The burning of fossil fuels causes the past, present and future to collide in destructive ways. In her fourth Massey Lecture, Astra Taylor tells us that as the climate alters, evolved biological clocks erratically speed up or slow down, causing plants and animals to fall out of sync. In a world this out of joint, how could we possibly feel secure? But there is a path forward.

Our series, looking at pivotal years in recent history, continues as we focus on the year 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a march on Washington, the Pan-African movement ushers in a new era for Africa, President Kennedy is assassinated, and the war in Vietnam heats up. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 24, 2024.

English may have a reputation for being a "linguistic imperialist," pushing local languages into obscurity but linguist Mario Saraceni argues English should be viewed as a global language with multiple versions existing on equal footing. *This episode originally aired on May 19, 2023.

Négritude was a Francophone movement to rethink what it meant to be Black and African. Scholar Merve Fejzula explores the dynamic debates happening in the early-to mid-20th century among Négritude thinkers, how they disseminated their ideas, and how all this changed what it meant to be part of a public. *This episode originally aired on March 8, 2023.

A cotton sack from the time of slavery bears the first names of a mother and her daughter, who was sold at the age of nine. Harvard historian Tiya Miles scours the historical documentary record to discover who these women were and reveals their story of love in her book, All That She Carried — winner of the 2022 Cundill History Prize. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 20, 2023.

It’s a paradox — we live in the most prosperous era in human history, but it’s also an era of profound insecurity. Massey Lecturer Astra Taylor suggests that history shows that increased material security helps people be more open-minded, tolerant, and curious. But rising insecurity does the reverse — it drives us apart.

On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler annexes Austria and escalates antisemitic persecution, Japan wages war on China, and the parallel collapse of democracy in both the East and West sets the stage for war. This is the second episode in our series exploring five years that have shaped the world. It originally aired on Jan. 23, 2024.