I prefer YouTube as the platform but I’m also open to suggestions elsewhere.
Basically I’m looking for long-ish format episodes I can listen to while doing something else. Ideally the host isn’t just a voice reading a text, but someone relatable or that shows enthusiasm and/or has a personal take/ humor about the topic they’re talking about.
I sometimes listen to Simon Whistler’s videos on a variety of topics, in case you know him, I find he’s entertaining enough and his writers are usually good but I’m looking for some more variety.
I’ve tried Stuff You Should Know and the Oologies series and while the content seems well researched, I found them a bit boring for me.
Got any recommendations?
Others have mentioned Hardcore History – probably the pinnacle of history podcasting, but the episodes are VERY long (a lot are upwards of 4 hours) and you’re lucky if he puts out more than 2 per year. He does other shorter Addenda episodes that come out more frequently, but they’re not the same format, usually interviews.
History of Rome – it’s older, but it basically started the “History of [nation/civilization]” podcast format. Does an excellent job tracing Roman history from the founding of the city up to the fall of the Western empire in the 5th century.
Revolutions – same host as History of Rome. After he finished HoR he started this one. Each ‘season’ tracks a different historical world revolution (English, American, French, Mexican, Haitian, Russian, and more). Overall, the entire series tracks large-scale western political history from the 17th century up to the early 20th. He ended the podcast after he finished the Russian Revolution. But then he restarted it a couple of years later, running a season on the fictional Martian Revolution of the 24th century. This is on going now, with 6 episodes left. He’s said he’s going back to pick up on historical revolutions after the Russian when he finishes with Mars, teasing Ireland and Iran as future seasons.
Behind the Bastards – Dives into various horrible people from history with a special focus on world dictators/authoritarians, cult leaders, grifters, and quack doctors. He tends to focus on more recent history (past 50-100 years) but sometimes goes into older history.
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff – An inversion of Behind the Bastards from the same podcast network. Tends to focus on radical political history with a special focus on anarchists, women, and lgbtq people.
Came here to recommend Behind the Bastards and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff!
I’ll throw in The Dollop as well.
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.
He tries to look at history through the eyes of people at that time and not from a distance. E.g. instead of talking about great strategies etc he focuses on what it meant to be raided by Ghengis Khan.
- Fall of Civilizations
- Dan Carlin
- The Rest is History
- Cautionary Tales
- The Delicious Legacy
Behind The Bastards isn’t a general history podcast, but what it covers is history.
Hardcore history is one of my favorites.
The Block back Podcast is a great one that goes into detail of the US doing fucked up evil shit around the world. Each season is a different country and they have Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea, and Iraq.
https://blowback.show/ also provides all the sources used, can be found on any podcast service. It’s done by two great journalists and they also interview people who have direct experience with the conflict, such as independent journalists who were on-the-ground
I am personally a big fan of Voices of the Past and Fall of Civilisations.
Voices is very specific in what it does. It doesn’t actually give you a historian’s perspective, it’s strictly primary sources translated into English and then read out as-is. Since it makes absolutely no attempt to account for material evidence or the biases of the authors it is much more about the perspective of individuals from the time than recounting accurate history, but I think that’s very interesting
As its name suggests, Fall focusses on the end of civilisations, ranging from the Greenland Norse and Rapa Nui to Han China and Byzantium.
It doesn’t hurt that the speakers in both have very pleasant voices
Milo Rossi, aka Miniminuteman, if you’re looking for personality and enthusiasm.
Fall of Civilizations podcast has a YT channel. It’s excellent.
Three Arrows on Youtube for history for the first half of the last century. Has strong emphasis of the comparison of pre- and interwar politics and contemporary events.
If you go this Youtube channel, you’ll first be greeted by videos about Jordan Peterson and the likes (and how they misrepresent historical events), but the guy behind the channel also has a podcast that is purely about history without analysis of current reception of historical events.
BBC’s You’re Dead To Me is good if you want something a bit light. There’s a regular host who’s joined by a comedian and a historian. Covers a different topic each time.
Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts (particularly the French Revolution series).
Well There’s Your Problem has a lot of personality while discussing historic disasters.
Oldest Stories Podcast
History with Cy
Both doing Mesopotamian antiquity, and Egypt as well for Cy. Both on Youtube.
I know you said no voice-reading-text and wanted personality, but for my money nothing is better background listening than History of English. You can listen to the whole narrative of an episode or just pick up some cool etymology here and there.
I absolutely love Throughline. They have some very interesting content and I like how they fuse it together with with a good soundstage, it can be quite cinematic. The only two downsides: You kind of have to pay attention Some episodes can be a bit depressing, so I’ve heard from people I’ve recommended the show to in the past.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline
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