Can I ask where you are subscribing? I’m relatively new to this podcast business, and have a few Dan Carlin downloaded to my phone and watch, but this subscription thing seems better, than having this thread bookmarked?
If you don’t want to go through any illicit means, you might also look into your local library’s selection. I know mine has a broad selection of lectures available in physical or digital form.
On topic: really enjoying the Revolutions podcast. Duncan has great preparation and presentation skills, better than Dan Carlin who can sprawl and lose focus a bit (and whose voice when reading quotes or excerpts always reminds me of Vizzini in The Princess Bride).
Pretty much any podcast client will let you subscribe. I use Pocket Casts, mainly because it syncs subscriptions and playback across iOS and Android, but lots of people also like Downcast.
Aha! I have to look into this. I use a Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch while I work out and listen to podcasts there, but that has to be MP3 , as far as I know. So, I should get a podcast app that downloads the podcasts in Mp3 - Thanks :-)
Podcasts are almost always MP3. Unless you mean as opposed to AAC in iTunes.
I actually prefer the History of England to the History of Britain podcast, myself
There’s History According to Bob, of course. I find these podcasts a bit grating personally, although I liked Bob at first.
The Anciet World podcast is great just because it addresses history that’s pretty obscure.
By far the best history podcast, which really isn’t a history podcast, is the History of Philosophy without any Gaps. He’s far more interested in explaining what the philosophical ideas are than anything else, so you end up seeing a chain of relations between philosophers through the centuries. But it’s the only podcast you end up being measurably more intelligent at the end.
It’s a great podcast but I wouldn’t agree with that statement.
I listened to the first few episodes of both, trying to decide which one I would listen to. While it wasn’t bad, I also did not enjoy listening to it as much either. Too low key for my listening purposes (morning commute).
I’m also finding this thread very useful folks. Thank you to triggercut for starting the topic so that I can get even more great history suggestions. I wish I had more time to listen to everything.
To add my own contribution, as Tyrion suggests above, the Great Courses lectures are really well done. History of the United States is a really good one, and History of the Ancient World is excellent. My only complaint in the latter is that he’s covering such a broad sweep of history that I finished over 24 hours of lectures, I was still left wanting more. But that’s a good thing right? It really fed my hunger for more history of the Persian empire, the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, and many others that he just covered in broad strokes. I wanted to know more details! Luckily there’s lots of stuff out there now for me to explore more details.
Btw, History of the Ancient world ends in about 900 A.D. I would love to get my hands on another “broad strokes” history lesson that continued the broad sweep of history from 900 A.D. onward. It felt like I left the story before it was complete.
Aye, this worked perfectly - Thanks for the recommendation on Pocket Casts. I just move the download directory to the samsung area, and I can transfer the files perfectly - thanks!
Holy crap, my commute is not long enough for this thread. I enjoyed Hardcore History but slowed down over the past few months. So far:
Duncan’s Revolutions
Stuff You Should Know - I’ll try it as I’m ok with occaisonal casual inserts
You Must Remember This
British History Podcast
Gotta limit it to four for now, I also listen to QT3 Games, Idle Weekend, Airline Pilot Guy, Star Talk.
Personally I think that broadcast radio has a coffin for real this time.
So I’ll be finishing up the 12-part Manson series of episodes tomorrow. It might be the best true crime set of podcast episodes ever, and I mean better than Serial. (Which, if you’re thinking “Man, I liked Serial a lot, should I give this a chance?” the answer is “Duh.”)
One thing that has always, always bugged me (no pun intended) about the book Helter Skelter and the movies made from it is the motive in this case. Yes, that whole race war incitement thing, sure. And the Beatles songs, yep. And the drugs, and the insanity and the cult thing…that all makes sense.
But I never understood fully exactly what the triggering event was, and Longworth absolutely nails it: the Tate murders were meant to be a cover crime to make it look like Bobby Beausoleil had been falsely accused. Cops were supposed to see the murder scene on Cielo Drive and think it was the same murderer who’d killed Gary Hinman just a few weeks prior, and then set Hinman free. The race war stuff was also part of the equation, but it was to spring Beausoleil that Charlie decided it was time for him to take action.
