I bounced off The Dollop the first time I tried listening. The gist is one comedian tells a story out of American history, usually about some outsized personality from 18th or 19th or 20th centuries, to another comedian. The second comedian doesn’t know shit about history but is a patient listener, and riffs on the story he is hearing. They sometimes pause the story to crack each other up. Then the storyteller continues. Eventually the story ends, often with the death of the subject, and the podcast is over.
It took a little bit of adjusting to grok the presentation style. Dave, the storyteller, often weaves lots of primary sources, or prose that sounds like a primary source, into his story, and it seemed a little dry at first listen.
Then the format and their personalities clicked, and each new episode is a must-listen for me. I’ll often be cackling out loud as I hear them riffing on incredible tales of humanity and inhumanity.
A short one I enjoyed is a pretty early one, about an Irishman in New York named Iron Mike. Also recommended are the P.T. Barnum and Harriet Tubman episodes. But I like their stories about scarcely-remembered figures (or movements of peoples like The Acadians, or American Confederates In South America, or New York Newsies) just as much as well known historical figures.
It sounds like Dave and Gareth are able to make a living on this thing, often going on tour and recording episodes in front of an audience. They are coming to my city later this summer, and I deeply regret that tickets sold out before I could nab a pair.
(Edit: they decided to do another day in my city and added a show, so I got tickets to that.)
It’s the same material he typically writes about, but as a podcast. It’s pretty well produced (voice actors reading quotes from supreme court justices, etc), without being overbearing.
This season Karina’s going through Kenneth Anger’s “Hollywood Babylon” and trying to figure out which parts are real and which are total bullshit. Should be excellent.
Another vote for the Dollop. (In fact, I’m wearing a Dollop T-shirt this very minute.) It’s worth it just for the ads for Talkspace, which are the kind of thing Bob and Ray would have done if they’d had the misfortune to live in 2018.
They’ve been getting kind of dark recently, but it’s hard to blame them.
I’ve been listening to BackStory with the American History Guys. Highly recommended. Hosted by Peter Onuf (18th Century Guy), Ed Ayers (19th Century Guy) and Brian Balogh (20th Century Guy), all professors of US history, specializing in different centuries. (More info on the hosts.) Each episode takes something topical and current, usually from popular news stories that are trending, and looks at the US historical significance of it. Very engaging and accessible. Charming show.
Audible is having a 2 for 1 sale. I was in the mood for some history again, so I got these two:
Francis Fukuyama - Political Order and Political Decay
Ben Macintyre - Rogue Heroes
I’ll hopefully check back within a year to report how these went. They have very positive reviews.
Edit: Heh, I just realized this is off-topic, since I’m not talking about podcasts. This was the last thread to mention audiobooks from Ben Macintyre, which is why I chose it. Apologies.
I have really been enjoying the Fall of Civilizations podcast by Paul M.M. Cooper. The most recent two are the Aztecs and the Chinese Han:
I really liked the episodes on the Songhai, and the Khmer, which we don’t cover in western history very often.
They have also issued some as “Fall of Civilizations TV” episodes on YouTube, which combine the podcast audio with Planet Earth style and historical visuals.
