you are known around the world for taking the grand historical perspective of us, homo sapiens, and youbed with wonderful detail how our extraordinary cognitive abilities have led to a mastery on our environment. but this seems to be a moment when we are learning that our mastery of the environment is extremely fragile. do you see it that way? yeah, it is very fragile, though i have to say that we are still in a much better position with regards to infectious diseases then perhaps in any previous time in history since the agricultural revolution. you know, this isn't the middle ages, and we are not facing the black death. when the black death spread, nobody understood what was happening, what was killing people. today it took us just two weeks to identify the coronavirus behind the present epidemic, and to sequence its entire genome. of course, we still do not have the power to stop evolution, to stop nature. pathogens continue to jump from animals to humans and continue to mutate. so there will continue to be epidemics. but our ability to understand what's happening, and to some extent

>> let me see, i've got books, sapiens -- >> sapiens is good.t arm's length and then do lateral raises up and down. yeah, there you go. i can see little suite driplets forming on your forehead. >> with pat's guidance i was able to have an intense work out using common household items. >> roll it up tight and unroll it. >> do you know what to do with this? >> never even heard of it. >> four, five, one, two, three -- >> assist with your legs. leg assist, leg assist! >> pegasus? are you saying pegasus? >> that's a good start point for today. i wouldn't recommend anything else because i'm pretty sure you haven't done anything in a while. >> no, that's very intuitive of you. the more time i spent with pat mack the more reassured i was. pat emphasized this is not a time to panic and we will get through it. >> don't beat yourself up if you weren't prepared. it's human to err. but when we do, we have to learn from the past, prepare for the future and perform in the present. >> yeah. yeah! let's do sch! >> yeah, get you some! >> let's do this! in the hou

know today why is it we don't know i mean there are all these theories of competition with the homo sapien ns could it have been pandemics there right when we encountered as we migrated in dispersed around the world we encountered our sibling species when crack encountered any out of tolle's encounter heads other hominid species around the world and we know now that we bred with them or is not entirely clear yes is why the and told then died out why did hemans why did homo sapien and why did we prevail where is neanderthals fell into extinction and what's likely to be the case is that we simply outcompete we were more intelligent more culturally capable had better language skills but a tool use the neanderthals at least then the theory is not that it's a it's a pandemic i'm just going to ask you we've started by dogging about the fact that the british labor but he could possibly have been influenced by the geology of this country 320000000 years ago you also in the book talk about choke points in maritime routes as important today as they were so many years ago when we get back to normal a

with them or is not entirely clear yes is why the and told then died out why did hemans why did homo sapien and why did we prevail where is neanderthals fell into extinction and what's likely to be the case is that we simply outcompete japan we were more intelligent more culturally capable had better language skills but a tool use the neanderthals at least then the theory is not that it's a it's a pandemic i'm just going to ask you we've started by dogging about the fact that the british labor but he could possibly have been influenced by the geology of this country 320000000 years ago you also in the book talk about choke points in maritime routes as important today as they were so many years ago when we get back to normal again if there isn't a step change also do you think that geopolitics will continue to be descended and influenced by what happened hundreds of millions of years ago obviously tony blair was a labor leader it was a war in iraq iraq is where it's a concentration of oil produced by geology yeah absolutely so so for hundreds of years of our history it's not just been a chok

you have given us this sort of trajectory this ark for the development of homo sapiens.ovid—19 crisis, which you called the biggest crisis of our lifetime, does it do you represent in the end, a little more than a represent in the end, a little more thana bump represent in the end, a little more than a bump in the road was mac or is it something more profound than that? for me as a historian it's really very interesting this moment right now. i think that in our life and, if you think in terms of a couple of decades, it will be big. not because of the epidemic itself but even more so because of the economic and political consequences. but in the long sleeve of history you know thousands of years, no. i don't think it will be one of the big events of history. it could be a watershed event in several ways. like we discussed earlier with surveillance. people can look back and hundred years and identify the coronavirus epidemic as the moment when a new regime of surveillance took over. especially surveillance under the skin. which i think, is maybe the most important develop

sapiens, they have the same mental powers, linguistic powers that we do. they are us, they are dealing with problems and issues perhaps different in degree than we do. but how they resolve those issues, whether it is sea level change in florida or lord knows what else, is instructive for us to appreciate and because they are us, it is easier to identify with their lives and their trajectories here and in other places like this than perhaps if you just read about it in a book. when you have a gifted staff, which we were fortunate enough in having, that addressed not only what the actors and actresses of antiquity were doing here, but the stage, the geological stage of which they performed, and knew what they wanted to learn and we could in fact buy or get whatever we needed to do that, you can pose questions, you can ask things as you might imagine that you just can't do in other places. we had a telephone on the site that was connected by a modem to the mainframe computer at the university of pittsburgh. we could computerize data instantaneously. [whirring

difference between humanizing what he did in recognizing that he was a human was a member of the homo sapiensomebody is born in the common anti-semitic in the book shows artists who fought both against him and for him. and how that created the situation that is still part of today. erin: there's definitely a lot of emotional pieces of the book. was there anything that really struck you. mary: yes, i want to see if we can get the stork. ergo. i'm good at this. yes, i would say it was different in many ways. but one was how i was to attach to certain characters of people. one of them was an artist it, george, kate clearly has so much in common with us. but i found him in terms of the artist obviously holocaust victim, is harrowing. but in terms of the artist, found him to be someone i found incredibly moving because he was a household name in germany. that was before hitler took power. he made a very specific decision to fight against hitler. and fight against injustice. he was not jewish but he had a lot of jewish friends. and he saw this rising anti- stigmatism. and intelligence for women rig

there's a difference between humanizing what he did in recognizing that he was human, a of the homo sapiensd we need to see how someone is born and becomes anti-semitic and then the book shows artists who fought most against him and for him, and then have that created the gurlitt situation that is still a part of today. >> there's a lot of emotional pieces of the book. is it anything really struck you that it personal residence. >> was yes. i want to see if we can get this slide to work. here we go. i'm good at this. yes. i would say it was different from journalism in many ways, but one how attached you get to certain characters of people. one of whom was this artist here, george gross. i found him come in terms of the artist obviously, a holocaust victim is having in its own right. but in terms of the artist i found him to be someone i found incredibly moving because he was a household name in germany before hitler to power. he made a very specific decision to fight against hitler, to fight against injustice. he was not jewish. he was protestant but he had a lot of jewish friends and he s