The Historical, Informational, and Educational Podcast Megathread

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webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I've just finished bingeing through Blueprint for Armageddon - has he said how many episodes it's intended to last? Based on what I already know of the war, I'd guess at another two episodes, but has there ever been any definitive information either way?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 23:43

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 10:28

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Is there a rough point where he starts to slow down in his delivery as well? It's OK during Revolutions, but after listening to the first 10 or so of HoR it really just comes off as him reading out an essay like a first-year university student.

And after switching back and forth between those two and Hardcore History, I really prefer Dan Carlin's delivery. Especially since with the way Carlin speaks (and builds his narrative), you don't have to worry about losing track if you zone out for 10 seconds. I find that with Mike Duncan's podcasts, if I space out for more than a few seconds I lose track of what he's talking about and have to rewind.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 04:44

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

420 Gank Mid posted:

I just listened to this episode the first time about a week ago and I think he gets really self-conscious when he doesn't have a lot of solid source material. He brings it up half a dozen times in that show in particular and along with the "I am not a professional historian" disclaimers he throws around all the time he might just be uncomfortable treading on what he thinks is 'thin ice'

Personally I agree, he did a great job bringing the story and characters to life. But he was also right about a dearth of sources in English language. The Wikipedia article for the Munster Rebellion lists 5 English language sources, one is his podcast, one is an article from a contemporary Ana-Baptist publication, another 2 are short history blog posts, and the fourth is a BBC radio series.

I'm listening to it at the moment as well, and yeah it's obvious in places how uncomfortable he is. I think he's pretty aware that despite his "I'm not a historian" disclaimer, most of his listeners aren't that likely to do further research for themselves - especially if there isn't a whole lot more detail available. Talking about religious conflict is always fraught with danger since it's obviously something people will (still) feel passionate about, so it's a pretty brave choice for a topic all things considered.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 00:43

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

GraPar posted:

Neil MacGregor announcing that he was stepping down as head or the British Museum encouraged me to finally go back and finish his BBC series 'A History Of The World In 100 Objects' from a few years ago.

I would guess that a lot of the people in this thread have already listened to them all, but I would really strongly encourage anyone who hasn't to give them a go. Every episode is a super well-made little gem, all of them feel sufficiently distinct while fitting into that week's theme, and as part of the long-term narrative. Really appreciated how non-Euro-centric it was too, manages a pretty impressive survey of the world in different eras.

Big thanks for this recommendation by the way, I hadn't heard of this one before and I've really enjoyed listening through it. My commute's about 45 minutes so I can fit three episodes pretty neatly into each journey :v:

# ¿ May 4, 2015 01:15

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Oh man, those descriptions of hand-to-hand fighting about 2 hours in are just heartbreaking. I know this series has had an awful lot of horrible stories in it (here's another bit of Bill!), but the people surrendering (or trying to) really hit me in a way that none of the other stories did :smith:

# ¿ May 11, 2015 02:31

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Australian high school history these days is basically 6 years of Gallipoli. Imagine that 30 minutes Carlin spent talking about the Dardanelles campaign; now extrapolate that into several years of history class and you've got Australian high school. Oh and stories about the brave white folk conquering the "empty" continent.

I didn't really feel Carlin did an injustice to Woodrow Wilson. Admittedly, I don't know how widespread the "Machiavellian manipulator" view of him is, but Carlin seems to make pretty clear that it's a fringe attitude and not generally considered accurate or reasonable. And I didn't think the Kaiser or Tsar Nicholas came out of HH looking great at all. Sure, Nicholas's story ends with a sad little anecdote about him and his entire family being executed, and the Kaiser loses his empire, but we're reminded that they're the people who ultimately started the war for selfish reasons, and that a huge proportion of the globe has suffered because of them.

I mean, if you go back to the first episode he basically calls them morons; isn't his analogy for the monarchs something like "the two of clubs in a full deck of monarchs"?

Overall I think it's been a fantastic series and I'm actually kind of sad that we don't have another episode to look forward to.

# ¿ May 14, 2015 01:18

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Rodyle posted:

I actually cited him successfully in a PolSci paper recently

But yes Carlin is more interested in getting you to understand the personal experience of different places and eras, whereas Duncan is much more the lecturer: big picture, big characters.

I haven't dug much into that 10 Presidents podcast where they've been recruited as narrators, but the Nixon episode with Carlin is weird from what I have listened to. It seems a shame to get Dan Carlin and then force him to speedread, and between frequent sound clips no less.

