Friday, May 15, 2020

Filling in the Blanks

This Mike Duncan guy.

I raved about his History of Rome podcast.  It fills in a section of history I was weak in.

Now he is filling details in another section.  Europe after Napoleon and before Bismark.  In his Revolutions podcast.  Plus I was weak on the nitty gritty of the French Revolution, and he ties in Haiti's and South America's revolution and ties them all together.

"But wait!  Yoorip was all peace and happiness after Napoleon until 1914, T-Bolt."

They should BE so lucky. Sure they wasn't megadeath continent raging battles, but it sure wasn't boring.

He's totally hooked me.  Like listening to a GOOD History professor.   In my car in the 40 minutes of commute I have to get to work.  Then back.

And I am serious about that.  If he was standing at a lectern doing the same stuff with more details to take notes about, I could study those notes, read the required reading, then take the test...  Pretty much like any 200 or 300 level college course I sat in 30 years ago.

But it is eating into my NPR time, which I listened to to see what was going on on that side of the political spectrum (Heh!  to-to, on-on...)

Hey, if you know a history podcaster as good as Mike and aren't sharing?  Foul!  Gimme the deets!  Expand ol' T-Bolt's mind.  Tides of History?  Ever listen to that one?  Duncan doesn't pull down modern politics into his stuff, I don't want that.  I don't want to hear about cis gendered Napoleon or that Julius Ceasar was one quarter plains Indian so he got his first Praetorship as a diversity hire, or summat.

His Revolutions series is at 10 separate revolutions, so far.  He's on the Russian right now, in real time.  But I am only up to 7, so far, his back catalog.  The 1848 revolution.  And he is going in chronological order for the most part.  English, then American, then French, then Haitian... etc.  I kinda hope he eventually expands to the Industrial Revolution, but kind of doubt it.  The interplay between people in that kind of revolution is vastly different than between folks in say...  a Bolivarian revolution.  Duncan seems to enjoy the latter style or interaction over the former. 

1 comment:

Archibald Barasol said...

I thoroughly enjoyed Dan Carlin Wrath of the Khans and Blueprint to Armageddon. I’ll give Mike Duncan a listen once I start the 40 minute commute again.