History is the autobiography of a madman
Alexander Herzen
I listen to a bunch of history podcasts, so I thought I would list them out with my opinions in case anyone else has a similar interest. These are roughly in order of my preference. That is to say, the sequence I go through them on my pod…player, whatever you call it. So theses aren’t necessarily in order of the “best”, whatever that may mean for you
- Hardcore History
- Hardcore History: Addendum
- The Rest is History
- The Fall of Civilizations
- Tides of History
- We Have Ways of Making You Talk
- History on Fire
- Revisionist History
- The History of England
1. Hardcore History
Host: Dan Carlin [T] [Reddit]
Site: dancarlin.com
Paid version?: No ads, Last 16 episodes are free, older ones pay-walled ($3@).
Frequency: Rare
Synopsis:
Hardcore History (HH) is the gold standard for history podcasts. They are engaging, well-researched, entertaining, and well-produced. Unfortunately, now that Dan has so many other things going on, they come out way too infrequently. They started out running about 30 min. His last one was 6 hours long and the one before that was an epic 6 part show that ran over 30 hours!
Dan is a journalist by training and radio host by profession. So some history purists quibble with details and his presentation on occasion. However, his skills as an audio personality bring topics to life in ways that would be a rare talent for a history PhD. I find myself listening to and being engaged in topics I wouldn’t have really considered delving into thanks to his delivery and passion. My response to critics is this: he makes human, meaningful and entertaining isn’t really the right word, but you get the idea. There’s no question his show has driven sales of actual books. Quite possibly people entering the field as a result as well.
His old website listed the books he read prior to producing the episode. In transitioning to this slicker website, a lot of that data seems to be missing. There is a short list for some episodes and nothing at all for most of them. That’s a pity, I recall seeing a list of over 50 books for one episode.
2. Hardcore History: Addendum
Host: Dan Carlin [T] [Reddit]
Site: dancarlin.com
Paid Version?: No.
Frequency: Very Irregular
Synopsis:
Hardcore History: Addendum is Dan’s vehicle for smaller projects. Each episode runs around an hour (quite short by HH standards). Usually these are interviews or postscripts/commentary on HH. There are more frequent and worth listening to.
3. The Rest is History
Hosts: Tom Holland [T] and Dominic Sandbrook [T]
Site: https://shows.acast.com/the-rest-is-history-podcast [T]
Paid version?: Yes, direct, £6/month, £120/year.
Frequency: Twice a week
Synopsis:
This is quickly becoming my favorite podcast. First of all, the quality is quite high both for production values and content. The audio is always clean and clear. The topics vary widely, but are well researched, reference their main sources and turn out to be interesting even when they don’t ‘sound good.’ For example, their 3 or maybe 4-part series on the history of British tourism.
I enjoy their accents, their use of British colloquialisms, and they have a great synergy. However, their voices are quite similar, and I can’t consistently name who’s talking. Fortunately, they do address each other often so that helps. Each show runs right under an hour with a pre-roll and an interstitial ad about halfway through. They do have a member’s club for ad-free versions and access to their chat community. I am not a member, but I gather it’s fairly active. They also appear active on Twitter, though that’s one platform I tend to avoid. There is also a Twitter account for the podcast itself, so you only need to follow that one to get most of their posts anyway.
Both are established figures on the history scene. Dominic has a PhD from Cambridge and has been a history professor at Oxford. Tom, graduated from Oxford and writes extensively on medieval and classical history and has been involved in many BBC documentaries and radio programs.
They are closely associated with the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast (see below) which is produced by the same company and one of its hosts is Tom’s brother James, along with the popular British comedian (and history author) Al Murray.
4. The Fall of Civilizations
Host: Paul Cooper [T] [Reddit]
Site: fallofcivilizationspodcast.com [T]
Paid Version?: Patreon, $2.50/month
Frequency: Approximately quarterly
Synopsis:
A well research and very well produced history podcasts that focuses on fallen civilizations, who they were, what they were like and what (we think) happened to them. Only comes out every couple of months but is accompanied by a YouTube version that’s the same audio put to a slide show of photographs, drawings and maps in sync with the content. Each episode runs between 2 and 4 hours.
Paul has a history PhD and is also a fiction author. The Patreon gives you access to the ad-free version and extra content including a list of references. The show’s Twitter feed is also active with additional information.