To use a crude analogy, if history podcasts were the Titanic then Mike Duncan is the ship's wikipedia page, while Dan Carlin is the James Cameron movie (especially the boxing scene)

# ¿ May 15, 2015 02:24

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

TontoCorazon posted:

I'm not following you at all, can you rephrase that in a boxing analogy?

In the historical narrative podcast arena Mike Duncan is a bantamweight, moving deliberately around the ring landing rhythmic, measured, well-timed and accurate punches. Not spectacular, but very effective.

Dan Carlin, on the other hand, is a lumbering heavyweight that swings only rarely. But when he swings, he lands - big time.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 04:40

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Somethingawful forums poster Tonto Corazon, writes

QUOTE
I'm assuming it was written as such.END QUOTE

And he's correct.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 05:21

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I've gone back into Dan Carlin's archive and started listening to some of his early material, and man his presentation style has changed hugely over the years. In the first few HH episodes he really does sound like a ranting Alex Jones-style talkback host. I'm glad his style improves in later years as I'm not sure I'd stick with it if I were starting from scratch. Not as rough as Mike Duncan's early episodes though!

Also - it takes until 7 minutes into his second ever show before his first boxing analogy appears :laugh:

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 06:15

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Oh hey, Mike Duncan's George Washington episode of 10 American Presidents is up! Clocks in at 2 hours 20 minutes, so should be fairly meaty!

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 03:23

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

uPen posted:

The random gunshot intermissions have nothing on getting some dude to just read the whole Declaration of Independence for no reason.

Yeah I got to that bit (complete with soaring triumphal music) this morning and holy poo poo it was annoying.

It's also reminded how much I hate Mike Duncan using the word "famous" to describe something, because it's invariably used to describe something that as a non-American I have literally no idea about!

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 04:10

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Not trying to nit-pick here, but at the end of the episode Mike Duncan says that Washington state is the only state in the US named after a person. But surely Louisiana would fall in this category as well? I'm not an American so maybe there's something I'm missing?

webmeister fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Jul 1, 2015

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 06:32

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

It actually sounds like it's a lot more heavily edited than a usual Mike Duncan show. Like he's put together a normal show and then the 10 Presidents guy has spliced it up different and added all the sound effects and dramatisations.

Mike is a lot more conversational as well, like he's speaking to someone off-screen that we can't hear (as opposed to Revolutions where he's just delivering a lecture and occasionally addresses you directly).

# ¿ Jul 14, 2015 05:29

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Interesting, the Ten American Presidents podcast just published episode four, featuring the little-known President Colin Powell :stare:

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 04:38

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Even Dan Carlin took a while to really hit his stride. He really does sound like a raving mad conspiracy theory talkshow host in his earlier episodes, and he doesn't entirely sober up for a surprisingly long time.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 00:48

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Yeah I made it about halfway through a picked-at-random Lesser Bonapartes show before giving up entirely. I don't mind a mix of info/opinion and banter at all - The Football Ramble is probably my favourite podcast - but the Bonapartes had the balance miles off.

I can't remember which episode it was, but one of the guys cracked a painfully unfunny joke about someone's name, then kept repeating it for the next half and hour while they both fell about laughing.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2015 01:01

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

100YrsofAttitude posted:

I listened to the first 5 episodes of the series (on the English revolution) and I'd really rather just read his scripts. He doesn't release those does he?

Does the French revolution season(?) improve vastly over the English Revolution or is it more or less dry and by the book? I have to concentrate pretty hard on what he's saying but I would get it better if I could just read it and I'd really like to because it is well-researched it seems to me.

He doesn't release scripts as far as I know. Stick with it, or skip the English revolution entirely as it's easily the weakest of the three series so far. The start in particular is very dry, and even as someone with a decent knowledge of English geography I found it really hard to keep track of troop movements etc. The later stuff about Cromwell is pretty good though.

His delivery is always very dense though, so if you zone out momentarily it's really easy to lose track of what he's talking about.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 07:56

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I admittedly haven't listened to much of History of Rome, but I think Mike does a pretty good job at keeping his personal biases out of the story. The only real stand-out editorialising I can easily recall him doing is canonising Talleyrand ("one of my all time favourite guys"), and really going to town on Marxist interpretations of the French revolution. And I think he's pretty clear that for all the noble spirit of the revolution, it ultimately turned out to be a 15 year period of massive upheaval that ended in much the same place as it started - with an unelected ruler wielding ultimate authority.

Mike might be a crazy raving internet libertarian, I don't know him so I can't say. But as long as he keeps his personal opinions out of his work (and I think he does that pretty well), who really cares?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2015 01:01

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Again, and again, and again, and again

# ¿ Oct 14, 2015 23:56

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Bohemian Nights posted:

A heavyweight boxer, to be precise. It's always heavyweights and they're always at the end of their ropes.

