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Some of the seasons/revolutions kind of lost me but overall I vastly prefer the Duncan style of actually telling you what happened instead of getting a cliffnotes version.
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Dec 26, 2022 20:12
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More history = better. Simple as.
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Dec 26, 2022 20:26
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Arrhythmia posted:More history = better. Simple as. Not really. It's possible to get sucked down into lots of rabbit holes in telling a history. That's really Duncan's biggest strength: even in the early seasons he was quite good at keeping the story constrained and exercising editorial control on whose names need to be introduced and whose can be skipped.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:10
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It's kind of funny to imagine this version of Mike Duncan trying to do a decompressed version of History of Rome for a thousand episodes. I think I mentioned this when I listened originally, but I remember on one of the Q&A episodes he said he didn't want it to just be a history of the Roman emperors, but that really is what it ended up being most of the time, while I think today he'd feel way more pressure to flesh it out and give a better picture of Roman life. But if he'd done that he probably wouldn't have finished the show at all, or we wouldn't have gotten Revolutions if he had, so it's probably for the best. And we're lucky enough in this reality to have gotten an excellent fleshing out of the late Empire by Patrick Wyman anyway.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:26
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It bugs the poo poo out of me when podcasters say something like "a minor functionary whose name I won't bother you with to save time" which is many more words than the name.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:26
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The Glumslinger posted:I've been listening to Mythillogical recently I'm all about getting into the weeds. Yes, please spend 3 hours actually diving deeply into the native American myths that kinda vaguely talk about Big Foot That episode owned and while it was way less succinct than their usual topics it was so incredibly thorough that it was absolutely worth it
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Dec 26, 2022 22:00
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The whole point of the Revolutions podcast is to examine why these revolutions happened, and why they ended up the way they did. The Russian Revolution was a massive, extremely complex event that unfolded over the course of literal decades - and so, any in-depth overview of the events, their causes, and the aftermath is by necessity going to be messy and complicated. For what it's worth, I think Duncan did as good a job as is arguably possible, and I certainly struggle to think of anything that I would cut.
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Dec 26, 2022 22:36
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CommonShore posted:I like the weeds. It's why I listen. I don't want jokes or quick summary resolution - I want something that goes through the material carefully and pulls out the interesting nuggets  If Revolutions has one great failing it's not covering Iran or Afghanistan. Or not going back to cover the American Revolution again, you can basically see Mike's politics and sympathies shifting as he goes along through France and Haiti lol
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Dec 27, 2022 07:37
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:
It's great, isn't it? It is a shame he wasn't able to cover China, Cuba and Iran.
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Dec 27, 2022 10:56
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It's a choice to take ten episodes like Blowback does but it's a bit meaningless to say "Blowback does it in ten" because it doesn't do what Revolutions does. Just as one example, if Duncan had covered that series I'd have a much better idea of whoever in Iraq is the Stolypin analog who built Iraq into one of the most most technologically advanced counties in the middle east before decades of war and sanctions ruined it.
Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 18:01
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I mean if you want a cliff notes version of history I think there are better books that do that kind of stuff with little effort. If the podcasters are going to be doing their own tea search might as well put that poo poo in rather than discarding it to the editing room floor
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Dec 27, 2022 22:21
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I can see in the OP the china history podcast. I’ve listened to history of Rome and am currently doing the Byzantium one now. Is there any that cover in a similar style china (I guess the one in the op?) and similarly the Persian empire / any of the specific empires that have been in that area. Would settle for an Ottoman Empire or Islam history podcast too.
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Dec 31, 2022 19:05
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There's two major chinese history podcasts, The History of China and the China History Podcast. CHP does things topic by topic in non-chronological order, THC is chronological. I prefer the host of CHP personally, mostly because I prefer how he sounds a lot more. There is a History of Persia podcast that covers pre-Islamic Persia, I think it's alright so far.
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Jan 1, 2023 03:51
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I think the first parts of the Russia series, with the development of Marxism and then Russian revolutionary movements up until 1905 were interesting. But once he got into WW1 and the Bolshevik revolution I just lost all interest. The end with the rise of Stalin was a complete slog. Kind of a disappointing end Haiti remains his pinnacle.
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Jan 1, 2023 11:28
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I really liked that the Revolutions series covered the revolutions in Haiti and Spanish America. I hardly see any attention to those in English language media.
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Jan 1, 2023 12:19
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fritz posted:'The Partial Historians' isn't for everybody but they're certainly about Republican Rome. I went to check this out but their feed starts at Episode 36. Is this some Wondery-style jank where prior episodes are paywalled?
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Jan 1, 2023 17:38
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Speaking of revolutions, happy Haitian Independence Day!
