Tamim Ansary: The Invention of History

In Deep with Angie Coiro: Interviews

Show #259 | Guest: Tamim Ansary | Show Summary: Thought leader Tamim Ansary returns for a discussion of his sweeping new nonfiction work, The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000 Year History of Human Culture, Conflict and Connection.
Tamim Ansary sprang into prominence with Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Now he turns that scrutiny to the histories of smaller groups of people into today's globally connected, fully-interwoven human populace, and discovers something prescient: even before disparate human cultures ever met, their innovations always influenced one another… and now that influence is only speeding up. The world's major cultural movements— Confuscianism, Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Nomadism—have, he says, reached a new interrelationship inevitable in the march of human history. We are in a new time of revolutionary reinvention, as differing cultures overlap and transform rapidly due to global connectedness. What does this new proximity portend?
Tamim Ansary and Angie Coiro discuss the price and the prospect of this singularly connected moment in human history.