The History of Mike Duncan (popular history podcast)

[Jomi]

Anyone have an opinion on this guy? By that I mean his work. Regarding him as a person, as evidenced by his twitter feed (he cleans it up sometimes to hide his most tiresome opinions) he's a bit of a tool. Similar to Dan Carlin, but less agreeable and less self-aware. As far as his work goes, I can't really fault it and listen often, though I'd say it's by no means exhaustive and history enthusiasts will find inaccuracies, questionable opinions etc. His The History Of Rome podcast is one of the first truly successful podcasts, as far as I'm aware. He had another long-running podcast called Revolutions. I like both - Engaging, accessible, politically neutral.

If you like Rome I'd recommend starting around the Caesar era (ep 29, maybe 35) as the earlier episodes suffer from poor production, as well as him not finding his voice for a while. For Revolutions, my favourite is 3.38 - Thermidor. If you like that you'll like the rest of the French revolutions episodes and potentially much of the other series' also (Revolutions ran for around 9 years).

Revolutions

Revolutions

A weekly podcasting exploring great political revolutions. Now: The Russian Revolution Next: ???

podcasts.google.com

Rome

The History of Rome

A weekly podcast tracing the history of the Roman Empire, beginning with Aeneas's arrival in Italy and ending with the exile of Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Now complete!

podcasts.google.com

 

[khaine]

I've enjoyed his podcasts and his books, but yeah avoid his twitter like the plague.

 

[The Gene Genie]

Used to work out to his History of Rome podcast. Thought it was really good and he managed to balance things really well, giving a critical eye to the primary sources (Roman historiography is sketchy and propagandized at best) while at least to me not allowing his personal views cloud the commentary.

I haven't seen the others so I don't have much to offer.

 

[attractive_pneumonia]

I tapered off Revolutions around the Haitian revolution but I can say that up to that point he was good at remaining neutral in content. I glanced at his Twitter feed and it gave off the impression he is your typical left coast smarmy shitlib but I don't really use Twitter except as a shitty RSS feed since most news services have killed their RSS feeds.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

The History of Rome is very well balanced. It’s pretty old, concluding about a decade ago. I mention that because I’m sure there are various advancements in Roman history since then but not too much. I highly recommend it.

Revolutions started off with a 15 episode per revolution format but ditched it for the French Revolution, which is understandable because no fucking way could you do it justice in fifteen episodes unless each one was several hours in length. Unfortunately he started letting Reddit historians influence his podcast and it trickled in at the the Haitian Revolution, flowed during the 1848 revolutions, and became unbearable during the Mexican revolution. I started skipping episodes during the Mexican revolution and didn’t bother with the Russian revolution.

He wrote two books: the storm before the storm about a couple generations before the fall of the Roman republic and hero of two worlds about the marquis de lafayette. The Storm Before the Storm was very good and very objective. Hero of Two Worlds is on my shelf but I’m not sure if it’s full of Reddit History crap like what his Revolutions podcast devolved to. I’ll get around to it someday.

 

[Jomi]

Yeah I can't say all that much about Revolutions - England, America, the minor French revolutions were all solid and then the main French revolution kind of dazzled me, being mostly new to the story. I don't care enough about modern non-Euro history to have engaged with the rest of them (an island-nation military man overpowers the ruling class and proclaims himself Emperor, perhaps? I'm uninterested so I'll just assume this as a general template). I skipped to Russia and enjoyed it though.

I do recommend Storm before the Storm, great story well told (I listened to the audio version), and probably a good starting point for Rome in general.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

For whatever reason, Reddit historians really like/liked the 1848 revolutions and Duncan geared his show to impressing them during that time period. He was also giving interviews after the Haitian revolution and said he understood and sympathized why he thought all wypipo should be killed. Then during the Mexican revolution he repeatedly downplayed atrocities from the left and distorted what guys like Carranza did or didn’t do. He became a woke historian by then and I was out. If he reigned it back in for the Russian revolution then I’ll have to check it out.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

For whatever reason, Reddit historians really like/liked the 1848 revolutions

Because with the exception of Denmark and Switzerland they failed or were soon swept away so didn't get a chance to do anything that would make them less 'wholesome' like the reign of terror or red terror.

 

[Hokuriku]

I find Duncan manages to slot himself perfectly into midwit territory. On the one side you have someone like Dan Carlin, who has a (well researched) novice approach to topics that doesn't really provide anything new or enlightening but makes up for it by generally being a great engaging storyteller. And then on the other you have something like Patrick Wyman's Fall of Rome, which has a really dry presentation but is made by a legitimate academic specialist who does crazy shit like tracking the delivery routes of late Roman letters to evaluate the erosion of trade routes.

Duncan is the worst of both worlds, he doesn't actually offer anything new if you're already familiar with the subject at hand while also being exceedingly boring in his delivery. I've had to relisten to certain HoR episodes 3-4 times because I'd reach the end and realize I mentally tuned out the whole thing.

 

[Jomi]

I suppose it's a matter of taste but I never found his delivery boring. I'm too old for tiktok though. I don't think he ever set out to be our generations Gibbon and it's' okay that he's not, it's easy listening. The guy above listened at the gym, I still sometimes put it on when I'm cleaning the house, not expecting any revelations. I'd have liked it to be a lot more thorough. Forty five minutes per episode as opposed to twenty five would have been my ideal. I'd put Carlin above him except for one thing, that being output. I mean, Carlin's still better but he used to spend his time doing that politics thing, what a way to shit away his potential, fucking tragic, and then he apparently fled even this pathetic calling due to Trump. His new stuff seems kinda mediocre too tbh. The slavery episode. I turned it off as soon as he revealed the subject of that one. I dislike Carlin more than Duncan on a personal level when I think about it. They're both cowards (I'm assuming neither is braindead enough to be true believer Liberals).

 

[nowei82]

Is it possible you guys made it all the way through listening to all those podcasts without taking in the difference of a liberal and what you seem to be describing - woke?

God damn America needs a better education system.

 

[Jomi]

To his credit he mostly kept his politics away from his podcasts, from what I heard. Definitely a typical Lib though. Green in the political compass if that's an acceptable measure (imo).