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Paraguay: The Yerba Mate Jesuit Empire
Episode 168
Why did a Jesuit republic of 140,000 people in the subtropical forests of South America — with its own armed militia, its own printing presses, its o…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Spain: The Red Gold of La Mancha
Episode 166
Why does it take between 150,000 and 200,000 flowers — and up to 470 hours of human labour — to produce a single kilogram of saffron, and why has the…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Colombia: The Coffee Farmer Who Never Existed
Episode 165
Why was the most famous coffee farmer in the world a Cuban-American opera singer from Havana who had never visited Colombia — and how did a fictional…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Iran: The Garden That Became Heaven
Episode 164
Why does the word "paradise" — as used in every European language, in Arabic, in Urdu — simply mean "walled garden" in Old Persian, and what does tha…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Austria: Styrian Identity in Pumpkin Seeds
Episode 163
Why does a single spontaneous genetic mutation in a Styrian pumpkin field — sometime in the nineteenth century — matter enough to trigger diplomatic …
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Czechia: Gregor Mendel's Peas and the Birth of Genetics
Episode 160
Why did a monk in a Moravian monastery spend eight years counting 30,000 pea plants — and how did the number three to one unlock the secret of heredi…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
South Africa: The Rooibos Dispute
Episode 162
Why did the Khoisan people of South Africa spend nine years in legal negotiations to receive 1.5 percent of an industry built entirely on knowledge t…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Qatar: The Locust and the Desert
Episode 161
Before the gas flares and the glass towers, before the air conditioning and the sovereign wealth fund, what did Qatar actually have? Why was a single…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Tunisia: Olive Oil and the Roman Breadbasket
Episode 157
Why does a town of 20,000 people in central Tunisia contain the third largest Roman amphitheatre ever built - and what does a structure that seated 3…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Portugal: Spices, Empire, and the Pepper That Built Lisbon
Episode 159
Why did the Visigoths demand three thousand pounds of black pepper as the ransom for Rome — and what does that tell us about a climbing vine in Keral…
2 months, 3 weeks ago