Dan Carlin

insufferable.

Needs a producer willing to talk him out of it.

He's good, he's just got edges that wouldn't have made it through to broadcast in the time of radio.

I love History of Rome and Revolutions but reading Duncan's twitter for the first time checking to see if there was an ETA on the new Revolutions episode I realized kind of dejectedly that he's a seemingly Gary Johnson-supporting libertarian who whines quite a bit about Trump (even uses the fucking Trumpkins term) although I guess I shouldn't be surprised he's basically a Reddit-style libertarian (i.e. less taxes, general social liberalism).

At least his political views don't seem to bleed over into his work though.

His moralising and the way he talks irritates me.

It's like he's doing one of those annoying motivational speeches every time he starts talking.

This fucker not only did a WWII Eastern Front podcast where he said that those Soviet savages left fields of bones and discarded war material lying out until the 1970s/1980s (nope), but he also did a WWI series people claim is good that buys into the Lion's Led By Lambs, Oh Horror, Here's A Poem myth and spent the first episode jerking off over how rad awesome and well trained the German army was (yeah they were, but not as well as the British, senpai)

Muh Will Durant, muh 70 year old general audience history sources

You have a point there. I think he spent a bunch of time jerking off over the British army too, but its been a while since I listened.

Funny you say that, because he actually worked in radio for a long time before he started podcasting.

Fuck Carlin, he talks about history the way a retarded frat boy would. His 'knowledge' is part Wikipedia, part Amazon bestseller, part Hollywood, and he actually struggles with phrases and concepts he doesn't seem to hear on Fox or ESPN. A guy putting together a podcast on history shouldn't come across like a well-meaning oaf who could never quite manage to sit down with a fucking book.

You can hear the excitement in his voice, you can picture his big, dull eyes go wide when he talks about the fighting and the gore and HITLER and NAZI WAR MACHINE and uuh and ahh and THAT ONE SINGLE VIKING OF STAMFORD BRIDGE and MONGOLIAN RIDERS and MURKANS THE UNWILLING SAVIORS and THE MOUNTAIN OF BONES, but he doesn't talk about anything beyond that, about anything that would go below the Hollywood surface, because that would require effort.

Bitch about Durant, Judt, Gibbon, Beard and all the others if you want, but when you read them you don't walk away with that empty feeling of having watched sensationalized shit on the Discovery Channel.

ps: He once likened his approach to that of Churchill's in the sense that he doesn't provide the perspective of an academic, but that of an amateur. That's fine, but once a dipshit like him attracts an audience and thus becomes 'legit‘, it becomes obvious why everything having to do with history is dumbed down to names, dates, and cool buzzfeed 'facts' these days.

Of all the things you fault the libertarian meme for, you call out lower taxes and social liberalism. Pls, as long as he isn't some tea party any rand level faggot then him being in the muh freedoms camp is certainly preferable to him being a John Green or a Molyneux.

I like him. He's easy to listen while driving and he likes to quote his sources.

Wew thar lads get a bit angrier why don't ya

I like Carlin. It's entertaining.

Thanks for the crusades, listening to it now.

I've only listened a bit to his Mongol podcast.

His enunciation is infuriating

Also his Chinese Teacher was wrong.

If the paper was strictly about the technological and military advances made by the Mongol Army there is no need to talk about how much people sufferent thanks to them.
The same way its completely normal to talk about the Wehrmacht without talking about their participations on warcrimes.

Someone will jump that gap. Doesn't mean all papers have to do it.

I enjoy his podcasts immensely.

I don't even care if he's 100% accurate anymore, honestly. The stories he tells are very entertaining and offer useful and curious insights into what events and forces shape the world.

Fuck you guys, maybe I like hearing about horse archers and artillery barrages and ancient battles.

Daniele Bolelli's History on Fire is the the only history podcast I can listen to without getting bored half way

His OstFront one was absolutely fucking terrible: I think in the first five minutes he says something like "there were no conscientious objectors in Nazi Germany" ignoring the thousands of people who were killed for protesting the Nazi state in favour of this bullshit Stalin vs. Hitler evil madman leading their people totally duped theory

Like he's one step above Great Man Theory and barely then. He's clearly obsessed with people like Churchill, Roosevelt, etc to the detriment of any real historical understanding

It's funny because all the stuff about Dan Carlin said in this thread is either a lie or an exaggeration. I smell envy coming from the average armchair generals browsing Veeky Forums.

