Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. In this talk about her new book,Humans: A Monstrous History, award-winning historian of science Surekha Davies reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. Braiding together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal. In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, the long, volatile history of monster-making helps chart a better path for the future. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.