I went back and listened to the punic wars series and laughed out loud when he pulled out the heavyweight boxing championship match metaphor for what may have been the first time when talking about rome vs carthage

Nah he's always done the boxing metaphors. Over the last few months I've listened to the entire HH series and there's literally a "punch drunk boxer" metaphor 10 minutes into the second episode.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2015 01:51

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

ArnieD posted:

The best is in Blueprint for armageddon, when America enters WWI is like a third boxer entering the ring

*in uncannily accurate Kaiser Wilhelm voice*

MEIN GOTT, THAT'S UNCLE SAM'S MUSIC!!

# ¿ Oct 15, 2015 03:04

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

uPen posted:

What makes you say that? He's been dropping hints for weeks (months) that it's ancient/classical.

He also posted on his forum at some point that they completely changed topic halfway through, so who knows :shrug:

edit: that tweet is from today so ignore me :v;

webmeister fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Oct 29, 2015

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 09:08

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Popelmon posted:

Isn't that what Hardcore History was supposed to be? A show about stuff that history majors talk/laugh about in their lunch breaks.

I don't think so; the earlier shows were more about themes than subjects (eg "was Alexander worse than Hitler?"), but he's drifted away from that over time. The idea made a comeback with Blitz episodes ("what sort of effect did alcohol/drugs have on history"), but he hasn't done one of those in ages either.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2015 04:22

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Popelmon posted:

Isn't that what Hardcore History was supposed to be? A show about stuff that history majors talk/laugh about in their lunch breaks.

OK, you were right!

quote:

"Historians and transmitters of history have rarely been the same people," [Carlin] said in a Reddit AMA, invoking Homer and Herodotus as early examples of great communicators. "Hardcore History," he went on, was "designed� for other 'history geeks' like me. The group that sat around a pizza and some beers after history class and got into the weird, fun questions on history (and getting into debates about things)."

# ¿ Nov 12, 2015 23:51

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

The thing I found most annoying about the American revolution was that it still seemed to be told for an American audience. I felt like there was a lot of assumed knowledge going in that as a non-American I just didn't have, and then on top of that he developed a habit of saying "and as we all know, Colonel Guy Random famously said .. whatever".

I found the French Revolution much better with binge-listening rather than in weekly doses. With so many names and places to keep track of, listening in 4-5 episode blocks was a massive help. I also found that listening to the previous episode before starting a new binge made a big difference.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2015 00:50

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Probably old news for everyone in this thread but just in case - Serial is back up and running for another season. This year it's about the capture of Bowe Bergdahl by the Taliban in 2009.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2015 23:34

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

MeatwadIsGod posted:

To that end, I'd like a long-form series on the Cold War, but I can see how it's just too large a topic.

One of his first episodes was about the Cold War, but he said a few times during it that it's still too fresh and too debatable to be a good topic for him.

In non-Carlin news, I've really been enjoying In Our Time lately. I love hearing people speak so passionately about their areas of expertise, especially when it's an area I've never thought about before. As a history buff I've learned a moderate amount from Carlin & Duncan, but I've learned way more from Melvyn Bragg and his revolving cast of guests.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2016 23:10

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Jack B Nimble posted:

Regarding the time constraints of In Our Time, I like how the mp3s have extra stuff that can't fit into the radio slot, like the recent Chinese legalism episodes tangent into how Mao viewed it and a further look into how legalism never really went away it just got subtler.

I'd pay good money for a 'two hours more please' for a lot of in our time episodes, but it's strength I'd it's rapid fire topic change every week.

Yeah there are definitely a lot of episodes where it feels they only manage to scratch the surface of what's out there, though I guess academics have a way of doing that! The recent-ish episode about Jane Austen's Emma was a good example - having read the book for high school English I knew a lot of it, but there was a huge amount around the topic that just didn't come up at all.

But you're right, I guess the idea is to give you a 45-minute introduction to a topic and push you towards your own reading/research if you find it interesting!

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 22:55

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

It's the most pleasingly British thing possible, I think.

"Well I mean we could sit here debating our passion and life's work in front of an engaged audience, but on the other hand, tea!!" :britain:

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 23:21

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Mr. Squishy posted:

In this week's In Our Time on Chromatography, Lord Barg is at his wit's end with all these guests. He's always short, but now he's openly scornful, especially of the American who did chromatography in the studio.

Yeah that was gold.

