Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World

"Lost Worlds convinces us of the value of slowing down to recognize the tremendous diversity of the human past. But he presses hard against the conclusion that there was any direction or pattern behind its complexity." —The Wall Street Journal

“A spellbinding tour de force!” —Walter Scheidel, author of What Is Ancient History?

“This is non-fiction storytelling at its finest.” —Eric H. Cline, author of 1177 B.C.

The creator of the hit podcast Tides of History offers a new look at humanity’s deep past, showing us how our world was built not by inevitability, but by trial and error on a global scale.

There’s a familiar story about us humans: we went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages and cities, clans and chieftains to states and kings. But Lost Worlds offers a new narrative of humanity’s deep history. Here beloved podcast host Patrick Wyman focuses on the 10,000-year span between the end of the Ice Age and the decline of the Bronze Age—the period when civilization as we understand it emerged, introducing social hierarchies, urbanism, complex political organizations, and the written word.

In this nuanced retelling, human progress is no longer a straight march from caves to cities: Farming didn’t always replace foraging, villages didn’t automatically spark agriculture, and cities didn’t necessitate rigid hierarchies. For thousands of years, humans merely improvised. By the end of the Bronze Age, the world had become unrecognizable: mammoths and giant sloths replaced by cattle and sheep, scattered nomadic bands replaced by millions living in cities, and farming on nearly every continent. Wyman argues that the rise of states and steady food production wasn’t inevitable, but rather, the outcome of countless choices that reshaped the planet and made us who we are today.

Combining cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling, Lost Worlds explores:

• A Sweeping New History of the Ancient World: Discover how early societies rose, adapted, and collapsed across thousands of years of human history.
• The Archaeology Revolution: Ancient DNA, climate science, and new excavation methods are revealing how prehistoric people lived, migrated, and fought.
• From Ice Age Hunters to Early Civilizations: Follow the dramatic transformation that led from nomadic foragers to farming, cities, and powerful states.
• Why Societies Rise—and Fall: Learn how climate change, migration, population growth, and conflict shaped the fate of early civilizations.