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Jan 1, 2023 18:49
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a pipe smoking dog posted:I think the first parts of the Russia series, with the development of Marxism and then Russian revolutionary movements up until 1905 were interesting. But once he got into WW1 and the Bolshevik revolution I just lost all interest. The end with the rise of Stalin was a complete slog. Kind of a disappointing end This was exactly how I felt, but that was after binging the entire series in like 2 months so I figured I had just been getting sick of it in general. Gotta say, not poking the hornets nest or anything, but I left the post-1905 part with a much reduced opinion of basically every single major figure he covered, which surely didn’t help my engagement. Definitely don’t think it needed to be the longest of the revolutions, even if it was always going to be a bit unwieldy. Anyway semi relatedly, I ended up picking up Storm Before the Storm and enjoyed it a lot, thanks for the recommendations.
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Jan 1, 2023 19:05
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Koramei posted:This was exactly how I felt, but that was after binging the entire series in like 2 months so I figured I had just been getting sick of it in general. Gotta say, not poking the hornets nest or anything, but I left the post-1905 part with a much reduced opinion of basically every single major figure he covered, which surely didn’t help my engagement. One shouldn't be too surprised to learn when professional revolutionaries are revealed to not be good people to be friends with or governed by
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Jan 1, 2023 21:11
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twerking on the railroad posted:One shouldn't be too surprised to learn when professional revolutionaries are revealed to not be good people to be friends with or governed by This one of many reasons the left will never win power, we need a mean son of a bitch but we keep looking to the most angelic people to save us.
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Jan 1, 2023 21:41
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COPE 27 posted:This one of many reasons the left will never win power, we need a mean son of a bitch but we keep looking to the most angelic people to save us. I mean, the left did win in Russia and in China by being mean sons of bitches. Thing is, it turns out that most people willing to use any means necessary to to win the fight for their ideals also have no problem directing that kind of cruelty and brutality on the general population once they're in power, be they from the left or right. Anything is justifiable in the name of attaining and then maintaning power.
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Jan 1, 2023 22:28
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hmm. this stalin guy. gotta say Mike Duncan really hurt my opinion of him
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Jan 2, 2023 02:36
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The Haitian Revolution series hit me hard, tbh. It's just so sad because they had a good thing going for a bit but they got royally screwed by literally all other external forces, and that combined with the unavoidable post revolution inner squabbles hosed it up so completely that they're screwed for all eternity. On another note, I didn't see it mentioned but Tides if History started another season, this time on the Iron Age. The previous season was fantastic in my uneducated opinion.
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Jan 2, 2023 06:58
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I adored it, but I'm worried about how much I'll be into it moving forward. The prehistory and Bronze Age subject matter was so fascinating to me that I worry it's going to feel a bit more "names and dates" moving forward. How was the first Iron Age episode?
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Jan 2, 2023 14:51
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I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the first interview as well (enough that I bought the book of the interviewee) but it's still more of an intro than anything. Future episodes might be quite different.
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Jan 2, 2023 15:06
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I'm starting "Conflicted", which is six parts in to the partition of India. Seems good so far, will report back.
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Jan 2, 2023 15:33
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Jack B Nimble posted:I'm starting "Conflicted", which is six parts in to the partition of India. Seems good so far, will report back. That sounds great.
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Jan 2, 2023 16:13
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feedmyleg posted:I adored it, but I'm worried about how much I'll be into it moving forward. The prehistory and Bronze Age subject matter was so fascinating to me that I worry it's going to feel a bit more "names and dates" moving forward. How was the first Iron Age episode? Honestly, avoiding the names and dates trap or whatever has been Wyman's wheelhouse as a history podcaster. He's always struck me as being more interested in trends that arise from historical events, only using names and dates as a way to mark when a certain idea or process took root in the civilization of the time.
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Jan 2, 2023 22:39
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kiminewt posted:The Haitian Revolution series hit me hard, tbh. It's just so sad because they had a good thing going for a bit but they got royally screwed by literally all other external forces, and that combined with the unavoidable post revolution inner squabbles hosed it up so completely that they're screwed for all eternity. Even with all that, they are much much better off than they would have been if not for their revolution.
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Jan 3, 2023 03:37
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Waifu Radia posted:hmm. this stalin guy. gotta say Mike Duncan really hurt my opinion of him I mean, (most) people are generally aware that Stalin was a vicious, totalitarian dictator, but I think general awareness of who the Bolsheviks actually were before and during the revolution is pretty low. There's a sense among left-leaning folks that Lenin was a noble figure and him dying early and Stalin taking over is what doomed the USSR (see this comic and the writer's notes from a couple years ago), when of course in reality Lenin's guiding hand played a key role in the USSR's early development as a brutal authoritarian state. Honestly, the whole series felt like a kind of Greek tragedy — we all know how it ends, but all we can do is watch as the hubris of the main players lead them, their followers, and their nation towards apocalyptic destruction.
