Pod Academy

The deep past extends its tentacles into the present and, in Work, Sex and Power  Willie Thompson, until his retirement Professor of Contemporary History at Glasgow Caledonian University, demonstrates how this affects our species. He talks to Pod Academy's Craig Barfooot about how, in recent years such approaches, covering lengthy stretches of time and continents, have taken on greater prominence, with terms like ‘Deep History’ and ‘Big History’ entering the vocabulary.  This approach has been stimulated by a deepening awareness of the apocalyptic threat to humanity caused by runaway global warming and species destruction. The inability of the small-scope historiography favoured in previous decades to generate much illumination regarding this crisis has proven its limits. Willie Thompson's book is part of this new tendency but with a differing emphasis in important respects. It begins with argument on humans’ place in the universe and where they stand in the evolutionary process. It is concerned to emphasis