Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

The gut's curious history

side by side of a woman and a book
Historian Elsa Richardson explores medical and cultural aspects of our gut in her new book, "Rumbles."
Photo courtesy Elsa Richardson | Book cover courtesy Pegasus Books

The gut is all the rage these days. Many an influencer has built a platform on how to keep our digestive systems happy, healthy and moving.

But humans have long fetishized the gut. Doctors and philosophers have deliberated its influence on our emotional stability. Theologians declared it wicked. Disposing of bodily waste in both sanitary and silent ways is a mark of modernity.

Historian Elsa Richardson found it all utterly fascinating. So she wrote a book to probe the organ’s colorful and often boisterous past.

This week, she joins host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas to explore the age-old question: Are we really ruled by our stomachs?

Guest:

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