Long Earth

Preparation is overrated. Impulse is everything. Such was the rebellious wisdom that drove the sessions for Project Mama Earth's astonishing debut EP. In June 2017, five world-renowned musicians met in Devon England for a high-wire act unique in modern music. They had no songs. No chord charts. No game plan. No safety net. Nothing, in fact, but a plan to play and catch the sparks. Where a lesser band would have stumbled, the gauntlet was readily seized by the all-star Mama Earth lineup of Joss Stone (vocals), Nitin Sawhney (guitar), Jonathan Joseph (drums), Étienne M'Bappé (bass/guitar) and Jonathan Shorten (keyboards). "The possibility for catastrophe was huge," nods the drummer. "It could have completely tanked. But the minute everyone stood in the studio, before we even touched an instrument – I just knew."

How the Earth Works takes you on an astonishing journey through time and space. In 48 half-hour lectures, you will look at what went into making our planet—from the big bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the subsequent evolution of Earth. You will travel to the center of our planet and out again, charting the geologic forces that churn beneath our feet to push the continents and seafloor around like so much froth on the surface of a pot of soup.

About 100,000 to 60,000 years ago, a species of hominines—bipedal ape-like creatures—began to move out of its home territory in Africa and into the Asian continent. Today, homo sapiens, the descendants of those first hominines—live in nearly every ecological niche. We fly through the air in planes, communicate instantaneously over immense distances, and develop theories about the creation of the Universe. In Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity, you’ll hear this ever-evolving story—the history of everything—in its monumental entirety from the moment the Universe grew from the size of an atom to the size of a galaxy in a fraction of a second.