The Germans in the east are really interesting. They are, of course, facing inferior forces; however, you have three commanders that all genuinely respect each other and work together, which you I don't tend to see very often when reading about military conflicts. And, they are all seemingly brilliant. Hoffman and Ludendorff were like roommates at one point in their lives, and Hindenburg is genuinely respectful of them both even though he's a legendary figure in Germany.... At one point, Ludendorff suggests moving a corp back in a meeting, and Hindenburg is said to have gently and correctly overruled him. But they don't seem to argue or have any issues with each other. It's cool to see how effectively the German army can work under fantastic commanders.
Pretty sure it's like 6 hours based on him saying to ration out an hour per month to stay on schedule
I would think the chess piece and the gambling instruments in the foreground and what looks like the bikini atoll in the background...it will be a history of nuclear weaponry from its testing, use, and how nuclear proliferation has changed the world.
the cards and dice make me think it could be about how dangerous it is for thousands of these weapons to exist, since it's pure luck that the only nuclear incidents have been power plant accidents
About an hour in. So far he is going through the creation of the Atomic Bomb and the start of the Cold War. This is an awesome epsiode
Have to think he's going to have a ton of Common Sense Podcasts(by a ton, I mean 3 or 4) before next release.
Been sitting on the last hour of king of kings, which never really grabbed me like most of his others. I may just scrap it and start on this.
Prophets of doom. It's a standalone episode (albeit still 4 hours long) that covers one topic/incident so you can get a good gauge of if you like his stuff without having to sit through 15-20 hours on one subject. Also my favorite of his, and the subject is interesting as fuck in a kind of insane and unbelievable way.
I never really liked blueprint for armageddon as much as some of his other stuff, which probably makes me a bit of an outlier on here. But the more I think about it that might be because when it comes to history, the further away from the present you get, the more interested I am- so probably just a personal preference.
Mongols if you want a whole series The first half of Blueprint to Armageddon's first episode is amazing though. I wouldn't recommend that entire piece as it's very, very long and in the woods at times, but just that episode's beginning and see if it's for them
Love Prophets of Doom. I bought the fall of the roman republic series and for the long flights I'll load it onto the phone to listen. I think King of Kings is easily the worst. It's not terrible to listen or anything like that but in comparison to the others it just doesn't hook me.
Just subscribed to this podcast and haven't listened yet. Are they broken down into easily digestible chunks? Haven't listened to a podcast with episodes this long before
I kind of love that Dan's shit is so fire that he doesn't need to make cool little episodes, have guests, or throw in gimmicks. Its just like listening to the smartest historian you have ever met talk for hours at a bar about all the coolest shit that has ever happened. No one else can drop 6 hour podcasts and have people pumped. Go Dan
I'm thinking about starting a podcast and just churning out the realest fire this world has ever seen on a weekly basis.
If in one of my history classes freshman year- they had an assignment to listen to one of these and write a report on it I probably would have realized how much I liked history a whole lot sooner.
One of the best and most accurate parts of Harry Potter is how they have an extremely boring old (ghost) teacher teaching their History of Magic classes... Something that should be extremely exciting and interesting is made boring by the teachers that you usually find in history classes.
I've listened to Blueprint for Armageddon twice. It is so great. Also, after listening to a portion of the beginning he brought up something I haven't thought of or heard before. His discussion about why we had to drop the bomb makes a lot of sense.
Haha I have no issue with it being long, just wondering if there are natural stopping places to break it up given that I doubt I can sit down and listen to 6 hours straight. And in fact, he said at the beginning of this most recent one that he broke it up more naturally. Burr's is still too long
Yes, it is broken down into easily digestible parts. For example, Blueprint for Armageddon is broken down into 5 parts that increase in length with each episode.
Dan goes a little deeper than the standard "if we hadn't dropped the bomb the casualties necessary to take the home islands would have been (insert staggering number)" He does a good job painting an understandable picture of the political and geopolitical realities facing Truman when he made the call to drop the bomb. The whole episode is really fascinating. For those who want to know a little more about the development of nuclear weapon technology, there is a great documentary called Trinity and Beyond that is made up mostly of (relatively) recently declassified footage from all of the tests. Here is a link to the documentary
Yea I guess he's referencing the backlash from the perspective that Truman would've been grilled for wasting so much money and scientific talent.
Blueprint is more like 3 hour chunks if that helps. I listened to the whole thing in mainly 40-90 minutes drives this fall and enjoyed the hell out of it
Now that some time has passed since I listened to them, Blueprint and Khans are my 1 & 2 by a good margin. Rome is next.