Valmy's History Podcast thread

[Valmy]

Ok one big side effect of my never-ending quest to get a BSEE while raising a family and working full time is I have little time for three favorite past times: computer games, watching and playing sports (man am I gaining weight  ), and reading history.  I have not been able to do much about the first two but I have basically replaced reading history books with podcasts.  Some of you have expressed interest in these when I have brought them up so I thought I would create a thread to discuss them as I find interesting ones and talk a bit about some of the ones I have enjoyed.  Also included here are some actual history courses taught by professors (none of the podcasters are professional historians which I find interesting).

First if you only listen to one history podcast it should be Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive
This is an amazing show done with professional quality by an experienced radio personality.  You have to pay a bit for the older episodes but the ones still available for free are fantastic (though I was not a huge fan of his latest one on American Imperialism but it is still really good).  I do not want to go on with superlatives here but if one of the topics interests you take a listen.

Secondly one of the podcasts that inspired this history podcast craze is Mike Duncan's The History of Rome: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheHistoryOfRome that covers the entire history (even the legendary stuff which I guess is good to know) from Aeneas to 476 AD.  It took five years and over 180 episodes but he did it.  If you enjoy Romans you will love this.  It starts a bit slow but it gets good really quickly.  It is mostly political (which is a massive undertaking in itself for such a long time period) but from time to time he will stop and take a look around and talk about things like marriage and culture and education and all that good stuff.

Anyway more to come.  Watch this space.

[merithyn]

Thanks, Valmy! This is great!

[Gups]

I don't like to Carlin show. Too tabloidy for me.

Dunca is good if you don't mind his monotone. I'm listening to his latest podcase on the English Revolution.

You might like the BBC podcasts called "In Our Time". A moderated discussion by 3-4 experts. Not all are history,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

[Valmy]

I don't like to Carlin show. Too tabloidy for me.

I like that aspect.  It makes it relevant for today's listeners and engaging.  I guess it also is reflective of his time as a news reporter.  Anyway I guess I can see how that might not work for everybody.

Dunca is good if you don't mind his monotone. I'm listening to his latest podcase on the English Revolution.

Yeah I was going to talk about Revolutions soon.  Monotone?  I guess so, he is pretty funny at times though.

You might like the BBC podcasts called "In Our Time". A moderated discussion by 3-4 experts. Not all are history,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

I will give it a shot.  Generally I am not a big fan of things like this since the main thing I like about history podcasts is you have the time to really chew the heck out of the topic.  The BBC shows seem to be just little samplings.

[Gups]

Certainly you don't get the in depth analysis from a 45 minute show but you do get a good overview of a subject you might not know much about provided by genuine experts - the Mameluks was a subject recently, for example.

The best historcial show the BBC do is Archive Hour but they don't have many episodes available unfortunately.

[Pishtaco]

http://newbooksinhistory.com/

Interviews with historians about their books. I find the host a bit annoying, but he does a good job otherwise.

[sbr]

I don't know if i would call duncan monotone, but either way I really enjoy listening to him.  When I first discovered The History of Rome I would listen to it for 7-8 hours straight at work.  I found him very easy and enjoyabe to listen to.

I have not started listening to Revolutions yet.  I almost prefer being behind, then I can listen as much as I want instead of being limited to 1 episode a week.

[Habbaku]

Dan Carlin is number one for me right now and the History of Rome podcast isn't so bad, either.

While waiting for new shows of the former, I've been listening to The China History Podcast : http://chinahistorypodcast.com/

[The Brain]

podcasts

Well gayed, sir.

[Threviel]

I've been listening to BBC 1914 day by day. A 5 minute podcast with tidbits about what happened that day in 1914.

There aslo seems to be a french version from some french site. But i don't speak french, so that does not help me. There are some germans here, do you know of any german similar podcasts?

[mongers]

I've been listening to BBC 1914 day by day. A 5 minute podcast with tidbits about what happened that day in 1914.

There aslo seems to be a french version from some french site. But i don't speak french, so that does not help me. There are some germans here, do you know of any german similar podcasts?

Nice find, thanks for the link.

[Valmy]

The finest history podcast evah ended yesterday:

http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/



Well the podcast itself didn't end just this section of it. When he gets back from paternity leave there will be a summary followed by the Haitian Revolution which certainly rivals the French Revolution in its glory and hope and its ultimate dismal tragedy. It is great so you should listen in a few months when it gets going again.

The History of England is going back and doing some Angle/Saxon/Jute stuff: http://historyofengland.typepad.com/

Which I was seriously bummed about but the first episode was actually pretty great so we will see. Back to the War of the Roses next week.

History of Byzantium is doing its series for the end of the 8th century: http://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

If you are even 1% of a Byzanteen you should check it out, just a great podcast.

[Hamilcar]

The guy doing the History of Byzantium is just a huge Mike Duncan copycat. I can't stand the references to THOR and general fawning over Mike Duncan.

[Hamilcar]

The finest history podcast evah ended yesterday:

http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/

Mike Duncan is on Twitter btw.

[Valmy]

The guy doing the History of Byzantium is just a huge Mike Duncan copycat. I can't stand the references to THOR and general fawning over Mike Duncan.

Disagree. At first they were similar but his style diverged a long time ago. They are very different podcasts now.