# 273 | Stefanos Geroulanos on the Invention of Prehistory

An episode of [Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1406534739), 22 Apr 2024, 1 h 19 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/1d1ac211-8392-45fe-82db-99fa7f77076e/stefanos20geroulanos.mp3?dest-id=5264190

Humanity itself might be the hardest thing for scientists to study fairly and accurately. Not only do we come to the subject with certain inevitable preconceptions, but it's hard to resist the temptation to find scientific justifications for the stories we'd like to tell about ourselves. In his new book, The Invention of Prehistory, Stefanos Geroulanos looks at the ways that we have used -- and continue to use -- supposedly-scientific tales of prehistoric humanity to bolster whatever cultural, social, and political purposes we have at the moment. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/04/22/273-stefanos-geroulanos-on-the-invention-of-prehistory/ Support Mindscape on Patreon. Stefanos Geroulanos received his Ph.D. in humanities from Johns Hopkins. He is currently director of the Remarque Institute and a professor of history at New York University. He is the author and editor of a number of books on European intellectual history. He serves as a Co-Executive Editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas. • Web site • NYU web page • Amazon author page • Google scholar publications

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.