Throughline Podcast: Winter Book Club – “The Story of Us?”
NPR – December 18, 2025
Hosts: Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei
Featured Guest: Tamim Ansari, author of The Invention of Yesterday

Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking Winter Book Club episode, Throughline hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei are joined by historian and writer Tamim Ansari. The conversation revolves around Ansari’s sweeping book The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection, using it as a lens to explore humanity’s ongoing struggle—and need—for a shared narrative. In a world fractured by competing stories, the episode investigates why history is more about the stories we choose to tell than the facts themselves, how “the story of us” is constructed and reconstructed, and whether a global “we” is possible or even desirable, especially in times of technological and social upheaval.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of History as Story

• History vs. Facts:
  • Ansari argues that history is less a collection of facts and more the narrative constructed from those facts. “History is composed of facts, the way that a cathedral is composed of bricks, let's say. But the bricks are not the cathedral. The cathedral is something about the way the bricks are put together.” (Tamim Ansari, 06:56)
  • The hosts and Ansari agree that a shared story gives meaning and cohesion to groups—whether small bands or entire civilizations.
• Origins of Storytelling:
  • The episode opens with reflection on how early humans drew constellations in the stars and agreed on shared interpretations, forming narratives that defined their worlds.
    • “When ancient folks looked up at the night sky, they didn't just see stars, they saw constellations. They said, there's a bear. And they said, hey, look, a mighty hunter... And as long as everybody in the group saw the bear and the mighty hunter, there they were.” (Narrator quoting Tamim Ansari, 02:19)

2. The Crisis of the Shared Narrative

• Society’s Fragmentation:
  • The episode addresses America's current “history problem”—the lack of agreement on a unifying story.
    • “It's very clear that America has a history problem. There's no agreeing on how to tell the story of how we got to where we are today. No common narrative that unites us.” (Ramtin Arablouei, 03:48)
• Who Gets to Decide?
  • They question who is included in the “we” that history is supposed to represent.
    • “One of the things Tamim Mansari argues is that human beings need to agree on a common sense story, a feeling of being part of a we, or in his words, an ‘intertangled spaghetti of human lives’ in order to function. But who decides who the we is and what we can all agree on?” (Rand AbdelFattah, 12:42)
• The Power of the Powerful:
  • “The narrative keeps the powerful in place and keeps everybody else in place. The function of the narrative is not just to do that, but it's to enable us to efficiently and correctly handle the data that's coming at us from out there.” (Tamim Ansari, 13:05)
  • When dominant narratives break down, marginalized voices question and revise the story, leading to transformation—and sometimes conflict.

3. Ansari’s Framework for the Human Story

• Meta-History and Connection:
  • Ansari’s book isn’t just a catalog of facts; it's about finding the “patterns” and “threads” that pull seemingly disparate events and peoples into a single shared tapestry.
    • “I'm trying to tell a single story—that's the human story.” (Tamim Ansari, 08:31)
• The Three Drivers of Human History:
  • Environment: Every life form interacts with its surroundings; group identities often form around environmental challenges or landscapes.
    • “Wherever there's life, there's also an environment... And the story occurs on the border between in here and out there. Always building the wall, reaching out, building the wall.” (Tamim Ansari, 27:17)
  • Language/Intercommunication: Our ability to form “social selves” grows from communication. As language developed, it enabled myths and group identities, which expanded from kin groups to tribes, nations, and beyond.
    • “These social selves exist, but they're not like biological selves because they can grow, they can merge with other social selves.” (Tamim Ansari, 28:18)
  • Tools: Beyond physical objects, tools are seen as extensions of ourselves, shaping not only the environment but our social fabric.
    • “Tools is a feature of us as a biological species. It's how we interact with the environment. It is our interface...” (Tamim Ansari, 29:45)
  • The interplay among these three creates the ever-evolving “story of us.”

