The World in Time

Nicholas Crane

Friday, November 12, 2021

Figures Near Volcano, by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, nineteenth century. Smithsonian American Art Museum, bequest of Martha F. Butler, 1991.

The journey at the heart of this week’s episode of The World in Time is “the most important story of our age” for writer and explorer Nicholas Crane. “We’re in the grips now of both a Covid-19 pandemic and rapid climate change, which are putting greater demands on international science than anything that’s gone before us. And if you track back through time and ask yourself, When did international collaboration on a scientific challenge begin?, you end up in 1735 in a port in western France on a ship called Portefaix bound for the Caribbean and South America.”

 

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Nicholas Crane, author of Latitude: The True Story of the World’s First Scientific Expedition, about the legacy of that voyage.

 

Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provided by Elizabeth “Lisette” Prince. Additional support was provided by James J. “Jimmy” Coleman Jr.

Discussed in this episode

More Podcasts

October 15, 2021

The World in Time:

Charles Foster

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness. More

June 14, 2025

The World in Time:

Episode 2: Lewis H. Lapham, Part Two

“Lewis understood that without the past, we lose the ability to think productively or even understand the present.” More

June 15, 2011

The World in Time:

To End All Wars

Lewis Lapham talks with author Adam Hochschild about the struggles of the antiwar movement in World War I–era Britain. More

August 11, 2011

The World in Time:

Vicars of Christ

Lewis Lapham talks with historian John Julius Norwich about one of the most successful institutions the world has ever known. More

Barricades during the Paris Commune, near the Ministry of Marine and the Hotel Crillon, 1871. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959.

September 01, 2017

The World in Time:

Peter Brooks

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Peter Brooks, author of Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris: The Story of a Friendship, a Novel, and a Terrible Year. More

Representation du feu terrible a Nouvelle Yorck, c. 1778, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

January 19, 2018

The World in Time:

Holger Hoock

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Holger Hoock, author of Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth, at a New York Public Library event.  More