New History Podcast: Past Lives
Past Lives launches December 3rd - subscribe now!
Hello friends! It’s been a while since I’ve been active on here, but there are good reasons for that, I promise. This has been an extraordinarily punishing and busy year: my father died, I finished a book (Lost Worlds - preorder now!), my longtime podcasting partner Wondery has been folded into Amazon, and I got the news that Tides of History will finally, after nine wonderful years, cease active production in April of 2026.
This is bittersweet. Tides is my baby. I pitched it to Wondery as one of the network’s first original shows back in early 2017, long before they were adapting series for Netflix or making deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars with the likes of the Kelces and Smartless, and Tides survived every up and down in a volatile industry. I’m proud of that, and proud of the kind of work I’ve been able to do for the better part of a decade. Making Tides has been one of the great joys of my life, and I’m excited to end our active run with some great stuff on ancient economies, daily life in ancient societies, and some thoughts on doing history for popular audiences. That’s all coming between now and the end of April, and I hope you’ll stick with us for it.
But it’s also time to make something new and different. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, what I would do if Tides ever came to an end, and the result of all those years of considering what another history show might look like is ready to share with you all now. Welcome to Past Lives
.
The best stuff I’ve ever done, the most personally satisfying to make and what has resonated the most with audiences, focuses on ordinary people and how they experienced the world. You might remember Wulfila the Goth from my first show, Fall of Rome, or the other composite characters who have guided us through millennia of the human past over the years on Tides. Past Lives takes this approach and applies it to real people, the common clay of humanity, the raw material that has forged the actual course of history over the very long term.
It’s all well and good to tell the story of our shared past through the lens of the most famous, most powerful, and best-known people who have lived over the past 5,000 years of recorded history: Alexander the Great, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Suleiman the Magnificent, Catherine the Great, Abraham Lincoln, and Margaret Thatcher all have something to teach us about why the world is the way it is.
Most of us, by contrast, aren’t rich, powerful, and famous. We’re just ordinary folks, living ordinary lives. But we’re still a part of the story of history. Our actions shape the fate of the world and our species. We all matter in ways great and small.
That’s what Past Lives is all about: recovering the stories of the forgotten people who make up the vast, unexplored bulk of humanity. Listen to the trailer now:
If you’ve enjoyed the work I’ve done on Tides of History over the years, or the writing I’ve shared here on Perspectives, I can promise that you’ll love Past Lives even more. Subscribe to the feed now so you don’t miss the three episodes dropping when the show launches on December 3rd.
Past Lives is a 100-percent independent production. We’re relying on our listeners to support us, which you can do through our Patreon page. Join now and comment on our introductory post to tell me what Types of Guy you’d like to see me cover! When the show launches, the Patreon will include bonus interviews, Q&A sessions with me, a monthly book club, informal discussions of a variety of topics, and hopefully much more as time goes on. If you prefer to read instead of listen, paid subscribers will have access to each episode script in newsletter form at the same time the episode goes live.
I really hope you give Past Lives a shot, because I’m incredibly excited about it, the team I’m putting together to make it, and what the future might hold. Subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and keep your eyes peeled for more in the very near future!
The focus on ordinary peoples stories is such a refresing approach to history. Most podcasts stick to the same famous figres, but theres so much richness in understanding how regular folks actualy lived and shaped the world. The transition from Tides of History to Past Lives seems like a natural evolution of this idea.
I am devastated to hear that Tides is coming to an end and so appreciative of the research and hard work that has so evidently gone into crafting it over the years. It has been my favorite podcast since it launched. However, the reputation you, Patrick, have built, gives me full faith that Past Lives, being fully independent, should have no problems at all exceeding the very high bar you have set for yourself. I will continue to evangelize your work!