I think you attributing criticism of Carlin to envy from "armchair generals" and not, you know, armchair historians (and actual historians, for that matter), really points to the problems with Carlin's conception of history

>It's funny because all the stuff about Dan Carlin said in this thread is either a lie or an exaggeration

This. Especially the one guy ranting and raving about Fox News or whatever. Carlin quotes extensively from multiple primary and secondary sources whenever feasible.

Thing about it is that most of his stuff is so long now that it's tough to get accurate feedback. Anyone listening clearly likes it, so you've only got fan criticism, and anyone knocking it has probably not, in all honesty, sat down and hate-listened all eleventy billion hours of eg Blueprint for Armageddon.

And there is of course the ever-present spectre of the psychic wage entry-level experts must pay themselves in the form of shitting on anything popular.

As someone who has hate-listened to all eleventy billion hours of Blueprint for Armageddon let me just say that Carlin is blissfully naive about sources. He quotes extensively, for example, from Churchill's autobiography as his go-to on the Dardanelles campaign and exonerates him for it
He also takes the "stab in the back" myth way too seriously and as mentioned earlier the whole lions and lambs thing

yea, it's almost as if he is creating a unique work of interest to him, one in which he never claims to be of any historical value and actually denies that it does

Blueprint for Armageddon is a work of art

That's not ignoring them; it's saying that it's not a respected option as it is in western democracies

except he makes a clear statement that there were NO conscious objectors. Neither is conscientious objection respected in western democracies

It is to a limited extent. Usually conjys opt to be medics or lab rats. I could be mistaken, but I believe Amish in the US are exempt from any draft.

And five minutes later he explains his personal bias towards Churchill because of his personality and mentions the differing, very critical view on Churchill.

Also he mentions the "lions led by donkeys" thing as the common view on the war multiple times, but always implores to instead see the General's actions inside the context of the situation at the time. Not sure about the 'stab in the back', I haven't listened to all of the series yet.

I'm sure there are many valid criticisms on his podcast, but those two just seem unjustified to me.

It isn't the common view of the war at all. It's a deliberately romanticised view that he portrays absolutely uncritically. And he ends up exonerating Churchill, saying that it was the fault of the naval commanders who didn't understand his plan.

Oh, that explains why white feathers were given out to people not at the front. You're right, the Amish disprove everything.

Listen to Blueprint for Armageddon III at 3h17m and explain his uncritical opinion on Churchill.

Also, your criticism of the conscientious objector thing is hairsplitting. He makes it very clear through context that there were people resistant to Nazi politics / the war effort and were treated harshly for it. His podcast isn't exactly high-brow but it does require at least some amount of attention.

Compare that one instance to the dozens of times he quotes from Churchill's autobiography as an authoritative source. Stop pretending you know anything about history.

He doesn't make it "very clear". He deliberately downplays it in order to set up a Hitler vs. Stalin equivocation as dictators who mislead their people, as he states several fucking times. Read a book.

...

He means that you couldn't be a conscious objector without suffering severe consequences. Don't be retarded on purpose

>authoritative source
He more than once explains quoting from Churchill as much less a historical text and more as how the war was viewed at the time. Stop pretending that Churchill is presented uncritically, especially in regards to Gallipolli.

I was also not objecting to your criticism of his picture of "two evil empires" (which seems like valid criticism from my limited point of knowledge), but to your deliberate misrepresentation of his description of German dissidents.

Except he didn't say anything of the sort, and he just says "there were no conscious objectors in Germany". He handwaves it over, for the sake of setting up his Stalin vs. Hitler dichotomy.

Except quoting that extensively from a single primary source is a weakness in itself. He ultimately vindicates Churchill about the Dardanelles.

>search for this
>first two episodes are on the Servile Wars
>Second episode is called "Spartacus"

I'm interested, but worried

Unless Gallipolli comes up again in a later episode (which I haven't listened to yet) , the ultimate thing he says about a Gallipolli campaign is a quotation by a historian he regards as "very fair" and how he blames Churchill for large parts of the disaster. Quoting a lot from a single source is of course a problem, but that is not the argument you made earlier.