Just to be clear, this is the “You must remember this” podcast, right?
Yep, sorry, should’ve been clearer.
As an aside, Scott123’s post clued me into Airline Pilot Guy, which as an aviation fan, is awesome. But the length is crazy – it’d use up half of my weekly commute podcast listening time. Would be awesome if they’d hold it to 1-1.5 hours max.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned yet but I have just gotten hooked on The History of English Podcast . If you’re one of those people who are into history (like Mike Duncan’s podcasts) and like to check the origin of English words in the dictionary then this podcast is for you. It’s a great combination. I listened to the latest podcast and then went back to the very beginning and the production qualities are top notch throughout. I’m learning a ton of interesting stuff about how we have come to speak the way we do. As an English teacher to foreign learners of English I am often asked in frustration why the English language is such a complex and irregular one and now I can give a good answer.
Oh I’m glad I saw this thread, will definitely have to check out some of the suggestions here. And for my own contribution (and to Americanize things a bit):
The only history podcast I listen to regularly right now is Backstory. It’s a US history podcast/public radio show hosted by a panel of historians from the University of Virginia. They try to theme their episodes loosely around current events. This past year they aired episodes on things like Confederate monuments and Islam and America. It’s definitely geared towards a wide audience and the quality is highly dependent on who they interview, but overall I like it.
The other that I know about is Presidential by the Washington Post. It’s a neat idea, do one episode per week on each president up until the election in November. The first episode turned me off a bit, however. It’s hosted by the Leadership Editor and spent a fair bit of the first episode describing what it would’ve been like to go on a blind date with Washington. So, yeah… good idea but I have yet to see if it gets better.
If you like Carlin and Duncan’s stuff, I’d recommend MartyrMade. I’m only two episodes in, but it’s a pretty deep and even-handed dive into the history of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His presentation is reminiscent of Dan Carlin’s, though it’s not as polished.
Also, in addition to 12 Byzantine Rulers, Lars Brownworth did another podcast called Norman Centuries that was a lot of fun.
There’s another guy named Rob Monaco who ambitiously did The Podcast History of Our World. It seems to have fizzled out once he got to Rome, so it’s really more of a comprehensive survey of much of ancient civilization, but it covers more than just Mesopotamia and Egypt. If you listen to nothing else in that feed, his dramatic reading of The Epic of Gilgamesh is worth hearing.
Wow, as a Hardcore History fan this thread is like gold! Thanks for the recommendations everyone.
I’ve been behind on listening to history podcasts. I usually have a series of lectures from the The Great Courses lined up on Audible, which is why I keep putting off listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and You Must Remember This.
But I finally got around to it!
The oldest Hardcore History that’s not behind a paywall anymore was “Prophets of Doom” last time I downloaded all of Hardcore History podcast episodes by Dan Carlin. So I started with that. Even though it’s over 4 hours, I have to admit, I really grew to like this guy’s style. At first it seemed really cheesy. Wait, why is he making analogies to modern times? Why is he taking an hour just to set the stage before getting to the actual story?
But once I was done listening to the episode, I realized that’s just his style. He doesn’t make one hokey reference to modern times, he is constantly doing it. So it’s not a cheesy thing necessarily, it’s just how he tells a tale. And him taking the time to set the stage is really appreciated in each case. The truth is that if this story had been a movie, because it’s based in real life, it would be a series of disappointing developments that would make me want to watch something else. But because Dan builds your anticipation by setting the stage so well for each development, he softens the blow somewhat. About the halfway point of this podcast I was wondering “Why has no one made a movie about this story”? And then by the end of it, I knew that this story, if based on actual history as told by Dan, would make a really terrible and dissatisfying movie. It’s a credit to Dan and the way he tells the story that it’s so entertaining.