Scrolls & Leaves: World History Podcast By cover art

Scrolls & Leaves: World History Podcast

By: Scrolls & Leaves Podcast
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  • Summary

  • Epic histories from the Indian subcontinent, through the eyes of the marginalized. Hear about ruthless emperors, cunning corporations that colonized half the world, a world-renowned sci-fi writer who stumbled on a treasure ship, and other stories from history, science and cultures. Journalists Gayathri Vaidyanathan and Mary-Rose Abraham reflect on how these histories define our present. Made in 3-D sound to immerse you in the past.
    Scrolls & Leaves Podcast
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Episodes
  • Arthur C. Clarke’s Treasure Ship

    Arthur C. Clarke’s Treasure Ship
    Jan 5 2022
    In the treacherous Great Basses Reef in Sri Lanka, renowned author Arthur C. Clarke finds a submerged treasure ship with a hoard of silver coins
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    37 mins
  • Rerun: Nature's Voice - Tuvan Throat Singing

    Rerun: Nature's Voice - Tuvan Throat Singing
    Dec 22 2021
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    26 mins
  • Ayurveda to Big Pharma: the Wonder of Healing Plants

    Ayurveda to Big Pharma: the Wonder of Healing Plants
    Dec 8 2021
    In a windswept mountain pass, more than a hundred years ago, a towering Afghan man hacks a Scottish trader to death. Then the killer disappears. A British officer is determined to track him down and rides along the old Silk Route into western China. No sign of the killer but he does encounter a book of Ayurveda unearthed in the nearby desert. The Sanskrit lettering details the power of Healing Plants.

    Throughout history, plants have yielded a range of medical remedies. Neem leaves so bitter they wash the worms out of stomachs in Indus Valley cities four thousand years ago. Complex Ayurveda concoctions of spices and herbs to ward off disease. Or the pills and injections of modern pharmaceuticals, a quarter of which derive from plants.

    But plants are more than medicine. They have driven exploration, empires and colonization. Europe’s insatiable demand for spices and botanical remedies creates pipelines of plunder and trade across the world. As the bedrock of the pharmaceutical industry, the transformation of plants has sometimes overthrown millennia of indigenous medical wisdom.

    “Healing Plants” traces the journey of plants as medicine and commodities from ancient times to the present. As you reach for that tablet in your medicine cabinet, perhaps there are echoes of its healing properties in a makeshift book found in the desert along the Silk Road.
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    33 mins
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