5. Tides of History
Host: Patrick Wyman [T]
Site: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tides-of-history/id1257202425
Paid Version?: Yes, Wondery
Frequency: Weekly
Synopsis:
Similar to the Fall of Civilization, though more regular is Tides of History. The host has a USC PhD in history and author. The podcast is divided into “seasons” as seems popular with some podcasts these days with each season based on a theme. The most recent one focused on the Bronze Age. He previously did the Fall of Rome podcast which is also quite good.
No paid community around this one, though the Wondery version is ad-free and available one week early. The free version is fine, it has a couple of ads, they tend to be low key. The episodes run a bit under and hour each.
6. We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Host: Al Murray [T] and James Holland [T]
Site: wehavewayspod.com [T]
Paid Version?: Yes, Patreon, $6/Month
Frequency: Twice Weekly (sometimes more)
Synopsis:
Al Murray and James Holland host this podcast that focuses completely on WWII. You wouldn’t think you could do 500 and counting podcasts on a relatively narrow slice of history as that, but they have. There is so much that went on in this truly global conflict that it seems unlikely they will ever run out of things to discuss.
Like its sister (brother?) podcast The Rest is History, these run right about an hour in length. The audio also is uniformly good. Though the quality of the content is move uneven. Typically shows that interview authors are less interesting than the regular content. It’s also less restrained than TRIH. Al Murray’s “day” job is as a successful touring commedian, though he shouldn’t be taken lightly in the history arena, he’s also authored several popular level history books. He also has narrated several audiobooks.
Overall, it has a great vibe, history on crack. It’s the one podcast I listen to at 1x speed because in addition to their heavy British accents, they naturally talk quite fast and sometimes on top of each other.
The podcast’s website is much better than typical for podcasts. As a history aficionado, I really like their book of the month section. There are so many WWII books out there, and I only have time to read so many, it’s nice to have a list to look at and not have to rely on Amazon or Goodreads reviews which are becoming more and more suspect.
I haven’t taken the dive on their Patreon yet. It looks good, I just can’t keep up with some of the ones I already pay for and they post a lot of content. Al Murray is doing a chapter by chapter reading of some memoirs that won’t ever see the light of day any other way. Maybe I will take a hard look at the ones I support..
7. History on Fire
Host: Daniele Bolelli [T]
Site: historyonfirepodcast.com
Paywalled?: Partially
Frequency: Monthly?
Synopsis:
This is an interesting podcast authored by an actual history professor. A bit on the eccentric side (even by Internet standards). These are longer shows, 2-4 hours typically and sometimes more than one part. He’s less about facts and figures and more about the story and the impact of the events under discussion. He had 70+ shows out before he went behind a paywall and disappeared from view. It was one of those companies that tried to tie up a stable of shows and charge you a flat monthly fee to access any content at all. So, if you were really only following one show to their site, it just wasn’t worth the fee (I think it was $8.95/month at the time). Given all the other choices out there, I let it go. He’s recently started dropping shows again out on the regular free channel. Without digging in, I think his contract with that company ended and he decided it didn’t make him as much money as they promised and he’s back to sponsorships, ads and begging, but producing free shows.
The downside is Bolelli is Italian, and his accent is pretty strong. He’s also a martial artist and the products he pushes are the kind of pseudoscience dreck folks like him commonly get taken in by. Fortunately, that stuff is mostly post-roll, so it’s easy to skip.
8. Revisionist History
Host: Malcolm Gladwell [T]
Site: revisionisthistory.com
Paid Version?: No.
Frequency: Weekly during the ‘season’
Synopsis:
Malcolm Gladwell hosts Revisionist History and this one is the closest to a commercial production of the lot. It feels a LOT like an NPR segment. They are short shows with interstitial commercials. Lots of production (music, etc.). Also divided into short seasons with long gaps between them. Therefore, even though he’s a great storyteller, he’s pretty far down my list.
9. The History of England
Host: David Crowther
Site: thehistoryofengland.co.uk [T]
Paid Version?: No.
Frequency: Weekly
Synopsis:
The final entry here is this podcast devoted to English history. Regular shows of manageable length but feels the most like history lectures. More about facts and figures and less about impacts and stories. Doesn’t make it bad, necessarily, it’s just not going to be everyone’s style for entertainment.