rankings are updated daily for the United States.