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Jan 3, 2023 04:13
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I'd say in the broad strokes Revolutions as a whole really ingratiated five overarching points for me in terms of the historical tides of revolution: 1. Revolution really only comes about as a result of complete and total mismanagement of the state and an unwillingness by those in power to make some concessions where necessary. The vast majority of people would just like to live their lives without major impedance and you really need to get in the way of that to make them pick up pitchforks. 2. The entropy of victory is very real and comes about very swiftly. It's easy to bring a bunch of disparate groups with a shared greater grievance together in the heat of the moment, but once that grievance is remedied the union will fast dissolve as competing priorities for the next steps of state emerge. 3. If you're ever going to try and run a successful leftist revolution never involve liberals ever, not even if you feel it's absolutely required. The second they get the political and economic reforms they wanted, they will run to the right at the speed of light to block further social reform. 4. Even in the event of a successful revolution, external antagonism is just as if not more potentially destructive than internal strife or mismanagement of the state. Not just straight up invasion, but also sabotage and fomenting of armed opposition groups, economic pressures, etc. I may or may not also be listening to Blowback S2 at the moment which just drives this particular nail even harder into the wood with the US's relations to post-revolution Cuba. 5. Power corrupts. Doesn't matter if you're left, right, center, a democratically elected president, or a totalitarian dictator. Power and the wealth that inextricably accumulates around power just absolutely breaks the human brain. From Charles deciding yeah it's totally a good idea to impose the book of common prayer on the Scots what could go wrong to Lenin deciding the best way to pacify the countryside is sending soldiers in to forcibly take grain from all the farmers to the cities, power just rots away at whatever ideology somebody holds until there's nothing left but power itself to pursue.
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Jan 3, 2023 05:53
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The Russian series was disappointing because Duncan seemed to becoming more radical as the show went along but then at the last minute fell into the Parenti trap of pure socialism and how awful it was that Lenin was authoritarian. I guess if he let the USSR end up like Haiti he would have been noble, instead he built a superpower so he's a villain.
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Jan 3, 2023 06:09
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Sydin posted:5. Power corrupts. Doesn't matter if you're left, right, center, a democratically elected president, or a totalitarian dictator. Power and the wealth that inextricably accumulates around power just absolutely breaks the human brain. From Charles deciding yeah it's totally a good idea to impose the book of common prayer on the Scots what could go wrong to Lenin deciding the best way to pacify the countryside is sending soldiers in to forcibly take grain from all the farmers to the cities, power just rots away at whatever ideology somebody holds until there's nothing left but power itself to pursue. This is more than a little simplistic. For one thing, who decides what it means to be corrupted? What was so corrupt about Charles introducing the book of common prayer? If you really want a slogan, read Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson, which produced the updated version, "Power reveals who you really are." Anyway, this is getting offtrack. I'm having difficulty finding a good audiobook on the glorious revolution/ William of Orange. Are there any podcasts which do a decent job covering that slice of history? twerking on the railroad fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 06:13
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Mantis42 posted:The Russian series was disappointing because Duncan seemed to becoming more radical as the show went along but then at the last minute fell into the Parenti trap of pure socialism and how awful it was that Lenin was authoritarian. I guess if he let the USSR end up like Haiti he would have been noble, instead he built a superpower so he's a villain. His whole "the reds and the whites were equally bad actually" thing loving sucked yeah. twerking on the railroad posted:If you really want a slogan, read Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson, which produced the updated version, "Power reveals who you really are." I know the slogan, I just fundamentally disagree with it. I think once you hit certain levels of wealth, power, etc, it alters the way one perceives the world in a way that is almost always not for the better. The conceit that there are "good" and "bad" people, and everything would be solved if we could just always make sure that those in power are of the "good" sort is completely misguided, at least in my opinion.
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Jan 3, 2023 06:19
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twerking on the railroad posted:If you really want a slogan, read Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson, which produced the updated version, "Power reveals who you really are." That's actually the much older view on power. There's an Anglo-Saxon proverb that goes like this: "A man acts what he is when he may do what he will."
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Jan 3, 2023 07:16
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Well, you should read them anyways, there's some other good lines in there too. e: Or, since this is the podcast thread, listen to the audiobooks. They're read by Grover Gardner, the legitimately best narrator to ever exist.
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Jan 3, 2023 07:40
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Robert Caro's books are the best modern history I've read. They're absolutely peerless.
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Jan 3, 2023 16:38
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Jack B Nimble posted:I'm starting "Conflicted", which is six parts in to the partition of India. Seems good so far, will report back. I got into Conflicted from this thread after another goon recommended the Stock Market Crash series and I really enjoy it. It strikes a pretty good balance between being conversational and running long (although the Partition series and I think? the Soviet-Afghan series both ran longer than the host intended). The Partition miniseries is great and a nice counterpart to the first season of Empire; it does dwell a lot on the Mountbatten-Mountbatten-Nehru and Nehru-Jinnah-Gandhi-Mountbatten relationships, but more as a storytelling device than as a singlehanded explanation for everything that unfolds. There's also an iHeart podcast called Partition that came out last fall, but I haven't listened through it yet. e: Conflicted is definitely a podcast that binges well; this is a great time to check it out if you haven't since the Partition series just wrapped up and I think the next couple episodes are supposed to be one-offs. Cockblocktopus fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Jan 3, 2023 19:16
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Is it by the guy that used to do "our fake history"? It sort of sounds like him and I'm not really sure how this was in my feed to begin with.
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Jan 3, 2023 19:59
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Different guys but now I can't unhear it 
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Jan 3, 2023 20:42
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