Also, at no point was I making an argument disagreeing with you on a historic basis. Telling me to "stop pretending to know anything about history" and to "read a book" has nothing to do with this discussion, which only concerns itself with which exact views Carlin represented, not whether to agree with them or not.

He said there were no conscientious objectors in Germany because they would have been killed. He explicitly states, more than once, that the conscripts thrown into the Nazi end of the meat grinder were morally no different than the ones on the Soviet end.

I'm not sure if you're trolling or autistic.

Lmao fuck that bluepilled SHIT.

If you want the redpilled history of the Crusades, with no pro-muslim BS, then go for RealCrusadesHistory -- it's the only one that shows the true, non-bias, redpilled history of the war for the holy land.

Does anyone else instinctively dislike anything that is described as 'redpilled'?

I get what the original meaning is supposed to be, but every time I hear it used it's just a stand-in adjective for 'contrarian and needlessly abrasive'.

It's like conspiracy theories, where people become convinced that it's the real truth because it is different from what they were told before, and they resist any attempt to syncretize it with other data or perspectives on said data.

The only history podcasts I've been able to invest in are Duncan's, History of Byzantium and I just started on History of the Crusades. History of Byzantium is good when he's telling the story but he kind of diverges too much into long-winded historiography shit about how such and such event didn't really happen which can take up like 1/4 of any given episode instead of just keeping it brief. Also don't like him jewing out on the narrative episodes by making you pay for a few of them instead of just making the subscription price solely for the side episodes.

Yeah, I have this problem. Mostly because I associate the term with /pol/ and the man-o-sphere. It's sad because the phrase itself would be useful if it wasn't corrupted by association.

How did you get past his fucking accent?

>Also don't like him jewing out on the narrative episodes by making you pay for a few of them instead of just making the subscription price solely for the side episodes.

Seriously? That's a dick move. What does he do, cut out an episode every 50 years, and with the next free episode say, "A bunch of cool things happened last year, now let's deal with the fallout."

More or less.

I think he's only done it twice over the last two years or so but he'll have an episode for sale for like $5 or whatever. I can't remember what the first one was but the more recent one described, I think, Irene's beginnings in the imperial court/maybe the reign of Leo IV. Basically it's just normal episodes in the narrative so if you're listening on, say, a free feed like Stitcher or something it'll just go from Episode 75 to Episode 77 or whatever. Like I said it's kind of annoying becaue he has other side episodes that he could make you purchase instead or make available on the subscription feed which he has done (one on the origin of Islam, two so far focused solely on slightly more obscure figures of Byzantine history i.e. guys who weren't the rulers) and hey maybe put his interview episodes in there too instead of making them part of the main episode list. He doesn't go back after a period of time to just make the old paid narrative episodes free either so unless you're willing to subscribe/pony up $10 total you're shit out of luck.

It sucks because otherwise the podcast itself is great and he can tell a story well and the sound quality is good and he's able to speak well and not sound like he's woodenly reading off of a script like most podcasters.

thanks Dan

If it's not envy, then why do some posters lie or twist the truth?

The only criticism I have read here that I understand is subjective shit like "his voice annoys me" or, more objectively, his "moralising". But even then he makes it clear it's just his opinion.

He quotes from secondary and primary sources a lot, clearly spells out his biases, and makes history extremely fun and relatable for the common man.

He may not be everyone's cup of tea, but many people clearly love the guy, and that's incredible if you think about what he's actually doing. He invites all his listeners to read books and biographies, not to mention have a look at primary sources.

>Nothing in his entire series on the Mongols mentioned their actual cavalry tactics and how their skirmishings worked
> it said absolutely nothing about inner clan fighting and the eventually fragmentation based on clan lines
>worst off all was nothing was said about the silk road
...but user he mentions all of these, did you even listen to the whole thing?

I agree with you that his podcasts are surface scratchers, but I mean the guy pretty much tells you flat out he's no expert. It's more for entertainment than straightforward education. I like to listen to one of Dan's shows if I want to get myself interested enough in a subject to learn more and it usually works.

this user gets it

His shows are for fun. If you want serious history for the sake of education read a book.

Dan is too pure of heart to come here, this disgusting memehole covered in cum and loli.

I would disagree. Much of the mongols success was due to how fucking terrifying they were. The brutality facilitated surrenders and an unwillingness to fight them.

Although I don't think that's what the chinese teacher was going for.