"So the interesting thing about this technique is that it was developed by a German industrial chemist in the lat-"
"WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT NOW, TELL ME ABOUT <X>"

Although I did find this episode extraordinarily dull. It seems like such a visual science, so listening to academics describe it for 45 minutes just doesn't do it justice.

webmeister fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Feb 10, 2016

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 23:32

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I've never had it mix up two different podcasts, but I've definitely had it lose track of episode listings before. So a weekly show will suddenly get the last 6 months showing up on a single day as unlistened, and of course it'll helpfully download them all for you - hope you weren't near your data cap! This has happened twice to me on two different podcasts

I've found lately that the app likes to randomly close itself as well, so I'll be listening and not even using my phone otherwise and the volume just fades out and stops. I have to unlock my phone, re-open the Podcasts app and hit play again for it to resume. I'd say this happens every 2-3 hours of listening - so annoying!

# ¿ Feb 25, 2016 21:52

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

I've posted about it a few times, but last week's episode of In Our Time about Agrippina the Younger was really good, probably the best one I've heard in ages. Interesting topic (even if I already knew a lot of it), well spoken guests with interesting thoughts who didn't ramble on or stammer like they're having a nervous breakdown, and Lord Melvyn seemed to be in a good mood for once - he hardly even interrupted anyone!

Well worth a listen if you're at all interested in Roman history, or just an infrequent listener to In Our Time.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 01:52

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

snucks posted:

The chromatography episode is a personal favorite specifically for his open hostility towards the chemist performing a messy in-house visual demonstration for his radio program.

That episode is amazing, Melvyn literally starts by calling it a primary school science experiment and then the guest wheels out the test kit :laffo:

I think it's the same guy that gets abruptly shut down as well when talking about the life of the person who discovered it or something? "Yes yes but we're not going to talk about that now, moving along..."

I find though that IOT lives and dies on the strength of its guests, because often there's someone who's clearly very nervous and spends more time uhming and stammering than actually talking about their field, and it makes the whole thing almost unlistenable

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 02:32

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Sheikh Djibouti posted:

What's next? I stuck with it through the French Revolution but lost steam after that.

I admittedly haven't finished yet, but the Haiti series is pretty good. It's a lot easier to follow than the French Revolution, simply because there's really only about 10 guys you have to keep serious track of.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 02:10

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Grand Fromage posted:

I like the Haiti and Colombia choices because I know next to nothing going in.

Yeah likewise. Six months ago I knew the names of Simon Bolivar and Toussaint Louverture, but aside from Bolivar being a Colombian revolutionary I probably couldn't have told you anything else.

Although I guess thinking back, I didn't know much about the English revolution aside from Cromwell existing and taking over the government. I knew the very basics of the American revolution because as a non-American you just constantly encounter references to it. But even the French revolution I didn't know that much about beyond the obvious parts like the Bastille, Louis's execution, liberte/egalite/fraternite, Robespierre, the Terror and ultimately Napoleon.

The Russian revolution is something I've already studied in a lot of depth so I'm not expecting to learn anywhere near as much, but I'm still interested to hear Mike talk about it and analyse it.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 03:06

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

5 hours 50 minutes :psyduck:

"What happens if human beings can't handle the power of their own weaponry? This show examines the dangerous early years of the Nuclear Age and humankind's efforts to avoid self-destruction at the hands of its own creation."

It's a Blitz show as well so definitely just a one-off.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 12:03

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

"Clint Eastwood in the Batman sorta role" to describe Leonidas (I think?) was probably the worst of the lot

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 12:14

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Rodyle posted:

The part I especially love is the Hatians only learning about new governments after they've already fallen.

I loved the ones where a new faction would take control in Paris and dispatch a new governor to Haiti. Then that faction would inevitably get deposed and orders to completely ignore the new governor would also get dispatched, sometimes arriving in Haiti before the old new governor :v:

Thwomp posted:

It still blows my mind that the Spanish Empire, the thing kicked off by Christopher Columbus, lasted all the way into the early-19th Century. I still catch myself occasionally thinking of Spain and going "When did that place go to poo poo?" and then remember that they were still a thing (if declining) when Thomas Jefferson was President.

The Portuguese empire technically only ended in 1999 when they handed Macau over to the Chinese government.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2017 21:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 10:28

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

To be honest, I had to re-listen to the first third with a map and wikipedia summary in front of me before I really understood what was going on. I actually haven't listened to any of the Bolivar stuff yet, is it good? I quit my office job and suddenly don't have 7-8 hours of commuting every week available to listen to podcasts!

# ¿ Apr 22, 2017 17:55

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > The Historical, Informational, and Educational Podcast Megathread

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