4. The Battle of Many Narratives

• Technology & Fragmentation:
  • Digital algorithms promise to cater to individual desires, fracturing consensus and fostering millions of personal narratives.
    • “The algorithm, to put it in a blunt fashion, when you walk into a bookstore called Amazon, you're entering a bookstore nobody else has ever seen or ever will. ... Technology has a built in tendency to narrow each of us down to living all alone.” (Tamim Ansari, 36:45)
  • Despite hopes that a shared crisis (like the COVID-19 pandemic) might unite us, Ansari reflects on how even “the aliens did come”—in microbial form—but did not produce unity. (Tamim Ansari, 35:15)

5. The Hazards and Hope of “Us”

• Does Creating “Us” Exclude “Them”?
  • Ramtin raises a critical point: does defining “us” always require creating a “them” to oppose? Ansari acknowledges the persistent danger:
    • “We have never been able to have an us without a them. We need the aliens. We need to kill them.” (Tamim Ansari, 42:50)
• Collective Action and Mythic Projects:
  • Ansari proposes that a unifying “us” often grows out of a monumental, common challenge—he points to Egypt’s agricultural civilization and the U.S. transcontinental railroad as examples where collective projects birth shared stories and identities. (Tamim Ansari, 43:33–44:27)
  • Yet with global threats like climate change, the challenge is to build a global-scale story and project—one inclusive enough for all.

6. The Future: Hope, Doubt, and Change

• Personal Evolution as a Mirror:
  • Ansari notes that his own sense of self and story have evolved, just as collective narratives do.
    • “My sense of the story and my sense of my story has certainly changed continually over time. So that's all I can say.” (Tamim Ansari, 45:56)
• Hope in Uncertainty:
  • Despite past despair, Ansari leans toward hope—history shows we’ve endured and changed, though nothing about the future is certain.
    • “The one thing we can say for sure about the future, is nothing at all. We don't know nothing about it. It's up to...” (Tamim Ansari, 47:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On History as Story:
  • “History is composed of facts, the way that a cathedral is composed of bricks, let's say. But the bricks are not the cathedral.” (Tamim Ansari, 06:56)
• On Fragmentation and Technology:
  • “The algorithm... when you walk into a bookstore called Amazon, you're entering a bookstore nobody else has ever seen or ever will.” (Tamim Ansari, 36:45)
• On the Danger of “Us” and “Them”:
  • “We have never been able to have an us without a them. We need the aliens. We need to kill them.” (Tamim Ansari, 42:50)
• On Hope and Change:
  • “When I look back at who I was 50 years ago, I'm amazed at how dumb I was. ...But it's only that way... because I know how it came out... Nothing about the future is certain.” (Tamim Ansari, 45:56, paraphrased)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:19 – The importance of narrative in early human communities (constellations and shared meaning)
• 04:42 – Ansari’s background as textbook editor and his search for connections across history
• 08:31 – The ambition to tell a single human story
• 13:05 – The function of narratives and who gets included in “we”
• 27:14–29:45 – Ansari’s three drivers of history: environment, language, tools
• 32:54 – The destructive renewal of narratives & the fragmentation of society
• 35:15 – Attempts at unity in the face of global crises (COVID-19)
• 36:45 – The effect of technology and algorithms on personal and collective stories
• 42:38 – Can there be an “us” without a “them”?
• 43:32–44:27 – The role of mythic, communal projects in creating shared narrative
• 45:56 – The evolving nature of self-understanding and historical narrative
• 47:00 – Why hope perseveres despite uncertainty about the future

Conclusion

Through a rich, philosophical exchange supported by Ansari’s global perspective, this episode pushes listeners to confront not only how history gets made, but why a “story of us” may be our most urgent invention—and our greatest challenge. The search for a unifying narrative, fraught with pitfalls and fueled by both fragmentation and hope, remains essential for the future of a truly global society. The episode closes with Ansari’s reminder that, just as our personal narratives shift over time, so too must our collective story—and that humility, curiosity, and participation in that storytelling process are the keys to creating the “us” we hope to see.

Recommended for:
Anyone interested in history, identity, philosophy, or understanding how stories shape our societies—especially in times of deep division and rapid change.